How am I not Myself?

Go Away Trolls!

2005-10-31T06:52:00.000-08:00

I may not write in this blog anymore, but every once in a while I check in on it to see how it's doing out there alone in cyberspace. This is when I get excited about the "comments" to my posts. That is until I see these comments aren't really comments at all but ugly little commercials, using my site as a springboard. Well I got news for you. I'm disabling the comments feature so you can kindly screw off. I know that this limits bloggers chances of engaging in conversation through this medium. But thanks to the advertising trolls this is no longer a possibility.

Once again, thanks everyone for reading, if you want to comment, drop me an email!

seventy-seven episodes and all i got was this lousy midlife crisis

2005-08-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

I used to make fun of people who ran home to watch Friends as if they, too, were sitting in the coffee shop sharing jibes with Chandler; but now after watching seventy-seven straight episodes of Sex in the City, I understand that sometimes you can develop very real bonds with fictional TV people.

The series ended. I never thought it would happen. I mean I knew it was bound to happen, because I was watching the dvds, and it's obvious that there's only six seasons, but back in season two, it was hard to believe that this story was ever going to come to a close. Everyone's so fresh and fabulous; young and learning. Then Carrie starts to figure things out, Miranda has a kid, Charlotte gets married twice, and Samantha finally settles down, and you think...could this really happen? Is this life?

Then you look back on your own life and think how much has happen in the past six years of your own existence. Could all that have happened? Am I really all grown up?

However I love Carrie and Company as much now as mature responsible adults as I did when they partied all night and picked up sailors. I love it because they faced the inevitable aging with passion and became really incredible people. The process of living internalized into an incredible product.

It's hard to see that product in ourselves. We lament about our past, regret the passing of time, and rarily think about what a wonderful product we've become through all these years of love and lost. I don't think that our lives progress like seasons. We don't enter in the spring then degenerate into winter. Our lives are like flowers that blossom constantly until they are cut for someone else's vase.

grandmas rock!

2005-07-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

My best friend's grandma just passed away this week from the same fatal cause as my own grandma went: bleeding ulcers. Who could guess that what seems like such a harmless problem can be so dangerous for the elderly?

Anyway, I haven't come here today to talk medicine, I've come to talk about grandmas and the mysteries trapped within. Usually grandmas are known for their delicious cookies, bingo, and knitting...but other grandmas such as mine are known for crossword puzzles, soap opras, and pinochle. They are also known to be exceptionally loving...at times their love for grandchildren far surpasses the love they gave to their own children or the love their children give to their children (us). A grandma's love is an unsual and difficult essence to classify.

In the case of my grandma, My brother and I always wondered how such a sweet little old lady could have produced my mother. How could my mother felt so unloved, when our grandma was just so damn loving? Are grandchildren a grandparent's redemption for their own parenting faults?

We look to our grandparents as keepers of time. We recognize from the beginning of our relationship with them that their time is numbered and ours has just started. However, when we usually meet and know our grandparents we have yet to develop abstract thought. It is not until long after their deaths that we come to realize something about their lives that is more important that the sweets that they fed us.

We learn about the living legacy one leaves behind, and we learn that we are that legacy. We learn that being a grandchild carries a great deal of responsibility. That while we don't usually have to answer for our grandparents' sins (that's our parents' job), we do have make something of our lives and then become our grandparents.

This is why we raise our kids to in order to give us grandchildren. Because at the end of life, we know they've got to look at us and understand these basic truths about existence.

Of course, I am waxing more vague philosophical bullshit than I intended. The real goal is to remember your grandma. If she's alive, then pump her for information. Chances are you won't get much, and if you do, it won't make sense. Not because she's senile (though she may be), but because her life makes sense only to her, just as your life makes sense only to you. You'll try to piece her stories together to understand your parents and why they treated you this way or that way. You'll try to understand what indirect role your grandma played in your own development, but that won't work either. Then you'll just give up and remember her for the cookies, the crossword puzzles, and the soaps. You'll remember she gave you the best christmas gifts, and always sent money on your birthday (even if it was only $5).

Grandmas are great because they don't require the intricate analysis we apply to all our other relationships. We just get to love them, and they get to love us...and believe it or not that's enough.

Pirate Movie: Rated Arrrr

2005-07-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
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road block to bloggerville

2005-06-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

Hello faithful and misguided readers! Unfortunately I am experiencing what is known as the writer's block. I had carefully considered writing a new post about cancer myths, a topic that would make Nate's friends happy; however, I just couldn't get the fire under my ass lit long enough to write the piece. Instead I sit here apologizing for having nothing valuable to say. What a crock that is, right?

Truth be told I've been glue to Wimbleton coverage since the first round and that takes up most of my productive hours. What can I say? I'm a tennis buff. If Federer doesn't win the title for the third time, then I'm going to cry. Although Roddick's paid his dues and deserves the title too (but Andy can't you wait until next year?). As for women's tennis, I've lost faith since Justine Henin-Hardine got upset in the first round,but I'm pulling for cover-girl Sharavpova who is definately looking like a "power shot" out on the courts.

Aside from watching TV, I've continued to nest. Nate and I have almost found habitational bliss through the third party IKEA. Now if only I can get him to thrown both his whites and his darks in the hanmper, things will be heaven.

Ok, I'll make the promise now, I'll try to write something else decent in the next couple of days. I think I'm experiencing the non-creative, existential depression right now. You can read more about that in The Van Gogh Blues. That should keep you distracted while I watch ESPN.

consumer dread

2005-06-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

Some people in their late twenties/ early thirties experience what is known as an existential dilemma (or the quarter-of-a-century crisis). I'm not experiencing that as much as I am experiencing consumer dread. Every morning I awaken to find myself searching for something to buy. I rack my brain to think of things I need, then to things I want, and finally to things I think will make me look cool. I head to the nearest store and proceed to empty my bank account.

If Suze Orman was credit counseling me, she would get a glimpse into my materialistic soul when I tell her that the only lasting memory of my long dead friend is that an unspent jar of tip money from waiting tables at Denny's was found in his room. The thought of that money futilely saved makes me shiver, he should have spent it while he had a chance...and he should have worn a seatbelt.

Maybe it was another friend's death that has kicked my consumer impulses into high gear. Makes sense if I was on the shrink's couch, but I'm not...yet. I'm writing here because I'm fighting off the urge to go to yet another store and buy stuff. At this point, it wouldn't matter if it were Walmart (shwag) or Saks Fifth Avenue (kind), I'm an addict and I'm looking for a fix. Christ, am I becoming the dreaded female fulfillment of a shopoholic?

Nate said last night that I was exhibiting a "nesting" quality. I kinda liked the imagery of me as a little bird gathering creating a home out of shopping bags and receipts. But now, I'm starting to question these nesting instincts. Am I building a nest or shoveling myself a grave of debt? Or maybe a little of both? Do I need to be stopped? Or is this the only enjoyment and sense of empowerment left in America?

What do you think?

bad news

2005-06-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight I received a call from an old friend telling me that one of his old friends and one of my aquaintances died Wednesday night. Known to all only as "Peaches" for reasons I'll never understand will be missed... I can assure you of that. Of course they put the most unflattering picture of him in the obituary and the newspaper couldn't say much about him other than he played high school football. In a small town, I guess that's something to be remembered for. Here lies Peaches, he played High School football. This makes me realize how important it is to write your obituary before you die and leave a flattering photograph attached.

Anyway, say a prayer for a guy who could make a room light up when he entered it and say another prayer for his friends and family who must go on without him.

how sweet it isn't

2005-06-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

Fifteen years ago I wrote an editorial for my high school newpaper claiming that Equal (aspartame) was the Devil's Artifical Sweetner. Ok, I didn't exactly say that, but I did note in my young cutting-edge journalistic vision that aspartame could be host of long term health complications...especially since the shit breaks down into formaldahyde at high temps (such as the temperature in your stomach). I didn't think anyone would listen to me then, and I doubt anyone's listening to me now; but I just have to tell you all again: Hand over the pink, blue and yellow packets before somebody gets hurt!

Like any good soapbox preacher, I'm a bit of a hypocrite. I cannot bring myself to dump out the remaining three diet Cokes in my fridge. When it comes to our health, why do we always bargain on the side of calorie-free vs cancer? Heck, my mother has yet to wise up about Pink Death (aka Sweet N' Low, saccharin), and we know that causes tumors. Then again, she also smokes so she's not the best example of healthy lifestyle choices.

Let's accept for the moment that with approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese, hitting the Haggendaz seems to be one of our nation's leading health problems. Now compare our nation's heavyweights to a measly 1.4 million with cancer, and it's obvious which we should be more concerned about...scales not biopsies. Of course this is not to belittle the cancer cause, it's just that most people come in contact with tons more fatties per day than they do cancer patients. In turn, weight conciousness isn't just a product of the evil fashion industry, we're reminded of it at every Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts (or where ever you stop for coffee on your way into work).

The point I'm laboring to make is that unless you work in a hospital, chances are you come into contact with far more obesity per day than cancer, hence calorie counting is more likely to be foremost on your mind because the threat of fat is has far greater visibility. This accounts for why so many of us take the risk of putting that little packet of sweetner in our coffee despite the warning on the label or lack of long-term studies. Getting fat is percieved as a far greater threat than getting cancer.

As I said before, I am no exception. However, I did quit smoking so I do believe that given enough gentle nudging with information, anyone can change their perceptions and their behaviors...especially when it comes to one's health. So without further ado, let's break down the three leading artificial sweetners:

Sacchrin (aka Sweet N'Low, the pink packet) - the "world's oldest low-calorie sweetner" was discovered 1879 and despite giving lab rats tumors in 1977, it still stays on the market because humans couldn't possible consume as much as rats...wait...maybe we can. Regardless, the warning label was removed in 2001 because of some new legislation. Other health concerns: if you're allergic to sulfa drugs, don't use sacchrin!!!

Aspartame (aka Equal, NutraSweet, the blue packet)- hitting the scene in 1981, aspartame has been linked to visual impairment, seizures, headaches, dizziness, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia-like muscle pain, depression, speech impairment, tinnitus and memory loss. Not to mention, aspartame's breakdown chemicals such as formaldehyde and diketopiperazine can lead to multiple sclerosis, lupus, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and even brain cancer if these chemicals accumulate in the bodies of regular aspartame users. Other health concerns: don't use aspartame if you have phenylketonuria (PKU).

Sucralose (aka Splenda, the yellow packet)- the newest contender on the artifical sweetner scene, this sugar alternative is toated to be "made from sugar so it tastes like sugar." The problem is Splenda also contains chlorine, which does occur naturally in some foods, but very unnaturally (like through the complex chemical reaction involving many poisonous chemicals) in Splenda. Of course, Johnson & Johnson only list what they want to ingredient-wise. Health problems are hard to discern since less than 30 human subjects were tested before Splenda got FDA approval. However the FDA final report reviews possible side-effects such as enlarged liver and kidneys, decreased white blood cell count, reduced growth rate and decreased fetal body weight. A very organized, grassroots website dedicated to Splenda education can be found at The Truth About Splenda.

So I may experience a few headaches, some memory loss, and occasional twitching by using artifical sweetners, but that's only at high doses, right? Well considering there are well over 5,000 food products on the market with one of these three artifical sweetners listed on the nutritional cast of characters, I'd say your chances of toxicity greatly increase the more popular these products become. Check your labels and try to keep your intake low such as only using an artifical sweetner or artifically sweetened product once or twice a day. You can never go wrong with the old addage: moderation is the key to good health.

For those of you who need more than a host of health implications to steer you away from the pink, blue, and yellow packets, try thinking about the political implications of these sweetners. Did you know that NutraSweet's producer G.D Searle's CEO, Donald Rumsfeld, helped spoonfeed this potentially dangerous chemical to the FDA for approval? Did you also know that the bastard company Monsanto, who gave us Agent Orange, growth hormones for cows, and a future of genetically engineered food now owns NutraSweet? This information alone make me want to boycott the stuff.

But still those diet Cokes taste good. I hear Coke's switching to Splenda though...excuses, excuses.

before and after

2005-06-15T08:48:00.002-07:00

After watching Loverboy on Encore this afternoon (cable has finally taken my soul), I realized that Patrick Dempsey went from "not" to "hot." Take a look at him as a geeky adolescent:

Now gaze upon man at his absolute finest:

It's almost like God's cruelest joke because you know about a dozen girls turned him down in high school because he has the physique of a flat-chested super model. In high school I probably would have told him to go fly a kite myself; but I'd also be crying myself to sleep at night after our twentieth reunion. Patrick makes girl's everywhere want to give the geek a chance.

Hold on Ashton Kutcher, it's not that simple. If we gave every geek a chance we may end up with this:

Could Anthony Michael Hall look more like a convict? What the hell happened to him? Was he run over by a bus? I guess you can never tell who's going to be hot and who's not.

Moral: Give everyone a chance!

For love of money or music?

2005-06-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

I happened across one of Nate's "nudie" mags (aka. Esquire) and discovered what I doubted all along...they really do have good articles spliced in there between tits and ass. In fact, I was shocked to discover an article by my favorite pop culture writer, Chuck Klosterman who diagnosed me with my worst fear...no not cancer, it's worse.

Chuck told me I had reached a "new music threshold." Apparently once you hit 25 years of age not only does your insurance rates decrease, but so does your interest in new music. Now it all makes sense why I grumble under my breath about not understanding today's music. Here I thought that this new millenium has ushered in nothing but pure crap on the radio, but in actuality I have a new-music sensitivity. When did this happen, and how can I cure it?

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, the second step is downloading ITunes. Fortunately for me I already have it on my computer because I'm a proud owner of an IShuffle (the coolest invention to date); however, I've never utilized ITunes for anything other than organizing my own music. I soon discovered why...everything costs a dollar and dollars add up. I just know I'm going to spend like $100 dollars tonight once I start down that dark path. So I stick to the lighted streets of my own music library, where the money's already been spent.

Is this new-music aversion more a side effect of being a cheapskate? I'd like to say, yes, but I've always been a tightwad. I remember a day, not long ago, when I saved money specifically for new music. Although on an AmeriCorps stipend (which was cruelly below minimum wage), I'd head to Natural Sound every two weeks and spend about four hours listening to CDs based on whatever cool coverart or band name happened to strike my fancy, then actually part with my hard-earned dough and (gasp) buy CDs. Now I make 3X that wage, and I can't find a dollar to purchase a friggin song on ITunes. What's up with that?

