I am a list geek

I am motivated by lists: check them off, cross them off, erase off the whiteboard, whatever: I'm a list geek. It's how I download anxiety about Stuff That Needs Doing: I write a list and it stops floating around my head pestering me. Hence, I adore Joe's Goals. Once upon a time, I actually used to print out lists that look almost exactly like the Joe's Goals grid, and put them on the fridge at the beginning of each week. I like this better because it keeps statistics (statistics about lists are even better!), makes cute little charts (see my sidebar) and is infinitely variable. I can add a goal for short-term use, delete it, change the way I use it, any time I want.

Current goals involve exercise, vitamins, getting fruits and veggies, cleaning my house, getting to work on time, and the hardest one right now: "one less thing," in which I get a check if I donate, sell, or throw away one thing I no longer need. Alas, junk mail does not count. It has to be something I paid for.

reason #648 I do not have children

mama mama mama MAMA MOMMY MOM
momma mama mama mamma maaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaa
mommeeeeee mommy mimi momo mamamamamamamamamamama
mamamamamamama MOMMY MAMA MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM
momma? momma! MoM!! mom. mom? mom. mamamamamamama.
mamamamam. mommeeee. mommy mommy mommy mommy mommmmmmmmaaaaaaa!!
MOM. MOMMA. MAMAMAMAMAMAMA.

[repeat 24/7 for approximately 18 years]

reasons not to have children

#1,220 - #1,229

complications of pregnancy:

anemia
placenta previa
pre-eclampsia