Ok, here's the deal, I can't blindly just buy a CD because it looks cool or because somebody recommended it. I need to sample it first. If ITunes gave a 30-second sample of select songs (like Barnes and Nobles or Circuit City does) someone would have to call in the Jaws of Life to disattach me from my computer...and I'd be broke. But no, those greedy bastards are hording all the good music and leaving me to slowly become musically desensitized through the radio's incessant playing of "Hollerback Girl." I may never want to listen to music again as I've gone B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Yet I do buy "new" music; however, only from those artists I can trust. I know Beck isn't going to put out any crap (with Sea Change being the exception). I also know Wilco only keeps getting better. Same goes for The Shins. So if I'm buying "new" music it's created by old favorites. My sense of musical adventure has been horribly stunted.

Ok, I just figured it out, you know what happened? It's actually not about money at all. I entered into a monogomous relationship with a few bands (they're willing to share with each other...we've got it all worked out on Springer). Like most monogomous relationships, this one makes me feel like an adulterous whore everytime my eyes wander to the new music section. Believe me, I recognize a whole world of Music Matching going on around me, I just can't participate in it since I took the vow "till death do us part" for my first musical loves. I'm married to music, and I leave all that new stuff to the younger kids who are still playing the field, hoping that they too can find a band they can tour with until the end of time or at least until the singer goes into rehab.

Ex-relocation specialist

2005-06-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

Relocation has finally broken my spirit and my lower back. I used to think of myself as an expert on the matter. I've bragged relentlessly about packing a lifetime of shit into an '88 Subaru Station Wagon and moving multiple times cross-country. Yet, moving a mere 20 miles with my boyfriend has just about sent me to the looney bin with the remaining case of Sierra Nevada in hand.

I had considered writing abook about moving...a simple "How-To" guide for anyone embarking on the adventure of packing and unpacking all their belongings. Now I think a "Worst Case Scenario" guide would be better suited for the occasion.

What I realize now is that a move is never as simple as a Change of Address form, it's as difficult as reinventing your life. While some may scoff at the idea, try moving in with a boyfriend who's system of "efficency" making you want to drive nails into your own eyeballs, but you must hold your tongue as much as possible to avoid being a "nag." You must suddenly reinvent yourself as patient and nurturing when all you want to do is take a blowtorch to the dozen half-unpacked boxes in the living room, kitchen, office, bedroom etc.

Then, when you do take the initiative to unpack some things for said boyfriend, you find that all of your work is undone because it wasn't "on the right bookcase," or because your arrangement of the video tapes "looked too cluttered." Now those previously neatly unpacked items are scattered on the floor while shelves go empty and collect dust.

I'm done unpacking although most things I unpacked have been rearrainged by said boyfriend because the replacement of a spatula takes higher priority than unpacking his own shit. I'm not bitter, no...I'm frustrated. And I love him to death...if it comes to that, which it may if the boxes aren't put away tonight.

Still despite said boyfriend's moving ADD and my own slow boiling rage, I find myself happy beyond words to wake up in the morning with him by my side. I know that one day before August those boxes will be put away and that I will laugh (more like insanely giggle as the nurses pour my meds) about all this moving business. I know that this is just the beginning of a great adventure and as long as noone gives me boxing gloves during this transitional period, no one should get hurt.

Pass Go and Collect $200!

2005-06-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

I wish the key to a quick $200 was as simple as passing "Go!", however, I don't seem to have a clearly marked "Go!" space on my Monopoly Board of Life. On the up side, I do always seemed to pass by the "Go Directly to Jail" space unscathed.

I have secretly been contriving a way to get Nate engaged in a game of Monopoly with me since I found The Monopoly Game Piece Theory. Yes, some genius mapped out a personality test based on the Monopoly Game piece an unsuspecting player chose.

I thought I'd be able to use this Monopoly Game Piece Theory to my advantage in taking Nate to the cleaners as I bought property and built hotels. Nate chose the Race Car and I chose the Top Hat. Of course, the Monopoly Game Piece Theory pegs Nate as shy and opinionated, while I'm deemed a slacker who likes to party. Man, I just want to smoke my bong in peace, so why all the nagging?

This insight into our deepest emotional cores was meaningless as I sat in Jail for at least 17 turns contemplating while such a useless theory existed. I mean why would a Top Hat get sent to jail? I can think of a thousand reasons while a Race Car would rot away behind bars, but a Top Hat???

Needless to say, the Monopoly Game Piece Theory will not help you win the game. However, when your opponent jumps hastily into trading good properties for Baltic Avenue you definately have the edge.

While Monopoly was fun for a night of ass-kicking (sorry Nate), I think I'll stick to Scrabble in the future!

Bad, Bad, Baaad History!

2005-06-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

The Carnival of Bad, Bad, Baaad History is up and running even though this is old news to anyone and everyone by now. (Hey my new phone line just got installed got yesterday, cut me some slack!)

Fellow bloggers, carnivals are the way to go to find like-minded folks. I'd like to say I met Nate in such a forum, but instead we were "outed" in such a forum. All in good fun, of course. We got a kick out of it.

moving time

2005-05-30T15:58:00.000-07:00

Currently my whole life is in boxes and garbage bags. No, I'm not homeless, I've just got too many homes at the moment. My first abode is vacant, my second home is transitional, and my third home is two days away....June 1st.

Every year I do the same song and dance with landlords: "Yeah, I'm tired of moving! This is the apartment I'm going to settle down in for at least two years!" Then 11 months later, I'm sending the official letter stating my intent to jump ship. What can I say? I'm a drifter.

In fact, drifter is an understatement. I've moved cross-country three times and can pack a car in under ten minutes. Hopefully I can break some records this time around.

The difference between this move and other moves is this time I'm taking someone with me. Did I mention I was also a loner? I've had some very scary roommates in the past. One particular roommate stole my panties and wore them around the house before he started barking at parked cars. Another roommate wanted to charge me a quarter everytime I sat on her couch. Needless to say I'm I don't live well with others.

But I'm not moving in with just anyone, I'm moving in with my boyfriend...a territory yet uncharted in my experience. I don't think it's sunk in yet. It's like you plan something for so long that when the date arrives, you can't believe it's real until two weeks later.

So if I drop off of he planet for the next week it means I'm shopping at IKEA and unpacking my life, one box at a time.

How I Became a Skeptic and Beat Depression

2005-05-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

On the car ride home I contemplated the possibility that I may be depressed and completely unaware of it. I had apparently lost interest in the things I loved to do, I watched too much TV, I had devastating insomnia even though I wanted nothing more than to sleep, and lately I was prone to crying fits beyond the scope of PMS. I can handle depression when I’m alone, but I sensed that it was driving my partner crazy. At this rate, I would soon be a Jonathan Franzen creation.

When I connected to the internet, it was only to take one of those self-diagnosis tests on a Prozac website and obsess about the findings. As a diversionary tactic, I cruised past my blog first. Immediately, I was irritated at how shitty my Star Wars post had turned out even though I knew there was a solid point in there somewhere. These thoughts instigated more self-loathing. It would be unfair to take a depression screening now, I had tipped the scales in favor of anti-depressants.

Too much self-analysis is a dangerous thing, but this time it paid off. I started revisiting my brain trauma rehab training in behavioral analysis from earlier in the day. How could I interrupt my bad behavior, and replace it with something positive? I decided to make true on a promise to my boyfriend and become not only more interested in what he did, but also become a part of that interest while not sacrificing my own sense of self. I decided to submit to the Skeptic's Circle.

Although Nate’s founded and submitted to the Skeptic’s Circle for several months, I rarely skimmed the contents aside from what he had written. My best effort to support him in this endeavor resulted in putting a little Skeptic’s Circle link on the corner of my sidebar. Pathetic, I know. Believe me, this neglect has come back to haunt me. But I believe that change is possible and inevitable, and so I set aside my demons and set to work.

I started looking though the clearly defined Skeptic Circle criteria that Nate posted in response to some political yahoo who thinks AIDS isn’t real (those are my words, not his) to find a toehold for Skeptic's Circle worthy entry. The category of “historical revision” caught my eye. I thought, hey, didn’t I just write some crappy Star Wars post about historical revision? Why yes I did! Now I have to put my best foot forward, revamp the post and make it kick ass, then submit it to Nate, who happens to be hosting the Skeptic’s Circle this week.

As if Satan isn’t already skiing through Hell, I now find myself doing something else I never do…rewriting a post. I’m firm believer in not tinkering with history (see post below), which for me means, that once a post is published, it’s untouchable because it’s now a historical artifact. To re-write a blog entry is heresy in my own personal code of ethics. Yet, here I was tinkering away… revising to my heart content. But I justified it because historically speaking, only seven of you lovely readers saw the crap version, so I didn’t think it would alter your lives terribly if I tweaked the post just a bit.

Three hours later, I find myself in that writer’s flow that transcends time and space. It’s incredible to feel stimulated intellectually and hence happy again. I wasn’t depressed, I just wasn’t creatively sapped and cooperatively challenged. Now that I’ve got all that figured out, I think I can proceed from here unmedicated and rehabilitated.

"Hold Me Bat Boy, Love Me Bat Boy"

2005-05-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

Twelve years ago in a supermarket checkout line, I discovered Bat Boy on the cover of the Weekly World News (they discovered him in a cave in West Virginia). Last night, I watched Bat Boy: The Musical. Now I can die happy. However, I just have to wonder if I didn't miss my calling to write this script myself considering I've been a long standing fan of Bat Boy for over a decade.

If I didn't write the script, then I can write a smashing review of the production. At least that's what I wanted to do since I bought the tickets. However, now that I've seen it, I realize that Bat Boy: the Musical is not something that you can easily write about. You must experience it for yourself.

You're probably thinking how the hell can anyone turn a long-running Weekly World News headliner into an off-Broadway musical, and what the hell is the musical about? At least one of my friends racked his brain considering the plot possibililties...so I will whet the whistles of the curious as best I can. In short, Bat Boy: The Musical is about "a love that can never be destroyed," fear of the unknown, discrimination, Christian charity, family values, and hope of civilization. If that doesn't grab you, the song "Another Dead Cow" will!

I have to say that Bat Boy: the Musical is not for the faint of heart and certainly not for the close-minded. But if you enjoy a story that explores all the possibilites of our changing social landscape, then Bat Boy: the Musical is for you.

Don't worry I won't spoil the ending or any of the details, but I will tell you to go find a tour date near you...this is not something you want to miss. All you fans can check out the Bat Boy Offical Website in the meantime.

Fat, the New Thin

2005-05-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

We were at Wendy’s when Nate told me of his aspirations to eat a six-pound hamburger in one sitting. I gave him the look I often gave my clients at the mental home when they said something like “I’m 98% Martian and 2% martini.”

“I can do it!” he rebuked, then emphatically launched into a mini-lecture about the art of gurgitation. It seemed odd to hear the word “gurgitation” without the “re” in front, but then again I just recently delivered a speech on bulimia for a local college on Eating Disorders Awareness Week. When Nate told me that a 100-lb woman ate the same 6-lb burger he wanted to eat, I had to wonder if there was a greater eating disorder present here.

A little research later, I found that indeed there’s a world of gurgitation that I knew nothing about. There is both an International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) and an Association of Independent Competitive Eaters (AICE). Say goodbye to that diet!

Beyond pie-eating contests, these professional gurgitators will eat anything as fast as possible. IFOCE reports some astonishing eating accomplishments of our lifetime:

Cow Brains
57 (17.7 pounds)
15 minutes
Takeru Kobayashi, the #1 ranked international eater!

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
25 grilled cheese sandwiches/ GoldenPalace.com
10 Minutes/ Feb. 12, 2005
Sonya Thomas, (#2 ranked internationally and amazingly weighs only 105 lbs!)

SPAM
6 pounds of SPAM from the can/ SPAMARAMA
12 minutes/ Apr. 3, 2004
Richard LeFevre (#3 ranked internationally)

Baked Beans
Six Pounds Baked Beans
One Minute, 48 Seconds
Donald Lerman
(ranked #14 internationally, but I wouldn’t want to be in the same room as this guy after eating all those beans!)

Mayonnaise
4 32-ounce bowls mayonnaise
8 minutes
Oleg Zhornitskiy (#15 ranked internationally)

If you were curious enough to click on these eaters’ profiles, you may be amazed to find that most aren’t obese. In fact, you probably wouldn’t know from looking at them that they can eat a whole pig in less than 12 minutes. In fact, I’m giving you one last chance to get a look at the lot of them. My question is: How does one become a professional eater? I mean what specifically makes a person think, “Hey I can eat mass quantities of food in no time flat! Maybe I should become a professional Eater!?”

Apparently, one just falls into the profession serendipitously like Crazy Legs Condi did. According to his profile, Crazy Legs, unable to secure a ticket for Super Bowl XXXVI, “opted to watch the game in the venerable Acme Oyster House [in New Orleans], where he downed 34 dozen oysters in just over three hours, setting a new Acme endurance record.” 5 1/2 pounds of buffet food , 3 1/2 pounds pancakes & bacon and 2.71 pounds green beans all eaten in record time makes Crazy Legs ranked #13 internationally!

Aside from Crazy Legs, I could find no more answers to the question “For Pete’s sake, why?” on the Eater profiles, but I did discover that Eric Booker, ranked #4 internationally, has a debut rap album “Hungry and Focused.” Too bad the Fat Boys dropped off the face of the planet, Eric could have made millions.

After relentlessly searching Eater profiles, I now find myself as addicted to these professional Eaters as they are to food. The drama is better than anything I’ve ever seen on Maury or Jerry Springer because these people are REAL!

In fact, I’m mighty tempted to swing by The Clinton Station Diner, Clinton, NJ on Monday May 9, 2005 to witness the America’s Biggest Burger Eating Competition, featuring the world biggest burger, “Zeus” (weighing in at 12.5 lbs). Or at the very least, I can show Nate just how much bigger his eyes are compared to his stomach.

In the days of Fast Food Nation, Super-Size Me, and the Atkins craze, it’s good to know that there remains a few people who love to eat anything.

Question for you...

2005-05-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

If you were made of cheese, what kind of cheese would you be made of?

Wave, Particles, Time Travel and You're Only as Old as You Feel

2005-05-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

My best friend’s birthday was yesterday, I realize that I’m getting old. I’m not just getting physically older either, mentally I’m a fuddy-duddy. Just call me Old Fart or Over The Hill, why don’t you? At 27, I might as well start buying moo-moos and knee high stockings at Kmart!

For those geezers out there who think that 27 isn’t old at all, I’ve got news for you…it isn’t. But it feels decades away from 21 and a millennium away from 18. I know this because I work with a group of 18-21 year olds who make me feel my age every time they sneak up behind me and pluck out a grey hair. Or every time they stay up all night partying and can still show up to work hung-over. I can’t do that anymore. I’ve seen 3AM maybe twice this year, and it wasn’t because I was closing down the bar with my fake ID.

The 21-year-old me used to do all kinds of crazy, wacked-out stuff. Stuff that at 21 I would have bragged about, but at 27 (going on 28) I’m too embarrassed to mention. I used to tour with Phish, make my own bongs, travel around the country, talk to strangers, wear cut-offs and run around bare-footed. I used to skip classes, skip stones, and skip down the yellow brick road with Pink Floyd playing in the background. I used to have wild parties, be pulled over by the cops (and thankfully never arrested), and kiss boys indiscriminately (ok, only if they were cute).

Now I have vegetarian cookbooks, blouses replaced my T-shirts, and I’m starting to worry about Social Security. The snooze button is worn out on my biological clock. I like concerts where you can sit down. I say things like “you’re only as old as you feel” and realize that I feel 80.

I hear that there’s going to be a time travelers’ convention at MIT this weekend, and I wonder if the Future Me will be there (If there’s time travel in the future, you bet your ass I’m going to riding the waves of the space-time continuum!). Maybe Future Me will be able to tell Present Me that time doesn’t matter. That in the future, you always get to be whatever age you want to be. And in the future, there is no such thing as old. And if you don’t find Future Me at the Time Traveler’s Convention, it only means that she forgot to RSVP!

Well, this erases all doubt...

2005-05-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

I am:
-1%
Republican.

"You're a damn Commie! Where's Tailgunner Joe when we need him?"

Are You A Republican?

Welcome to the 1,000 club!

2005-05-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

I made it! I not only made it, I exceeded my own expectations. I got my 1,027 visits. That's 27 more than I needed to make me feel cool. Better yet, I finished my fifth semester of graduate school yesterday after delivering a rant about Foucault, oppression, and composition at 10:30pm to a conference of disinterested teachers.

I didn't get drunk immediately afterwards, as I expected would happen. Instead I trudged home at midnight, crashed onto the bed and proceeded to worry. This happens at the end of every semester. I find that I can't let go of all the stress. Then I dip into a deep well of bordom.

After disinfecting my apartment (which has become a second home for the Toxic Avenger due to a semester of neglect), I find that I have nothing left to do but return the library books which are ghastly overdue. I won't pay the fine until next semester when I try to register for classes and discover that my records are put on hold. This is the cycle of my school year....I don't know that's it's begun until the library fines have been paid.

As for the summer...I'm looking forward to it. I hope to get my thesis on its way, learn a little about brain trauma victims, and redecorate a brand spankin' new apartment (did I not mention that Nate and I found a place?). The best part is that I will have plenty of time on my hands to blog. Idle hands need a keyboard to keep occupied.

GREs Make Me Green

2005-05-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

I had logged on to purchase my best friend a last minute birthday gift, when in the corner of the fluff news section of Netscape there it was... the reason I bombed my GREs.

Apparently the reason smart people choke on big tests is because their anxious thoughts "reside in the same area of the brain as the high working-memory and they actually compete for the same space, limiting the person's ability to do the task at hand." Granted this isn't a very scientific explanation of the phenomena, but it makes me feel better about myself so I'm going to gloss over all the inconsistencies in the article.

I am a smart person, but when it comes to a high pressured standardized tests I choke. For instance, after my GRE instead of celebrating with a beer or four with a friend (as I had planned), I spent the following hour guzzling a bottle of pepto bismal. You see, the GREs went a little something like this for me:

I had spent about six months prepping for the GRE through every quiz guide on the market. The night before the real test, my practice tests were indicating that I would score 1600. I was siked because according to the practice run, I was going to ace this test.

However, then my head hit the pillow and a little devil climbed under the sheets with me. The devil put all kinds self-doubt into my head and kept me up all damn night. Not having slept the morning of the test, I felt 80 years old.

I drove to the testing center, which was 1.5 hours away, and arrived a bit early. Of course, I left at the crack of dawn to avoid traffic (for those living on the Washington Coast, I had Rt. 5 traffic anxiety as well) With time to kill, my idle hands found their way to a gas station where I tried to home remedy my sleep deprivation. I bought a bottle of NoDoz and a SoBe Adrenaline Rush. Thirty minutes later my shaking hand couldn't hold the cigarettes I was still smoking.

Test time came, and I was escorted to a locker facility where I would place my coat, umbrella, and purse. Then I would be escorted back to the testing arena where I would be frisked, given a pencil and paper, and told "good luck" before they threw me to the wolves.

As I sat down at the computer, I could hear my heart beating wildly from anxiety and a caffine overdose. The essay section appeared on the screen, and I felt the bile making its way up my esophogus.

Two hours later I was allowed a ten minute break. I was escorted to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, I didn't see how I could continue. I started to plan my escape from testing Hell. I could slip out the window; it would be five more minutes until somebody noticed my disappearance. But then my checkbook register flashed in my mind, and I realized that I didn't have another $150 to take this test again. Nor did I find myself sadistic enough to do so.

Escorted back to the testing arena and searched again before I entered (what did they think I had brought in from the bathroom?), I sat down at the computer of my doom and answered the remaining questions based on irrational guesses. Mainly I picked "c" for anything I didn't know (you really don't have time to fuck around).

I started to cry after the third hour. I mean really bawl. The clock didn't stop for my tears. I chose more "c" answers. On the fifth hour I felt as if I had just served hard time in a maximum security prison. As I was leaving, the proctor gave me the nod like she knew I was going to be a repeat offender.

I ended up in a Rite Aid parking lot gripping my pepto and wondering if any self-respecting grad school would ever accept me. My future seems as gray as the Seattle sky 300 days of the year.

Of course, now I look back and think, how silly of me! I'm almost done with grad school and on the prowl for a PhD. Who says testing is everything? Oh yeah, I believe "No Child Left Behind" does!

Dreams Do Come True!

2005-05-01T17:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, your dreams fall right into your lap. Tonight, sitting on my lap is internet Sing-A-Long Karaoke made possible by Audioblogger. I am already compiling a song list that includes Ween's "Freedom of '76," Beck's "Debra," and Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive." If any of you care or dare to participate, click on the link above and start singing your heart out. Remember, everyone needs to be a rockstar for at least three minutes!

If I can't get a makeover, then my blog can!

2005-05-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

Let me introduce to you the new blog. She's been trapsing around in sweatpants for far too long, now take a look at her dressed in Versace! Like an application of lipstick and mascara on Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club, a new template is just what I needed to attract the attention of the popular kids in blogger detention and maybe a prom date too. While my exterior's changed, my content hasn't. You can still expect the best, but in prettier packaging! Enjoy!

What is This Warning on the Back of My New Beck CD???

2005-04-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

I'm always about a month or two behind the rest of the world and a week ahead of my own schedule. This is why I am not about to review Beck's relatively new album Guero, aside from saying that my love affair with the Prince of Cool is now back on! What I am going to say is: what the BLEEP is with this "FBI Anti-Piracy Warning: Unauthorized copying is punishable under federal law" label on the back of my CD?

You can read for yourself how proud the FBI is with their new symbol. I'd put a picture here but the FBI site provides me with "A last word to the wise: Unauthorized use of the FBI seal, name, and initials are subject to prosecution under Federal Criminal law, including Sections 701, 709, and 712 of Title 18 of the United States Code." I didn't look up the sections, but I'm sure they involve fines, imprisonment, and the confiscation of half my CD collection.

I still am not exactly sure what is considered "unauthorized copying" because before I even saw the symbol, I had already downloaded the songs to my computer, which (due to better speakers) has become my new stereo. Is that bad?

I couldn't figure it out, so instead I checked to see if anti-piracy laws was one of their top concerns. Their priorities surprised me. At the top of the list was "Protect the United States from terrorist attack." Ok, glad they are on top of that one. However, I get the feeling that "Protect civil rights" got bumped down to # 5 because of it. Hell, "Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes" ranked in as a higher priority (ranked #3). I'm thinking about the movie Hackers, is anyone else?

Ok, unless you love Angelina Jolie or teenage punk-nerd movies, you've probably not seen the movie. In Hackers Dade Murphy, aka "Crash Override" and "Zero Cool" (how adolescent, eh?) is banned from the internet until his 18th birthday by the FBI due to some serious cyber mischief. However, all the carpal tunnel in the world can't keep "Crash Override" from meddling again, this time to save the world from Eugene Belford aka "The Plague" (with a name like Eugene, he's got to be bad!) and his computer virus that would take over the world!

The movie is bad, I warned you... but it's too close to real life: On February, 7, 2000, NET JAM, the code name for a series of DDoS attacks, hit several major cities and immobilized CNN. The culprit? "Mafiaboy," a Canadian teenager! Is this weird to anyone else, or just people who have seen Hackers (which may be just me)?

I know the FBI's probably got it's hands full with adolescent hackers, but really, can they do something about spammers and spyware? If I'm going to accept protecting civil liberties as a #5 priority, then I'd like the real internet nuisances dealt with swiftly. Do more than take away their computers. Make them eat SPAM. I would then be satisfied.

I wonder if the FBI will now be checking out my site because I link to them... for those without a DSM IV, it's called paranoia.

Damn, I just realized after checking the Amazon.com link for Guero that I overpaid $5.00! (And that's called ADD) By the way, let me save you some searching and tell you that "guero" means "white person." Having lived in New Mexico for over three years, I became familiar with this and other forms of racial determiners such as "gringo."

I digress, the moral of the story is: Go out and buy Beck's album to see what that white boy is singing about and whatever you do, DON'T make copies for your friends!

I happen to be one of my favorite books

2005-04-30T17:55:00.000-07:00

You're One Hundred Years of Solitude!

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Lonely and struggling, you've been around for a very long time.
Conflict has filled most of your life and torn apart nearly everyone you know. Yet there
is something majestic and even epic about your presence in the world. You love life all
the more for having seen its decimation. After all, it takes a village.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I need 55 more viewers stat!

2005-04-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

I never honestly entertained the thought that I would have accumulated 1,000 visits to my blog. In fact, I haven't yet. I need 55 more viewers. Then I can feel like a real blogger. Sure most bloggers do that kind of traffic in a week or two, but it took me 6 long months of struggle. Maybe if I update this blog more often I'd get more viewers, eh? Well, I'll see what I can do. I forsee some excellent adventures over the summer that will beg to be written about.

Thank you all who visit my blog despite my inconsistencies. It makes me proud to know that I've inflicted myself on so many! Love you all!

Meme This

2005-04-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I knew this meme was coming when Nate asked me this question at a “between-apartments” lunch. He asked me,

If you are stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book would you be? [Note: In the novel - because books were burned - to save the content of books, people memorized one in order to pass the content on to others]

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

What is the last book you bought?

What are you currently reading?

Five books for your desert island cruise package.

Who are you going to pass this book meme baton to and why? (only three people).

I thought about it a while, because I’ve read A LOT of books. Hell, I’m almost a Master’s in English. I could pick something elitist like Shakespeare, or a classic like Moby Dick, but I needed to do better than that. I needed to pick a book that would distinguish me above the other book-people. I needed to be a book that would gain me word-wide acclaim and popularity. I needed to be Dr. Phil’s Ultimate Weight Loss Solution.

Since Oprah introduced us to Dr. Phil years ago, the population at large has become quite smitten with the man who gives us no-nonsense, “cut the bull” psychological help. Today is only Wednesday at 2pm, and Dr Phil already has over 1,000 message postings on his website…particularly involving weight loss.

Granted, if I was Dr. Phil’s Weight Loss Solution, I would be plagued by emotional eaters seeking to shed a few pounds so their hubbies would love them, but for a price, I’m willing to recite the 7 keys to Weight Loss Freedom. Ok, so I’m opportunistic, so what?

As for crushes on fictional characters, I honestly can't think of any character I had a crush on, other than Bonanza Jellybean from Tom Robbin's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. How very lesbian of me, right? But I really wanted to be this wild, crazy, unbridled cowgirl after reading that book.

The last book I bought was unfortunately Helen Feilding’s Bridget Jone’s Diary. I say unfortunate because now I look like a frou-frou reader who reads frou-frou books. Well, I bought it because I was writing a paper about female homosocial relationships that reinforce heterosexist agendas. So take that all who will judge me on the last book I bought.

The last book I read was Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward. John Locke considered this book to be the second most influencial novel written since 1885 (The first was Das Kapital). Bellamy’s book written in 1888, sold 300,000 copies in two years. Only Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold more copies in his time.

As for five books I’d take with me to the desert island would have to be ones that I don’t mind reading again and again and again….

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
Wonderboys by Michael Chabon
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Me Talk Pretty One Dayby David Sedaris

The Alternate: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (maybe I’ll actually finish it with infinite time on the island)

The three people I’m going to send this to are obvious: Left is Loose, Life’s A Trip, and One Child Left Behind because they’re the only three people who read my blog.

The Apartment Search Continues...

2005-04-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

Nate and I have now entered our second week of apartment hunting and discovered that the experience is similar to being a man at a singles' bar. The guy must somehow shine brightly above the rest of the competition, ask the right questions, and have an impeccable credit rating in order merely to buy the girl a drink. Well, we're courting real estate, and she's a bitch.

Of the five apartments we saw today, I'd have to say we both fell in love with one beautifully remodelled townhouse. Nate started imagining a tomato crop in the back yard, and I imagined soaking in a bathtub and shaving my legs without the uncomfortable contortions required by a shower stall. The place had both hardwood and carpeting, which satisfies both cravings. And it had one of those stoves with glass burners...easy cleaning!!!

I never knew how much appliances ment to me until now. In fact, kitchen and bathrooms rank much higher on my criteria scale then the overall appearance of the apartment. This means I am willing to overlook the asthetic quality for all the latest ammendities.

Have I not mentioned the criteria charts??? I may be giving away my trade secrets here, but here's how you make your own criteria chart:

1. Determine 10 different criteria (rent, location, bathroom, etc.) that you use to make a decision about a place.
2. Rank those 10 criteria in order of importance to you (10 is the highest priority, 1 is the lowest).
3. Rate each ranked criteria of the apartment on a scale of 1-5 (5 being best, 1 being worst case scenerio).
4. Multiply the criteria's rank by the criteria's rating for each section.
5. Total up all the 10 scores and get a final total.

Your perfect house/ apartment will be worth 275 points. Any apartment that satisfies 80% or more of your needs (or scores 220 and above) you should take.

Pretty cool, eh? The system works for EVERYTHING. Ask Nate, he's a believer.

Well, I'll keep you posted. Hopefully by next week we will have a place to call our own!

A Place to Lay My Head At Night

2005-04-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

Less than a year after I last moved, I find myself on the hunt again...the hunt for a new apartment. In the past ten years I have lived in 12 different apartments and moved cross-continentally three times. After loading and unloading my Walmart futon and seventeen crates of books this past June, I vowed not to move again for at least two years. I enjoyed the idea of "settling down," at least for a while.

However, like most well-intentioned plans, this one didn't pan out because I met Nate and decided that it would be much cooler to live with him. However, after making charts of our seperate criteria ranked in order of importance, I realize that it's going to have to be one very special place to satisfy both of us.

I can't help being picky. With so many apartments under my belt, I've learned to discern what makes me happy in a new abode. Truthfully, it's the neighbors. You can pick your apartment down to the paint and hardwoods floors, but if you have crappy neighbors, the whole place is ruined.

Take for instance, one of my four New Mexico aparments. I found this charming little studio with a breakfast island and a cobblestone bathroom floor. I had a large backyard with a hammock. The place was heaven. Except for Homie the Clown who lived upstairs. At 3AM my entire apartment bumped and grinded to the sound of drum and bass above. For 6 months I slept only 3 hours on any given night. Then, when I went home for Christmas, I returned to find my ceiling had bullet holes conjoining my apartment with Homie's apartment. Figuring that shooting a gun into your neighbor's apartment would be something the landlord should know about, I gave her a ring. She answered snidely, "What do you want me to do about?"

"Well... For starters how about evicting him?"

She did have him move out... and into the apartment directly across from me instead of above me. Somehow I dealt with these arrangements until one afternoon a SWAT team arrived in my backyard to wrestle down an escaped convict. I knew then it was time to move.

Now, I consider Nate a pretty sensible guy, but when he says he doesn't mind livng in the ghetto, I cringe. Just recently when my new upstairs neighbors started holding all night parties and drunken brawls, my New Mexio PTSD flared up. Thankfully, my new landlord enforces respecful tenant relations. I just couldn't bare the thought of living somewhere with bad neighbors again. If we are products of our environment, I want my mine to be the Garden of Eden.

I know I can't pick my neighbors, but I can pick my neighborhood. If I even see one car in the street with racing strips and a Calvin pissing on a Ford sticker, I won't move into that neighborhood. Lots of toys and cigarette butts littering the sidewalks indicates screaming brats and trashy parents. Balconies without plants are a definate NO. Any rental ad that says "section 8 ok" is instantly crossed off my list.

I don't mean to be elitist or classist, but I'm hedging my bets when it comes to apartment hunting that the richer neighborhoods are the quieter ones. There may be problems in rich neighborhoods, but they tend to be quiet and personal problems. That's all I ask for... a little peace and quiet. One's house should be one's sanctuary.

Cats, the new second-hand smoke of the millennium.

2005-04-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

There was a time when we thought that cigarette smoking could only hurt the smoker. Turns out that second-hand smoke is the third leading cause of preventable death in this country and causes 3,000 lung cancer deaths and more than 50,000 coronary heart disease deaths every year.

Now everyone thinks that owning a cat is cute, cuddly, and poses no health risks to others. Well, I got news for you, cats kill. They kill my sinuses. With more than 50 million Americans suffer from allergic diseases, and most those millions being allergic to cats, it's a wonder how cats have managed to survive in this country. My boyfriend regretably tells me (he's a cat owner) that in Wisconsin it's now legal to hunt cats. At least one state has the right idea in my opinion.

Let's face it, the CDC reports that allergies are 6th leading cause of chronic disease in the United States and cost the health care system $18 billion annually. Why are we letting cats and their dander bleed this country dry? We might be able to have free health care in the US, if cats were banished to the Atlantic Ocean.

Instead of eliminating this country of our plague, we've decided to make try and make humans more cat-like. My father, who's allergic to cats and asthmatic, called me on the phone in a cold sweat to tell me about this newest cure for the cat allergy problem. Apparently a group of mad scientists from The Island of Dr. Moreau created a chemical compound which is part-cat and part-human. Aside from freeing ourselves of that pesky cat allergy, the new compound may give us the benefit of landing on all fours, bathing with our tongues, and growing whiskers.

Does anyone else think it's crazy to inject ourselves with cat DNA...I mean crazier than exterminating all the damn cats like we would vermin. Will someone call back the Pied Piper?

Aside from allergies, pregnant women can't be around cats either. Toxoplasmosis, a parasite that can be found in cat poop, causes birth defects in your unborn youth. Is a retarded baby worth having Fluffy who just eats, shits, and sheds around the house? I don't think so. Having cats around seems as bad for a pregnant woman as handling broken Propesia tablets. (maybe we should get rid of ungracefully balding men as well while we're at it...)

Of course, I'm being satirical here; but I am tired of definding my allergy to cats to cat-owners who can't understand why I don't like their little felines. How can I like something that triggers sneezing, wheezing, and sinus headaches? I'm not being picky, I'm protecting my health.

Truth is I do like cats, I owned three in my day, before the allergies took hold. Now I can't get near them even though I think they're great. Sometimes we can't love that which we have to hold at a distance. Instead I'll admire cats in pictures and movies, but please keep your pets to yourself.

For those of you who have the dreaded pet allergy like I do, you can find tips to managing the allergen problem if you are forced to live with a cat by some crappy twist of fate.

And to all you cat owners out there, be senstive to the allergies of others. Try to remove the cat hair from your clothes with a lint brush before you go to work. Your co-workers will thank you for it.

Hold the Romance

2005-04-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in grad you find yourself arguing against everything you actually believe in. You argue for the sake of arguing. I’m arguing against love, which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve done yet. Hell, I’m crazy in love with Nate, but here I am writing against that which keeps me afloat some nights.

It all starts with “Sex in the City,” the quintessential feminist text…or so we’re led to believe. What do these women achieve? Not love, that’s for damn sure. They find plenty of sex, but the quest for love never actualizes for these four successful, single women. Are we to believe that women are better off without love?

Why, when they’ve been through all the men in Manhattan, can’t they find love? Answer: Romance. None of us know for sure what love is, but we’ve mythologized how it happens. The white knight riding up to the rescue; the passion and seduction that eclipses reason; the happily ever after.

Women, especially, are indoctrinated in the romance myth. We’ve all watched the soap operas with our mothers and grandmothers. We’ve all read a Harliquin Romance at one point or another. And certainly we’ve all seen the myth played out from Shakespeare to Speilburg.

When the romance doesn’t happen as planned….when Lloyd Dobbler doesn’t play “In Your Eyes” on a boom box outside our window (very stalkeresque behavior I might add), we suddenly question the validity of our real relationships. The ones that don’t always come with roses, but don’t care when we fart under the covers.

Men, by no means, are absolved from the romance trap. My brother is a prime example of a man caught up in the romance myth to the point of relationship destruction. “There’s no passion,” he laments, but can’t exactly describe what passion is. My brother plays out an archetypical dating pattern. He wines, dines, sends floral arrangements, even cooks the lady one gourmet meal before hitting the sack with her. He’s the sensitive, caring, ponytail man. Except the women who want what he has to offer he rejects.

My brother blames his love life failures because he’s got no models to base the rest of his relationship on. We never get to see what happens to a couple after they ride off into the sunset. My parents, both married two or three times each, never provided a decent example of how to make love stay.

Is love like gender, a performance? Do we need imitations in order to enact and feel this emotion? I don’t know, but that’s what I’m arguing in my paper. The problem with imitations, is that someone has to script the original, and for some purpose. Since I’m playing the role of the feminist, queer theorist, I have to say that it’s the heterosexist patriarchy writing the rules and definitions of love. But my brother clearly illustrates that my thesis is like romance, a total fantasy.

Maybe love is male, and romance is feminine resistance. Romance is resistance because it always seems to get in the way of love. Romance demands that love act idealized, instead of what it expressing as what love really is, it’s everything. Romance traps us all, love sets us free.

The Scholastic Showdown

2005-04-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, often times, I'm sitting in a classroom with one or two guys who just will NOT SHUT UP. It's usually guys, but on occasion it's a woman who's playing this game I like to call Scholastic Showdown. This is a literal cockfight for intellectual dominance that bores the hell out of me and makes me want to jump out the nearest window, if they weren't all nailed down.

You might be familiar with the type of students who talks like they're writing a paper out loud. They make references to Greek plays, Shakespeare, and Neitzche, as if they are they only ones who ever understood our cherished literary and philosophical traditions. These students are ego-centric and will always steer the coversation back to "the point I was making earlier about..."

I have plenty of these jackasses in my class and I wonder how they'll be as teachers. If they'll ever understand that teaching is not about showing kids what you know, but rather showing kids what they know.

Ah well, I had to vent, and it gave me an opportunity to update this blog, with something trivial. (I'm changing my format to trivial nonsense and flights of fancy.)

Speaking of flights of fancy, I'm really considering submitting for the Skeptic's Circle at the gentle nudging of my dear boy Nate. However, for a twist, I'm thinking of writing about something YOU care about. That's right what do you readers care about that you want to me debunk? Leave me your suggestions, and I'll try my best to fulfill your wishes.

Sick-Time Pick Me Ups

2005-04-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

Surfing through blogexplosion for a cheap thrill and to draw some unsuspecting viewers to my own blog, I noticed how many of you out there are sick. Not mentally disturbed sick, but stuffy head/fever/runnynose/itchy eye/feellikeI'mgoingtodie kind of sick. Or in other words, you've got the flu.

Well, let me join the club, because I'm sick as shit right now. So, I thought, "why not explore the things that make sick people happy?"

How about this quick list of truly orgasmic pleasures when you're ill:

1. Shower steam!
2. Puffs Plus with Lotion on a nose that's been rubbed raw by toilet paper.
3. The giggly feeling you get when you've mixed too many cold medicines together.
4. Campbell's Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup.
5. Pretending you're Michael Jordan and shooting a snotty tissue baskball into the garbage can.
6. Sympathy from anyone who will listen to you whine about the ailments that you can list off alphabetically, forward and backwards, and through charades.
7. Thinking about all the people who said "I never get sick" that you infected.
8. One cheesy made-for-tv movie is all it takes to make you smile, glaze over, and forget about your woes.
9. Pajamas all day long.
10. Remembering that with Daylight Savings Time, you are going to be sick one less hour than normal!

Feeling better now? Well I did my duty. I'm going to go watch tv now.

News from "Down There"

2005-03-31T19:55:00.000-08:00

A short stop by the English Department started what soon proved to be a series of revelations about our nether regions. Yes, I'm talking about our gentials. Please don't of think me as obsessed with the topic despite the fact that I just wrote about Bumper Balls. What I'm about to tell you about your genitalia (and surrounding area) may shock you and send you back to Sex Ed 101.

First, so you don't think I'm a pervert, the conversation started when a colleague informed me that there was a new sexually transmitted infection on the loose. Apparently a few cases of LGV (Lymphogranuloma venereum), a rare STI and strain of chlamydia typically confined to Europe, were reported in the US. Of course, as the CDC and IrishHealth.com so homophobically report, only gay men beware.

Why only gay men? I find it horrifying that our medical information centers such as the CDC could be so blatantly heterosexist. Could it be that these organizations report on gay men, because they are the most sexually responsible and vigilent about STI testing? Gay men probably comprise most of their data because more gay men than straight men get tested. (I really wish I had a link to prove that)

Anyway, it takes no stretch of the imagination as to how the train of conversation led to anuses. Particularly bleached anuses. If you've braved a glimpse at that link, you'll be surprised to discover that Laura Flynn Boyle is the Offical Patron Saint of Anus Bleaching.

It was through my quest to really get an understanding of both the process and ideology behind bleaching one's ass crack that lead me to the discovery of yet another medical marvel: Vaginal Rejuvination. What I incorrectly assumed was an orgasm, Vaginal Rejuvination takes the form of plastic surgery in order to "tighten the pussy." Meow.

While I can understand some women feeling a little looser after childbirth requesting a surgery to take them back to the glory years, I can not understand Vulvar Lipoplasty which involves "remov(ing) unwanted fat of the mons pubis and upper parts of the labia majora" or as my friend Lisa so elegantly coined it, FUP (Fatty Upper Pussy).

The Laser Vaginal Rejuvination Institute of Los Angelse promises that "liposculpturing can alleviate the unsightly fatty bulges of this area and produce an aesthetically pleasing contour." Granted I scoffed at such an absurd idea of liposuction for the crotch, but I couldn't resist checking to see if I had FUP while in the shower. This gives me a whole new issue to be nuerotic about! I'm pretty sure I'm average, but then again, I don't have much frame of reference.

To get my mind out of the gutter, I finished my search of the aburd by checking in on a fad I had heard about earlier in the day. The disturbing on so many levels trend of "suspension," which according to the only authority on the subject I could find, is "the act of...hanging the human body from (or partially from) hooks pierced through the flesh in various places around the body." What the hell are people thinking?

Has the world gone mad or is it just me? And I thought Andy Warhol was crazy!

Andy Warhol: Genius, Madman, or Idiot?

2005-03-30T20:09:00.000-08:00

As I stood in a room full of floating silver mylar pillows, I felt like a child again. It was really an idea you think of after a bong hit, but never have the resources to produce. Here, I was, not stoned, but enjoying the thrill of being in a temporary wonderland on the 5th floor of the Warhol Museum.

My fascination with Warhol had started a week earlier when Nate and I were putting in an appearance at one of his friend’s birthday parties. While making small talk about physical fitness training, I discovered a coffee table book on Warhol’s art. It seemed fitting that Warhol would emerge as a coffee table book…somebody’s got to pay the bills for The Factory, and Andy does it beyond the grave.

I admit that I never “got” Andy’s work when I was younger. So, he painted soup cans, so what? It didn’t seem mind bending, only mind numbing that now commercials could find their way into my art museum. Would I ever be in a commodity-free zone? Andy seemed to make sure that I wouldn’t.

After some resistance, I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could think of commerce as art? Then these commercial products would be beautiful and life would be beautiful and all would be in abundance. However, this idealized vision of the world is nothing more than a pathetic illusion, like putting make-up on a hag and an empty wallet in the pocket of the homeless.

What then was Andy suggesting? He could be suggesting anything, because as a society we still haven’t figured out how to make sense of a capitalist culture. Hence, Andy’s work is still fascinating because we are still largely in the dark about how to identify in a world of imitations.

After watching a PBS documentary about Andy Warhol, I was shocked to find the man was of little words, and what words he spoke made him sounds like an idiot. “This man’s a scam!” I thought. But conversely, he’s also a genius if he could make millions despite the fact that he sounded as if he had an IQ equivalent of a monkey. This is why we have terms like “idiot-savant,” and I’m grateful for it.

Andy Warhol’s The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) didn’t change my mind much. His recorded thoughts are choppy. It’s like everything for him was an afterthought without an original thought to follow. His whole life was a reproduction of art. He states in his philosophy that “Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there- I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life…” (91). How horrible to live your life not feeling real. To feel like a weak representation of life has to be one of the most depressing thoughts tripping around my brain tonight.

But as I contemplate this idea, I realize that maybe Andy sees a level of reality that we chose to ignore in order to identify as more than images. Famous rhetorician, Kenneth Burke, claims that rhetoric is more than mere persuasion to one side of an argument or another. Instead all rhetoric is persuasion to identify with something. Humans need to internalize everything and become one with it to understand it. We reject certain ideas and images from setting up camp behind our walls of identity; but truth is everything has to be filtered through us before the final cuts are made.

Why must we identify? Perhaps because without identities we are nothing but a clean and empty slate. Without language we are less than animals. Without language we have no symbols. Without symbols to differentiate between us, we have no way to discern who I am as compared to who you are.

I think Andy saw the world as a clean, symbol-resistant slate would. He never internalized the symbols; he never formed an identity. He just lived as a reproduction of an identity that wasn’t even his own.

Fascinating, but honestly, Warhol was a madman. His attributes of depersonalization confess a mental illness. Still, like the car crashes and electric chairs he painted, we all still watch him as the ghost he always was.

Got balls?

2005-03-29T14:52:00.000-08:00

When my brother called to tell me about the news back home, I couldn't believe it.

"Listen to this, my friend got truck nuts!"

"Truck nuts? What the hell are those?"

And he proceeded to tell me that "truck nuts" were model testicals one could attach to the bumper of a truck. Apparently, Josh's friend was so proud of his truck nuts that he painted veins onto the set of balls now dangling precariously close to the road. However without a picture, I had a hard time envisioning what this marvel of science could look like.

I immediately set out to Google this phenomenon and discovered that several companies market balls for for your bumper at a reasonable price. There's Nuts for Trucks and Bumper Nuts that sell the largest variety.

Oh, if you think that one size and color fits all bumpers, think again! you can get your balls in red, blue, pink, black, flesh, mocha, brown, champagne, brass, and even chrome. As BumperNuts so emphatically states, "A day of crusin around on your motorcycle is just not complete unless you have a pair of hawg nuts hanging off the back for everyone to see."

I know my day wouldn't be complete without this testicle spectacle! BumperNuts also claims that, "women love a man with a nice big one pound solid set of nuts slapped on the back of their Harley!" Count me in!

If these claims aren't enough to grab you, consider the custom giftwrapping "nut sacks" that Nuts For Trucks offers! I really couldn't make this stuff up.

Ok fellows, time to have a heart to heart (I say fellows because no woman is ever going to put testicles on her vehicle as we generally find male genitalia gross). First, who are you trying to attract with these balls attached to the rear of your car? Second, don't most men name their cars, trucks, bikes, guitars, etc. after women? Third, don't you think this is taking the midlife crisis too far?

The real question is: can we afford to let machismo go completely unchecked in this society? Is this too much indecent exposure? Ladies, should we counter with bumper cunts? How far does should this go? While I find Truck Nuts amusing, I don't necessarily want to have to explain what they are to my kids when driving down the interstate. Granted, I don't have kids and this is why.

You're invading my personal bubble!

2005-03-20T20:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, so, here I am with blogarehea of the posts. Thank god I don't have to use any of my 5-year supply of Charmin to clean up this mess! So I've been taking a look around the blog scene based on a whim inspired by a semester of research, insanity, and the nudging of a few kind bloggers. I want to know more about all of your decisions to write personal stuff on a public forum. Why do you do it? Why do I do it? Readers should know that only random people I don't know personally are aware of this blog's existence. I like to keep anonymous...as much as possible.

Still, I'm not too careful about it. But I'm slowly losing my paranoia about getting caught with my hands on the keyboard. I don't really care if my folks or my friends read it. But then again, I don't disclose anything that would really piss anyone off or destabilize any relationships. In other words, I don't take personal risks when it comes to writing here. As for worrying about stalkers, I don't feel important or interesting enough to attract one, so I think I'm in the clear there too.

Do I qualify as a "personal" writer in a public forum? Yes, and here's why. I do disclose tons of personal information in very coded ways. Anyone with an ounce of insight and interpretation skills can read between the lines of my prose and diagnose me with a disorder or four. I think blatant personal disclosure smacks of fakeness. It's like framing/narrating the personal experience makes it lose something, or takes the fun out of it for me.

Yet, I'm guilty of narrating personal experiences on several occasions. (My favorite is the Christmas Crapper Crusade, check it out if you have time). Why is it ok for me to narrate and others not? Well, I do enjoy a good story that's relatable. As an excuse, I think everyone's battled an overflowing toilet in his/her life, so readers should get a good chuckle out of my personal narration.

Ok, maybe I'm being elitist. I recognize it, admit it, apologize for it, and will try better in the future. But discovering my own writing biases and where they originate is what this experiement is partially about. Finding out if any of my writing experiences and attitudes are shared by fellow bloggers is what this experiement is partially about too. Please comment on any of this, or none of this. I promise I'll respond!

(By the way, I'm really resisting tidying this post up with an "closer" or going back to "clean up" my trains of thought derailed. I'm curious if my ramblings make sense as they stand.)

Why am i doing this?

2005-03-18T20:33:00.000-08:00

Once again, Nate has been pestering me about my inactivity on the old ball and chain (aka this blog). This blog has become an obligatory nuisance to me. I only like to write what I consider "really meaningful" posts. What you read are well conceived thoughts that ache to be shared with anonymous others...that's the promise of my blog: No shit, only shinola.

But hey, these posts don't grow on friggin trees, so all of you (Nate) are going to have to lay off a while the genius gestates her thoughts for translation onto the web medium. Would I call your house to talk about the weather? No (unless I think it's going to snow). So, don't expect drivel to come out of my finger tips for the sole purpose of regularly updated posts. I don't work that way. As I said before I like to write posts that are meaningful to me and hopefully meaningful to others.

Which brings us to Random Babblings of Nothingness. Arson, made my day by actually commenting on my blog. Being the noisy bugger that I am, I had to go check out her site and was blown away by how her experiences spoke to my own...particularly the post It Really Does Matter. I think every blogger experiences an existential crisis when it comes to negotiating one's blog with one's life. Think of Jason Schwartzman cursing in the opening scene of "I (heart) Huckabees" in regards to whether or not saving a rock really meant anything to anyone, even himself. That's how I feel about this blog. Does it really mean anything? Should it mean something? If so, what? Do I have control of that meaning?

Writing has always been a personal act for me. A kind of "For My Eyes" only relationship. But lately, it's taken on a whole new demension. There are readers other than myself which I must satisfy. I must produce or be driven into extinction. That doesn't happen in a diary. How does writing for the public change the dynamic?

These aren't questions I'm likely to answer tonight. But perhaps some bloggers would like to comment as to how blogging has changed their writing and their relationship to writing. Maybe we can produce an answer together.

Hunter S. Thompson, Why Didn't Anyone Help You?

2005-02-25T11:39:00.000-08:00

In the wake of Hunter S. Thompson’s suicide, journalists are struggling to answer the question, why did he do it? Did he end his life due to depression? Chronic pain? A domestic dispute? The American public demands a reason because they consider suicide to be a based on a rational decision to end one’s life. I have news for the American public, there is nothing rational about suicide. Those experiencing suicidal thoughts do not wake up in the morning like any other morning and decide (with the same presence of mind as any normal day) to not live anymore. This vision of suicide is a fantasy. For the suicidal person, there is no choice. All evidence becomes manipulated to reinforce the suicidal ideology in place. This is why emotional bargaining and appealing to reason with a suicidal person usually doesn’t work to change his or her mind.

In helping suicidal people, medication, therapy, and possible hospitalization are the only options. Hunter’s S. Thompson’s family members’ responses to his suicide illustrate a dangerous ignorance in providing treatment for a suicidal person. In regards to his father’s death, Hunter’s son Juan was quoted as saying “The way he chose to do it was not a surprise, but the timing was a total, total surprise,” then later adds, “He was not unhappy, he was not depressed, none of the things you would associate with someone who took his own life.” Juan Thompson’s comments demonstrate that Hunter’s suicidal ideation had been expressed to family members previously (probably often enough for the act to “not come as a surprise”); however, Juan misjudges the severity of his father’s the suicidal thoughts because his father showed no outward signs of depression. How depression manifests itself and how we think it manifests itself may be two different concepts.

Depression is characterized by a multitude of symptoms of which can present in the following ways: change in sleep, change in weight, decreased interest in previously enjoyable activities, feelings of worthlessness, feeling of helplessness, sadness and/or crying. Considering that Hunter was quoted as saying that he “wanted to go out on a high note” indicates, to me, that Hunter experienced a lack of self-worth (that he had nothing left to offer the world), a symptom of depression. Compound this depression with more recent physical stressors such as chronic pain, which is often correlated to depression, and Hunter is at high-risk for self-harm.

Hunter’s past “wild”, high-risk behaviors such as excessive drug and alcohol usage, should have put his family on code-red already, but such red-alerts were ignored, probably for the “preservation” of family relations. Hunter’s wife reports that “his suicidal talk put a strain on their relationship.” I can only imagine the emotional bargaining that occurred during these talks, like “If you loved me, you won’t shoot yourself.” I assume Hunter’s suicidal ideation was first received by his wife as a personal insult to their marriage, then progressed to a refusal to talk about the issue, and finally to a secret hope that Hunter’s suicidal feeling would “just go away” and he would “snap out of it.”

Responding the correct way to a loved one’s suicidal ideation is vital to saving a life. Suicidal thoughts are not “selfish” or intended to inflict harm on others. Suicidal thoughts are a symptom of mental illness and must be treated in the same way as other illnesses…with medical treatment. You don’t bargain a person out of having cancer, nor can you bargain someone out of having mental illness. However, both illnesses are treatable and curable.

If a person expresses suicidal ideation to you, then proceed by the following guidelines:
1. Ask, “Do you have a plan?”
2. If yes, ask for specifics about the plan. (If threat is of suicide is eminent, call 911 immediately)
3. Never bargain with the suicidal person.
4. Always offer support such as listening or going with them to get professional help.
5. If the suicidal person refuses help, insist that it is your personal responsibility to help them… and that means getting the person the help he/she deserves.
6. Don’t keep a friend’s confession of suicidal thoughts a secret, even if they ask you not to say anything. You only betray a friend by keeping silent.
7. Remember to stay firm and direct about getting the person help and reiterate your supportive position.
8. Never make moral or character judgments against the person confiding suicidal thoughts. This cognitive hijacking is confusing and painful for the person experiencing the mental illness, he or she needs help, and is asking for it.

One day mental illness will be treated with the same compassion as other illnesses because they will be understood as an illness and not as a character flaw. The first step starts with you.

Readers' Rights

2005-02-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

In writing short stories, I am often reluctant to have friends, family, or significant others read my work for fear of the question, “This is about me, isn’t it?”

No, and stop being so egotistical. These characters are fictitious, figments of my imagination. The scenarios are, likewise, nothing I’ve experienced or expect to experience. There is no way this story is about you.

If the short story in question involved relationship conflict, usually there is residual tension left between me and my personal reader, who has inserted him/herself into the piece. For instance, I once wrote a story about a woman suffering the aftermath of her boyfriend’s suicide. I showed the story to a depressed friend, who interpeted himself as the “suicide.” I insisted that the story was not about him, and after an evening of his analyzing the story as to how to clearly depicted him, I regretted ever showing him the piece.

What’s with these readers anyway? Why does it always have to be about them? Can’t it just be a story? Does everything I write have to be interpreted as autobiographical by the people in my personal life?

In fact, I’m waiting for my parents to die before I publish for fear that every fictitious parental figure will be interpreted as them and every protagonist will be assumed to be me in disguise. I don’t want to offend anyone; I just want to write.

My reaction to my readers’ reactions has sent me into isolation with my text grasped firmly at my bosom. This blog is more evidence of the same behavior. None of my friends or family know the address, and I’ve masked my identity enough to never be found by those nosy enough to “Google” me and find this site.

Clearly I am not writing for those whom I am emotionally and physically closest (with the exception of Nate who is my boyfriend and “blogfather”). I am writing for the reader who cannot attach any personal meaning to my prose…and I like it that way.

In other words, I like a reader who does his/her own thing while I do mine. If the reader relates to my writing, I’m pleased; but it’s his/her own doing. I didn’t intend it because; hey, I don’t know you.

When you start writing for readers in your personal life, those readers demand entrance to the text. As a writer, I set up a strong defensive line to block them out. However, they just ignore me. They continue to insist that “This is about me.” If I reject their claims that I purposefully wrote them into the story, they will claim that I unconsciously did it. The worst part about it is that they demand that I, the writer, read the text like they, the readers, do.

“But it’s mine” says the writer.
“But it’s ours” say the readers.

And this tug-o-war over ownership continues. Who gets to stake a claim to this story?

Then I read Lad Tobin’s “Reading Students, Reading Ourselves: Revising the Teacher’s Role in the Writing Class” (College English 53 March 1991) and discovered that personal relationships between readers and writers changes both how writers write and readers read. The teacher, knowing the student personally, interprets the student’s text using pieces of external information picked up in class along with the teacher’s own perceived influence on the student. The teacher reads more into the student’s writing than perhaps what the student actually intended on saying with her words.

Tobin says that teachers “create the meaning of our students' text, particularly if this creative act is largely the result of our unconscious biases and associations.” Tobin illustrates that teachers don’t like to admit co-authorship of their students texts because “it violates most of our fundamental beliefs about the objectivity of the teacher, the integrity of the text, and the rights of the individual author.”

Do you share these beliefs?
1. Readers should remain objective in reading any text. A reader cannot place him/herself within the text.
2. The text has integrity and says what it means.
3. The author has exclusive rights to determine the text’s meaning.

As a self-proclaimed New Rhetorist and future composition teacher, I work to destroy these beliefs. I tell students that language is socially constructed, meaning no one person can claim ownership, but rather communication (and therefore meaning, knowledge, and truth) is created relationally.

Now I promote this New Rhetorist position, yet here I am acting out the antithesis of my "so-called beliefs" by not only denying my readers their rights to interpret my texts, but also by denying that their interpretation is as valid as my own. My readers are in the text whether I want them there or not….and they have equal right to the text.

I write for readers, not so that I can dictate my world view to others, but to communicate, to share, and to figure out this crazy world together. It’s somehow comforting to know that we all fit into a book regardless of age, size, background, or ideology.

Our combined efforts put words on a page.

Is Sexuality a Drag?

2005-02-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

Well, it's time to confess (according to Foucault, the priviledged Western method of knowing) that I have been not posting due the demands of my graduate classes, particularly Queer Theory.

"What the hell is Queer Theory?" you might ask, then imagine my homework assignments involve watching Will and Grace. "Is this acadamy's way of converting English majors to homosexuality?", others might inquire. No, not exactly. It's Queer theory not Queer practice! (But do take a moment to imagine what that might look like!)

If anything, Queer Theory questions our understanding of "sexuality" by exploring the "history" of sex (I use quotes because at this level of theory, nothing can be taken at face value.) I've just spent a few weeks reading Foucault's History of Sexuality (a title which is deconstructed by the book's conents), and now I'm not sure which end is up.

Today Judith Butler, threw me for another loop in her article "Imitation and Gender Subordination". According to Butler, we may not have identities which represent our "true" selves. All our identities actually amount to are compulsive imitations of an imitation.

For those who are familiar with the term simulacra (a copy without an original), Nutler says we may be just that. However, Butler's ideas fit well with this blog's own explorative title, "How am I not Myself?" It's difficult to demonstrate without drawing pictures, but let's say that you are an "I" (a being) and you are also a "myself" (representation of "I"). You'd think that "I" was the origin and "myself" the expression of that origin, right?

Wrong. Butler, says that the existence of an original "I" is an illusion of "myself" (the compulsive performance of "I"). If Butler's correct, then we aren't agents ("I"s), but rather abstracted personifications ("myself"s). Perhaps we are all so caught up with solidifying our identities (representations of "I" and imitations of imitations) because the imitation is all that we have. Should we spend less time worrying about "who we are" and more time acting authentically (whatever that means)? Is there a life without identity?

In other words, I feel like I just got off of the carinval ride, the Zipper, and now I want to puke. Hopefully, by sharing some of my torture with you, you can forgive me for not posting more regularly. Then again, after this, you may never read this blog again. Let's hope that's not the case.

Time To Give A Shout Out

2005-01-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

I've been self-absorbed this whole blogging experience, so it's time to give kudos to those fellow bloggers who continue to inspire me.

First, if it weren't for my b-friend, Nate, I wouldn't have a blog. He's incessant threats of "This is going in my blog, you know" forced me to have my own bargaining tool. It's like having a WMD to counter another nation's WMD. But his blog rocks the casbah, go visit him at Saint Nate's Blog.

Then we have One Child Left Behind.Most bloggers I've surfed need no explaination, most link to him because he's hilarious. I can't get enough stories about his Zach Braff jealousy and his Romanian wife. If that doesn't grab ya, He's an all around good guy living in Seattle who wants to be your friend (maybe, if you're cool).

One Child Left Behind, led me to Life's a Trip, an equally hilarious glimpse into the life of a guy who's queasy over the idea that his parents are still having sex. I check this guy's site as much as my boyfriend's I have to admit...I'm an addict.

Since I'm a feminist, I can't wait to give a shout out to favorite lady bloggers: Left is Loose, Red to Blue, Grows Online, and last but not least Last Girl On Earth. These women make me proud to continue on the tradition of blogging.

Here's to everyone who didn't make the list: Listen, I'm a compulsive reader, so if you want to send me links to your blog, and you think your blog meets my standards (check above blogs to discover what those standards are) go for it. I'm dying to read something worthwhile as I see enough crap on blogexplosion to last me a life time. You would actually be doing me (and other readers) a favor by posting good suggestions below.

Also, go bid on my McNabb Jersey my rent's due on the Feb 1!

A Good Editor is Hard to Find

2005-01-24T07:36:00.000-08:00

Some famous rhetorician once observed that some writers have the unfortunate and disabling habit of "tweaking their work in progress to death."

I don't have that problem. I'm like Mozart, everything just comes out perfectly brilliant the first time. Or so I thought.

It wasn't until last night that I discovered how dreadfully in need of an editor I was.

The Scene: A 24-hour short story contest. I had just spent about 2 hours concocting what I thought to be pure genius in the required 1000 word limit. Proud of my accomplishment, I emailed it off to Nate to tell me what he thought of it. I expected nothing less than unadulterated praise; however, the uncomfortable silence on the phone indicated that, "Houston, We have a problem!"

I listened to Nate hem and haw a bit before he said, "Listen, do you want me to be nice, or do you want me to be truthful?"

Considering that our relationship is based on trust, I chose the latter option.

"It needs some work." he declared.

"Ok, do what you have to do to it and call me back." I hung up the phone with a sense of dread that was exacerbated by sixty minutes of my phone not ringing. When I could wait no longer, I called him back. He was still only half way through the text.

"But it's only 1000 words." I thought. After he was done with it, the word count dropped to 860.

"Ok, first, in dialogue you can just write 'he said.' Why all the 'he declared forcefully' or 'she creamed hysterically'? He 'said' will do just fine."

"But he didn't just 'said' anything," I defended my characters. ""He 'said' it in a certain way!"

Nate just ignored me and continued, "Then there's a lot of telling, not showing. So Tina's nauseated. Don't tell me, show me."

Truth was, I did both which brought us to the next point: redundancy. Not only did Nate find the phrase "the sound of" repeated three times in three concurrent sentences, but also he showed me that I was beating my theme to death.

As Nate decimated every sentence I wrote, my bubble burst. I was not a very good writer. In fact, I better face it, I suck. With every change of verb tense, I began to resent Nate for being so damn critical. I blamed him for noticing all the flaws in a "flawless" piece.

Poor Nate, most boyfriends spend their whole lives avoiding the potentially dangerous situation of critiquing their girlfriends. I might as well have modeled a a dress for him and asked, "Does this make me look fat?" (The correct answer to that is: "Here, have some chocolate.")

Nate handled this situation like a pro, as well he should, he edits for a living. I handled it like a spoiled child demanding an Ooompaloompa at the chocolate factory. I sulked. My emotions overcame my reason as they are noted to do on occasion.

I felt that he had taken every sentence from me and made it his own. Every paragraph reeked of an editor. I felt like a phony, a fraud. My writing was only good because someone fixed it.

As I sat begrudgingly making the changes he suggested, I realized that the story was much better. It flowed nicely now. It had gained vitality through editing. And the best part was, the story was still mine...but with the help of a good editor it became better.

Nate kept asking me if the story I wrote about an outgrown relationship was a metaphor of our own relationship. (Men tend to read themselves into everything.) Actually, the aftermath of the story is more of a metaphor for our relationship. I've spent my whole life feeling perfect and complete alone. Then I invited Nate into my life and found that loving him improved me.

Sometimes I resist because I still cling to that vein of independence instilled by years of singledom which declares, "I don't need anyone, I can do it on my own." Which I can; however, like every writer doesn't need an editor, every writer is better off for having an editor who is willing to strengthen the work in progress and make the writer shine brightly on the bestseller list.

Nate is a good editor and a good man. His dedication to me is commendable and publishable.

McNabb This Jersey

2005-01-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

What am I doing proudly displaying an autographed Dovovan McNabb Jersey? Well, I'm having a closet cleaning experience and I want one of my faithful readers to have first dibs on the bidding. Of course, there's a story behind this jersey, and that increases it's worth:

"We're two young, happenin' lovers on a Friday night, sure, let's go to Bingo!" Nate acquiesced a little too easily to my demands. I had planned a strong offensive front of persuasive arguments in order to get him to go to the Newman Center's Benefit Bingo with me.

"Top prize is an autographed McNabb Jersey" I wheedled unnecessarily because he was already sold on the idea when it was just plain ole bingo.

The McNabb Jersey meant nothing to me at first. I was in it for the $500 cash prize promised to college students only. However, that was Monday. By Friday rumors had been circulating around campus, particularly around my office, about the worth of this McNabb Jersey.

"$3,000" my employee, Amy, knowingly informed me was this jersey's worth.

"No kidding." I replied, then added, "I'm going to win that jersey."

Amy looked at me as if I was crazy, but I'm used to my employees regarding me with the look psychiatrists reserve for their patients. Then they realize I'm serious and that their job today is something personally humiliating like walking around campus in a bedsheet saying "Whooose under your sheets?" as they hand out condoms. (Hey, that's a clever outreach for sexual health awareness during Halloween!)

As you can probably tell, my employees are dying to see me fall from power, which is why it wasn't surprising to see any of them forsaking a Friday night frat party to watch me NOT win the jersey at bingo. I talked incessantly about winning the jersey all week in order to give them greater pleasure when the time came for my own "timber".

As the time approached closer to Friday, Nate and I started dreaming about what we would do with the jersey if we happened to win it. Nate said he would pay off his student loans. I was less practical, I wanted to go on a cruise. We did what any lower-middle class couple does when buying a lottery ticket: entertain whimsical fantasies.

We almost didn't go that night, despite the week's worth of anticipation. It was cold and rainy, and I was lacking in funds. I always back out of plans last minute causing Nate to go bonkers at times. Can I help it that I'm a bit of a commitment-phobe for plans?

However, we did go, and so did about 300 other eager bingo players. The Newman Center was busting at the seems with those dreaming of winning an autographed McNabb Jersey.

You had to buy a special bingo card to win the McNabb jersey. Most people bought at least five separate cards. Nate bought two. I bought one...with my last dollar I might add. The goal was to spell a giant "M" on the card, and that was going to take some time.

My card filled up quickly. For over 4 turns I had only one space remaining to complete the "M". It was "B 12", which quickly became my mantra. I closed my eyes and just waited for "B 12" to be called by the pimply teen I was sending on missionary work in Mexico through this fundraiser. Nate eyed my card anxiously, long ago abandoning his own card when he saw how close I was.

Then, I heard it... "B 12".

Someone yelled "BINGO!!!", and I was heartbroken...until I realized it was Nate calling the Bingo for me as I was in a state of shock. Tears were streaming down my face. People gathered around to congratulate me. My employees bowed in respect. Nate hugged me. We were going home winners tonight.

This is the first time I've ever actually won anything of real value, except Nate's heart but I wouldn't put a price tag on that. The problem is that I don't really appreciate the jersey like a true fan would. I look at it hanging in a garment bag and think dollar signs. I want someone who really wants the shirt to have it...for a price of course. I need to pay rent too!

So what are you waiting for Eagles fans? Go bid on Ebay today!

Tonight, Walt Whitman Wants To Get Intimate With You

2005-01-12T20:06:00.000-08:00

Sorry Nate, but tonight I'm getting intimate with Walt Whitman. Me and Walt used to be tight. His collected works sits idly on my bookshelf, visitors barely notice the volumous work amidst the other anthologies and such. No one would ever know by it's dusty covers that I fantasize about Whitman taking a role in the bedroom, perhaps during foreplay, perhaps post-coitus, doesn't really matter as long as he's in there somewhere. Most men don't like a threesome when another man is involved...especially if that other man has strong gay tendencies. But can Whitman be blamed that he loves everyone?

No one, and I mean no one, is excluded from Whitman's love. City dwellers, rural folk, giants, midgets, men, women, and children, even those not even born yet...Whitman loves every one of you. Whitman even loves inanimate objects like the Brooklyn ferry and the smallest most insignificant pieces of nature, such as leaves of grass. In fact, Whitman is as omni-loving as God.

Which explains why I have a religious experience every time I read his poems. Whitman speaks to me...literally. He calls out to me before I am even the conception of a drunken night of passion in the backseat of a Chevy Nova. And because he cares about our shared experiences (even before I experience them), I care about them too.

I might have been the only 16-year old with a Walt Whitman centerfold, and that's ok. I've come to accept that this much older man seduced me while I was young and turned me into an English major. However, I've turned this misfortunate flight of fancy with the Humanities into a career based on reading books...you read for free (suckers) and I get paid to read. Pretty cool, eh? Whitman will never lead you astray.

So fellow bloggers, let Whitman seduce you tonight. Let him whisper in your ear how much he loves the scent of your armpit (something your usual lover is not likely to do). Let him tell you that the scores or hundreds of years between you don't matter (he knows how to make a long distance relationship work in both space and time!). Let him connect with you on a deeper, spiritual level (who says homosexuals should be banned from the clergy?).

Then come back to me a with a little spring in your step. Come back to me a little kinder cause I'm going to need your mercy when grad school kicks in and this blog isn't updated weekly. Remember to use Whitman's Power of Love.

Baby Boom

2005-01-06T16:04:00.000-08:00

As I sat with an old high school buddy at Perkins on Christmas Eve, all I could do was stare at her protruding stomach. Her breasts were much larger too. Had it just been a few extra pounds put on since summer from too many chili dogs, I might not have even noticed. But what lie beneath that stomach was not necessarily fat, but a five month old fetus wedged between us.

I am comparable to the last unicorn in my womb's stubborn refusal to swell like a watermelon. I had gotten used to being the last woman standing to catch the bouquet. But now that all my friends are fertile and reproducing, I find myself wondering where my farmer is.

Usually at these Christmas Eve diner dates, Dawn and I spend a majority of the time swapping gossip about the losers we went to high school with. "She's on her third kid and she's only 24!" Dawn would sneer in disdain of a former classmate. "Oh the humanity!" I would concur. And then we would simultaneously shutter at the thought of throwing our lives away to be shackled to diapers and babies when our careers where at stake.

But that was a few years ago, when we were both single and traveling extensively in failed attempts to "find ourselves." Dawn had turned to the dark side over two years ago when she announced that she was engaged to be married. Feeling betrayed by the one woman who I assumed would be drinking cocktails with me at swank single bars until at least our 40's, I didn't attend the wedding.

Now that I've forgiven her the marriage infraction, she shows up here plump as a sugarplum expecting us to talk about grad school and life and all I can do is think that the baby is being left completely out of the conversation. So when you have a guest at the table who won't talk, you try to coax them along with questions.

"So did you guys come up with a name yet?"
"You have crib yet?"
"What color is the nursery?"
"Natural or epideral?"

The baby's mother, my old childhood chum, was looking perturbed by all my needless questioning. "What about your life?" she'd say.

"Who cares about my life, you're carrying a baby inside you!!" I wanted to scream. I can't talk to you like a human being when there's someone else inside you listening in. Every time I curse, I envision the unborn child sticking her newly formed hands and placing them over her newly formed ears while she cringes. I was convinced that whatever I said this night at Perkins was somehow permanently screwing up the kid's development. Maybe because I said "fuck" too many times, little Dawny Jr. would somehow lose the ability to self-soothe when eventually born.

My last experience with a pregnant woman was very damaging to my psyche. I had gone out to visit an eight-month pregnant friend and her husband only to find myself in pre-baby, nesting Hell. There is nothing worse than shopping for a crib and a changing table with a pregnant woman ready to pop.

"What do you think of eggshell blue or ladyslipper pink for the changing table?" I was asked by this other pregnant friend.

"Who cares? It's for changing dirty diapers." I responded only to get a death glare and some comments about how one day when I finally was a mother, I would understand.

Maybe that's what I hate the most about my friends' slow descents into parenthood, the condescension it has spawned for me, the single and infertile one. Where once I was idealized by my friends for being a free-wheeling, no strings attached kindred spirit; I am now just a silly, immature little girl who can't get her act together enough to settle down and start a family. For this paradigm change, I blame pregnancy.

When I first started dating Nate we used to fantasize about our children's names. "How about Milton for a boy?" I'd ask only to see the look of horror on his face. He wanted to name the boy after a tragic Greek hero.

We never did come to an agreement because all desire to procreate was effectively quelled one Sunday afternoon at Hawk Mountain when a small tribe of 6-8 year olds and their slave parents took over the mountain, effectively scaing off all wildlife for miles. Nate and I were forced to deeply examine our longing for offspring and unanimously voted against the idea of reproducing.

Every time a baby screams in the movie theater or a small child throws a tantrum at a conjoining table in a restaurant, we chant our mantra "No children." Then we kiss and think about how clever we are to have avoided the path to ultimate destruction.

Except how long is it going to be until one of us changes our mind? I'm sure these haggard looking parents that I see dragging their children in tow had once just as vehemently announced the dates for a vasectomy that never took place. Hell, I can't even get Nate to buy dander mittens for his cat to relieve my allergies, and that doesn't even require an appointment. His chances of actually getting a snip job are slim to none if it requires scheduling.

I'd take matters into my own hands, but Planned Parenthood is only willing to allow reversible birth control options for those who don't want children now, cause they think all women will want children later. Somebody sterilize me, puhlease!

I say all of this with a tinge of guilt, because one day I might change my mind and want a child. I might one day want to "fulfill my womanly purpose" on this earth. I might one day look at Nate and fantasize about a little version of the two of us running around reeking havoc.

I think I'm just jaded because I've been ousted from the spotlight of my friend's stage, usurped by an unborn understudy. Where once being a single, childless adult made me a star, now in the light of my new parent/friends makes me pathetic, unrelatable, and an outsider. It alienates me from the herd, and I feel like I did back in middle school: alone and desperately seeking not to be picked last for the team.

"These are uncharted waters..." are how my pep talks begin when talking to the endangered species of single, childless female friends remaining. "...Our parents were popping out kids at 19 and 20, the world has never seen a woman choosing her own path before. We have to be strong, write our own histories, and make new meanings for womanhood that don't necessarily include babies and husbands."

As I say all of these things I am sincerely doubting them, wondering if this is just a carefully constructed delusion I've created in order to live with the mess I've made of my life. Or do I really mean it? Can I really mean it?

The Christmas Crapper Crusade

2004-12-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

My weeklong Christmas vacation can be only be understood by what happened on the last day, the grand finale. It was around 4pm when my older brother and I arrived back at my apartment after a week of travelling around Pennsylvania visiting our dysfunctional family for the holidays. After sleeping on a couch for five days, eating a chinese buffet on christmas eve with our chainsmoking mother, and listening to my father cough out multiple dramatic "last breaths", Josh and I were more than ready to to relax at my house without the complications of neurotic relatives before his departure to Iowa the next morning.

As we sat down with our respective books bought at Barnes and Nobles specifically for this evening of rest and relaxation, Josh informs me that he's hasn't shit in three days and suggests Indian food for dinner as the cure for his constipation. So we head out for a "Taste of India" in suburban Philadelphia complete with five-star spices aimed at making you feel the burn on the way in and on the way out.

On the car ride home, the Indian food had already taken effect by crashing through our intestines like a tsumani. We fought over who would get to use the commode first. I won first rights, and in retrospect I believe that was God's divine grace shining down on me. My brother took God's wrath.

Josh practically pulled me from the restroom to perform what he later discribed as "prison sex" with a 12" x 3" Lincoln Log of Human Waste. (I know the dimensions only by his diagram). I noticed after about 15 minutes of grunting and 10 minutes of silence that perhaps something might have gone amuck in my bathroom.

Jokingly, I yelled from the living room "You didn't clog the toilet, did you?"

The suction release of a plunger and a gurgle from the general direction of the bathroom answered my query. I went to the door to investigate the sounds.

What I found was my brother hunched over a close to overflowing, toilet bowl full of what appeared to be chocolate pudding...except it wasn't chocolate pudding. He was grimacing in painful mix of humilation and nausea.

"Oh my god, what have you done?" I exclaimed.

My brother started to explain in great detail the triumphant squeeze of death he had delivered to this formidable opponent in the toiletbowl who still continued to taunt him. He was delvering quick strokes to the plunger, which was dangerously close to splashing dirty tush water on my floor.

"Stop!" I yelled envisioning the clean up work that this tragedy would inspire, "You're gonna need a coat hanger, that plunger isn't going to do it!"

I returned a few moments later with the ONLY wire coat hanger I own (I prefer plastic hangers). In a joint sibling effort we constructed it to resemble a snake that would wrench the dreaded clog loose. My brother went to the bowl and plunged the hanger deep inside the fowl, dark water.

"I think I got it!" he exclaims emphatically and starts to pull out the hanger to examine the bounty. He had caught a trout sized turd. Upon seeing the mammoth size of his excrement, he shrieked and set it back free into the dirty seas of my plugged up toilet bowl.

With the culprit dislodged, we expected the tank to now flush. The toilet continued to refuse.

"Go get some Liquid Plumber, quick!" Josh now commands me. Normally, I would not take orders from my sibling, but this war againt the septic system needed leadership and I was more than willing to release control over to him. I hopped in the car, drove to the 7-11, and returned with Liquid Plumber.

The problem with Liquid Plumber is that YOU CAN'T PUT IT IN THE TOILET!!! Of course we thought the bottle was lying. Why wouldn't you be able to put it int hte toilet if it was "safe on all pipes"? We called the questions hotline on the bottle, but apparently there was no one there at 8pm to answer questions about our plumbing emergency. So we started outsourcing for information. We called our parents, our friends, anyone who might have battled a surly toilet like mine. There were no answers.

We discovered that in the face of an overflowing toilet, most Americans have no clue on what to do. When humans failed us, we turned to the Internet. However, there was only more of the same information: use a plunger or a closet auger.

Then I found one site that had something new to say: "Dump three tablespoons of Palmolive in the bowl, plunge, and flush." TWENTY-EIGHT testimonal comments were posted for this fail safe method. Excited for delverance from this hell, we began squeezing dish soap in the bowl as we prayed.

As Josh resumed plunging, a volcano of soap suds erupted in the toiletbowl. Dirty suds oozed over the rim of the bowl and onto the floor. "Oh my god!" we said in hysterical unison as we assessed what to do with the now, more complicated problem on our hands.

"Well at least the soap suds obscure the view of the filth below!" Josh shrugged off the disaster. He was obviously mentally defeated by the shit that refused to budge. Then, just when I thought he was beat, he discovered some inward resolve that I have never seen in him before. "Get me a cup or a bowl or something. I'm going to empty this fucker out!" he exclaimed.

Over the course of the next half hour my brother ran bowls of shit water down the fire escape and threw them in the lawn. I swear I heard "Eye of the Tiger" playing softy in the background as he shuttled those bowls of filth up and down the stairs. Finally, when the toilet was devoid of suds and shit. He resumed plunging again. We poured several pots of boiling salt water down the bowl.

At this point, although the bowl looked clean, it still wouldn't flush so we admitted defeat. We would have to rest it out and call a plumber in the morning.

The next morning, on the way to a local coffee shop to releave ourselves in public restrooms, my brother informs me that reading the book "Life of Pi" gave him the courage to bail out the shit water. "Here, Pi ate shit and I was afraid to touch shit." he explained, "I knew then what I had to do." Then he adds, "I really hope your bathroom is going to be ok."

And here's the moral of the story: Reading is fundamental.

Actually, the moral of the story is that despite a lifetime of rivalry and stunted emotional growth from a shared childhood, when disaster strikes your siblings are there to fight along side you. Hopefully everyone reading this story used Christmas as a time to develop deeper bonds of trust and commeraderie with their brothers and sisters over this holiday season...and that it's didn't take Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poop to bring you closer together!

ps. My toilet miraculously works now.

I Am Woman, Watch Me Write

2004-12-07T19:49:00.000-08:00

I am told that women are forced to choose between writing and fulfilling their "traditional" roles of marriage and raising families. I am told by published women writers that writing is a marriage to the word processor, and that husband is a jealous one. I am also told by women who wish to be writers, that they cannot find the time between packing school lunches, working, making dinner for the kids, and then attending to the dishes, laundry, dusting, etc, to write a single page towards this big dream of being a writer.

I am told these things after I have just read Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own." Ladies, do we still not have a room of our own? Do we not have a figurative or literal space to grow, to relax, to read, or to write? Ladies, you complaints make me wonder, are we seeking a room for leisure or a room for writing?

Leisure is a fallacy. If we required it to write, no books would get written. It is no small wonder why published writers equate writing to discipline, to being at a job. For those who write exclusively, writing is not done out on the deck while sipping gin and tonics in your bikini. It is done laboriously. That which requires labor, by definition ceases to be leisure.

So let us expunge this silly notion that we need leisure to write, or that writing is leisure. No, writing is more labor for the overtaxed woman, which might be why she finds so many excuses not to write.

However, while writing may labor, that does not exclude it from being pleasurable. As Thomas Carlyle once stated "Work is Worship," an occupation should be spiritually enrapturing. Tell that to the gas station attendant or the burger flipper, right? Granted in life we make consessions for shitty occupations out of economic survival and the need for health care; but our labor of writing fulfills our need for contenction with the universal system of symbols that connect all langauge speakers, and thus is a spiritual revival.

Why am I talking all this high and mighty talk about writing? Partially to inspire you to see yourself as the ideal writer you want to be. But now, I want to tell you the about the type of writer that you currently are.

I have yet to meet a woman who hasn't kept a journal from practically the day she could write. I still have all my journals dating back to the 4th grade and keep one to date. What goes in these journals?

OUR LIVES.

We write our lives down without thought to the labor entailed. We write because we have to tell our diaries about our hopes, fears, dates, and philosophies. We write to make sense of the events that happen. We write about the wounds we've endured and the joys we've experienced. Our diaries have seen our darkest night and our brightest day.

When we can't physically write down what has happened, we compose an entry in our minds. For many women whose privacy has been invaded by spouses and kids, this is "mind writing" may be the only writing you do...but you are still writing.

Women are writing beings to the core of our existence. We can not live without it. We are made to believe that published writing is the only writing that has any worth. Does that mean that the thousands of pages you've already written are worthless if they are not mass produced and sold at market? Does not having your name on the New York Times Bestseller list make you not a writer?

I want every women who reads this to take my words to heart. You are worthy. You are a writer. Our writing takes place in so much secrecy. We clutch it to our breasts and trap it in our minds for fear that someone is going to take it away from us. Someone is going to make us feel less than worthy for writing what we feel, writing what we know.

I don't want to write that way anymore. No one can take away our words. Our words are who we are. It is time we start believing that both our words and ourselves are worthy of being heard and seen and read, and loved and experienced by all.

The New and Improved ME

2004-11-29T11:32:00.000-08:00

Today, I went where no man has gone before....into my refridgerator, which was acting more like a morgue for dead vegetables. There came the point when I actually considered buying a new fridge and throwing out the tomb of inedibles in an effort to avoid cleaning it out. It was time for action, any action would do.

While avoiding any serious cleaning involving soaps and sponges, I mangaged to rid my fridge of some very odious items. Actually this battle with the fridge was primarily about one particular item: a crockpot full of chili from several months ago. I have been contemplating how to rid myself of this chili for months, but it's half liquid/ half solid consistency made it's disposal problematic (ie. a trashbag wasn't going to hold this toxic mess). My options were:
1. Throw out the crockpot, chili and all.
2. Throw the chili out in the yard and hope it decomposes, then boil the crockpot to disinfect.
3. Freeze the chili and chisel it out of the crockpot to avoid fumes and spillage.
4. Dump the gross juicy sludge down the drain with careful straining, then chuck the solid matter into a triple lined garabage bag.

I chose option 4, and honestly I don't know why I drug my feet on its disposal for so long. It's like having a loose tooth as a kid and being really scared to get it pulled. You'd cry and hide in a toy box to avoid your father, whose fingers looked like fleshy pliers. Then after all the bribery and tears, you finally get the 30 seconds of yank over with, and discover what a silly git you were being all along. But at least now you have 50 cents and some ice cream to soothe your humiliation and toothless gum.

No fridge fairy came out and put a quarter under my pillow for being such a brave chili extractor, but I feel rewarded nonetheless. For starters, my boyfriend will have one less thing to be critical about. He told me yesterday because I reused a pair of earplugs (which I must use to drown out his incessant snoring) that I had the personal habits that would make a monkey blush. He's right to some extent. I have been known to move out of apartments and forgo security deposits because the cleaning had gotten "out of hand".

For christmas this year, I wish everyone would chip in and purchase me maid service for a year. But no, my family would have nothing to tease me about if it weren't for the dustbunnies the size of tumbleweeds blowing through my living room. I guess I'm going to have to swiffer the damn place myself.

If cleanliness is next to godliness, then I am in Hell and enjoying the stay. Granted, I am embarrassed about my car (which is worse than the fridge), my bathroom (which "soapscum" doesn't even begin to describe), my bedroom (which is littered with clothes, tissues, and earplugs), my kitchen (which is used only for decoration), and my living room (which is so dusty that I fear wearing white). But, my loved ones know what they are in store for when they visit. This is my house, I pay the bills and I will be as messy as I want to be!

The truth of the matter is that I don't want to be this piggish. I'd rather be Martha Steward (sans the orange jumpsuit and prison sentence), with an arsenal of cleansing products and homemade decorative pillows. I'd like just once to be able to cook something not from a box. Just once, I would like to bake cookies and banana bread and swap recipes with the local moms. But I am the most undomesticated woman alive. This should be a badge of pride in the Feminist Age, but instead it's a scarlet letter. I make a lousy wife, but worse yet I make a lousy me.

So, as of today, I swear that I will take small steps to improve my domestic survival skills. I will cook REAL meals (or at least get over my fear of cooking chicken). I will never let leftovers rule my refridgerator again. I will take great pride in making my bed and sweeping my floors. I will be a new and improved me.

My boyfriend is more Liberal Quaker than I am

2004-11-16T19:17:00.001-08:00

According to Beliefnet.com's "What faith are you?" quiz results, my boyfriend is 3% more Liberal Quaker than I am. How can this be??? I've been going to a Friends Meeting for Worship for 11 years (granted some of those years were nonpracticing), and he merely had a small trist with some Quakers about a year ago. So how can I, with a life time of Quaker beliefs under my belt, rank lower than he? Am I losing my faith?

Ok, so maybe I'm overreacting. I did score 97% Liberal Quaker on the quiz, but he scored 100% Liberal Quaker. I scored 100% Unitarian Universalists. I thought Unitarians were a bunch of confused people who wanted to believe in god, but couldn't make up their minds enough to determine any of the actual details about god, the afterlife, the purpose of this whole mess, etc. Unitarians are like John Kerry...Flip-Floppers. But apparently, I too, can 100% not make up my goddamn mind about religion. I should just come to terms with my own indeterminancy.

Scary, that not too far down the percentage trail ranked secular humanism (70%) and nontheism (49%). I am not only just wavering on the issue, but also have strong atheist tendancies. Am I just dangling over the pits of Hell, or what? Of course, I don't believe in Hell, but I guess I'll discover if that's true when I die and suddenly feel hot pokers being shoved up my ass as punishment for my lack of faith.

I live by one code, "do good deeds." I don't do them for eternal rewards or a pat on the back from Jesus, I do them because I believe all people should do good deeds. We'd all be happier, society would run smoothly, and life would be a box of chocolates.

I once told my Fundamentalist Christian friend my belief that, if there was a heaven, then I would go there because I was a good person. She soon informed me how very wrong I was.

"The only way you're getting to heaven is by accepting Jesus Christ as your Personal Savior" she vehemently corrected me.

"So if I do good deeds and am a good person, it doesn't matter because I don't accept Jesus Christ as my Personal Savior?" I responded.

"That's right." she said then invited me to church for the intended salvation of my endangered soul.

I took her up on the offer, because I had a moment of weakness. I thought, "She could be right...then what? All this good deeds stuff for hot pokers in the end? I better go to church and straighten myself out."

So I went to a nondenominational community church for the first time. As I said before I'm 97% Liberal Quaker and my experience in a place of worship has everything to do with uncomfortable silence for a hour followed by a peace rally; and nothing to do with preachers, singing gospels, or for that matter the Bible.

As I sat in a warehouse overflowing with metal folding chairs with other nondenominational Christian believers, I thought "I do not belong here". They all knew the songs and were gleefully singing along. Some even looked enraptured. They swung their hands in the air as if being literally marionetted by God, himself. The preacher asked us if we had accepted Jesus in to our lives. He blamed us for not opening our hearts to Jesus. He told us to pray to God for answers.

Then he he said what struck like a dagger into my heart... "Some of you here tonight are spiritually dead."

He was talking about me. I was spiritually dead. Or just 100% Universal Unitarian. Either way, I was fucked eternally.

So, I went back to doing good deeds. It was working for me before. It works for me now. I have a creed I live by and it goes something like this:

I believe that something or someone observes us in our daily actions and is pleased or displeased, but never angry.
I believe that we humans haven't a clue as to what is true in this world or beyond and that all of our musings are just speculation.
I believe that your faith shouldn't impose on other's faith, and that all faiths should help unify rather than divide people.
I believe the children are our future, teach tehm well and let them lead the way. (sorry couldn't help myself)
I believe in creating as much joy as you can and loving everyone, even if that's hard sometimes.
I believe that God doesn't judge anyone, in the end he just enlightens you by uniting your soul with Its. (Then you won't believe what an incredible asshole you were in life, but that doesn't matter now cause everything's ok)
I believe that until that blessed union with God happens, try not to make a jerk out of yourself in this life.
And I believe in doing good deeds.

So why don't you do just that? Go do good deeds. Believe whatever you want.

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be jailbirds

2004-11-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

On AOL’s top stories for the day, I discovered the article “More Women in Prison Than Ever.” After seeing Chicago and reading Wally Lamb’s Couldn’t Keep It To Myself: Women’s Stories from the York Correctional Institution, I have become quite interested in reasons for women’s incarceration and expected this article to further enlighten me.

Instead, it frightened me. Not because I felt more likely now to be incarcerated as a woman, but because this article states that at the close of 2003, 1,368,866 men were in prison. That meant in terms of the US male population, 1 out of 109 men were currently incarcerated. However, a closer examination of the facts on the US Department of Justice webpage revealed that AOL’s statistics were actually misleading. 1,368,866 men are imprisoned in Federal and State prisons; however, add men imprisoned in local jails (691,301) and you arrive at 2,025,401 total men incarcerated CURRENTLY in the US.

In fact more men are currently incarcerated in the United States than people in this country who have AIDS (886,575) or cancer (1,334,100). Why, then, aren’t we considering incarceration as the biggest health risk to our nation? Should we at least be wearing black and white striped ribbons or bracelets in memory of these imprisoned men? But truth be told, I don’t think anyone’s noticed the incarceration epidemic we have in this country. We didn’t seem to notice that approximately 1 out of 50 men disappear into the prison system!

If I were a man, I’d be more concerned about the potential to be imprisoned than contracting a chronic illness for my odds would be better with the diseases. By contrast, only 1 out of every 1,613 women is currently incarcerated. How does one account for this disparity? Are women committing fewer crimes? Are we less deviant by nature? Is it that we don’t get caught? I don’t know, nor will I speculate. I will speculate that our prison system is swelled like a stuffed pig.

If incarceration affects this much of the population, then perhaps we need to make the cure for violence a higher priority. Incarceration is not the cure, it is merely a poorly wrapped bandage on the greater wound of society. Someone needs to start taking responsibility, so I say Mama (since you’re less likely to go to prison), don’t let your babies grow up to be jailbirds! Boys, heed my warning and obey the law and you will dramatically increase your chances of not living behind bars. But it’s not that simple is it? Anyone have any suggestions?

A Day Late and A Dollar Short

2004-11-04T16:07:00.000-08:00

Forgive me, O’ Anonymous readers for missing the beat yesterday. I have a good excuse; I was in a state of paralyzing shock over the results of Tuesday’s election. Or in more clinical terms, I suffered from Post-Traumatic Election Syndrome. When I urged you to vote Tuesday, I should have been more specific… Go out and vote for Kerry.

I had a lot invested in this election. I didn’t participate in any MoveOn bake sales or put a bumper sticker on my car, but I did register Democratic for the first time in three presidential elections. I did this so that I could vote in the Primaries and pick the candidate I thought would have the best chance of beating Bush while best expressing my ideals. Typically I register Independent, because that best illustrates my political ideology. I don’t like being placed on a linear spectrum of liberal left to radical right. Rather, I like to deviate from the line altogether. My fierce opposition to conformity and my strict marriage of logic and ethics had put me proudly behind Ralph Nader in 2004. Some say my vote for Nader was what put us in this W mess to begin with, but honestly don’t blame me, blame all of Middle America who actually voted for the guy! And then blame them again for not learning their lesson when second chances were being dealt out by democracy!

So, maybe some of the anti-Nader rhetoric wheedled its way into my consciousness, and I thought, “Here’s my second chance to get Bush out of office.” I put my idealism on the back burner and registered as a Democrat so that I could vote in the Primaries for a candidate who actually had more of chance than Nader to win the Presidency (Nader winning being a snowball’s chance in Hell).

Watching the Primaries sunk my faith in the Democratic Party lower than I thought it was possible to go. Of all the democrats, they picked these yahoos to challenge Bush? What the fuck were they thinking? Of course, now I had to pick which yahoo I liked best. Of the candidates, I found Kunicinich, although eerily resembling something out of a Dr. Seuss book, to speak my language. However, his liberal likeness to Nader immediately marked him as unviable candidate (although he would have got Ohio!).

Next up was Howard Dean, who I know the Republicans feared for their smear campaign on him pre-dated the Primaries in The Economist. I cherished Dean precisely because the Republicans hated him. Plus, he had charisma, a trait that would later get him heaps of trouble. Since when can’t a man shout at a political pep rally? The “Dean Scream,” not his political views or agenda, removed him from the race. A screamer is too unstable to run the country, fellow democrats said. Watch men engaged in a televised sporting event and you will find scores of ineligible leaders.

That left Al Sharpton, who to his credit, had sincere and off-the-cuffs rhetorical skill, a trait I had come to find refreshing after watching all the candidates spew forth the same prepared drivel debate after debate. But if screaming won’t get you elected, bad hair ranks as a worse offense.

Basically, I was willing to go with any of the candidates as long as it wasn’t Gephart or Kerry. Those two, I was convinced, were as bad as Bush, himself. To avoid having them on the presidential ballot, I registered Democrat and got myself to the polls.
Denied. Kerry wins the ticket. I consoled myself that at least it wasn’t Gephart, but truly I was ready to go back and re-pledge allegiance to Nader. Then Kerry chose Edwards as a running mate, and my doubts about him started to lift. I liked Edwards, even if he was a lawyer. I though he had the charm that Kerry completely lacked, and he was bound to muster support in the southern states were Kerry would be unable to connect. Turns out I was wrong about that as well. Edwards couldn’t even pull his home state!

Then the presidential debates occurred and for the first time I thought, “I kind of like Kerry”. In retrospect, I might have deluded myself in to believing that I wanted to vote for Kerry to ease the internal struggle between my values and the desire to remove Bush from office. I went to the polls resolved to “do what I had to do”, but I felt dirty after I did it. I sold my values down the river for a lesser of two evils and for what? Kerry didn’t even win the election! How can Kerry with the most organized support and media attention in political history lose against an incumbent who had not only failed miserably to fulfill his campaign promises, but also lied to the American public in order to strike a pre-emptive war against a nation that was in no way related to 9/11, nor had WDMs! A fucking finger puppet could have won the election with all that negative publicity against Bush! Shirley Lewis’s Lambchop could have taken the election singing “This is the Song That Never Ends.”

So, what went wrong? As you can see, I’m still in a state of numbing shock over this implausible reality. My dad called to assure me of his cleared conscious. He voted for Nader, and as a result he could always say he voted with his heart. I, on the other hand, fell victim of the Persuasion of Doubt. Where did following the herd get me? Not a loser once, but twice, and hopefully not three times a charm.

Keep Your Hands Off My Vote

2004-11-02T15:05:00.000-08:00

On my walk into work this morning I came across a Kerry/Edwards poster violently shredded on the sidewalk. "I guess someone really doesn't like him!" I thought. But at the same time, I felt like shredding random political posters myself. I was tired of the gratuitous honking at campaigners on street corners. I grew even wearier of the scores of MoveOn emails I had daily deleted, too exhausted to care that Michael Moore was personally telling me not to care about my dirty laundry and go out and vote. Even during my gynecologist exam the previous day , the doctor had the gall to ask me who I was voting for, while she stuck a a metal clamp up my you know what. So I'd say that I was more than a little sick of the political manhandling I felt subjected to.

Now, if you're feeling like I'm feeling, I'll tell you exactly how you can get a good 20 minute- 2 hour reprieve from this political hell. Go vote.

I know that sounds antithetical to the cause, but the beauty about standing in line waiting to vote is that NO ONE is allowed to talk about politics while they wait in line. I had the nicest nonpolitical conversation with two strangers that I've had in the past month. We chatted about occupations, children, respective others, etc, and not once did we have to mention our party affiliation. The experience was comparable to a dip in the hot springs. I only wish I could vote all day long. Just standing in that line, absolved of the duty to spew political jargon, was liberating....Not liberal...But liberating.

So to those reading this blog in the final hours of election day who have not yet voted, but are sick to death of hearing about Bush this, Kerry that...Get your ass to the polls. It's your only sanctuary!

You may (heart) Huckabee's, but I REALLY (heart) Huckabees

2004-11-01T11:17:00.000-08:00

Going to the movies with me is always an adventure. Unlike the other people in the theater, I tend to become irrepressibly involved with a feature film. For instance, when the lights came on in the theater after a viewing of the horribly trite horror flick, Godsent, a guy in the row behind me said, "Damn that movie would have totally sucked if you hadn't screamed through the entire thing! You really drew out the suspense!"

"Where'd you come from?" I answered wiping the cold sweat from my brow. I was still suffering the trauma of being abruptedly extricated from the suspense film. You, see I don't just go see films, I become One with the film. If someone's being chased on screen, I run with them. If someone's having sex on screen, I crave the after-lovin' cigarette. If someone just told the funniest joke on screen, I laugh so hard I snort the overpriced cherry coke through my nose. If someone's mother died on screen, I cry and plan to buy a Hallmark sympathy card. Point being, I take every movie to heart.

This is why I (heart) Huckabees way more than you do. I know this because as I sat in the theater gaffawing out loud over the script's comic genius, no one else (except my boyfriend, who, to his credit, chuckled softly) made any visible signs of pleasure. Granted most people, if not all, are more subdued in movie theaters than I am. (I require tranquilizers and four-point restraints to view End of The World genre films) However, I don't think anyone in the theater actually understood the film (boyfriend excluded).

The question that I think stumped everyone was "How am I not being Myself?" and so I dedicate this blog to the philosophical question of our existence. Every detail counts in the reflected life. Read on.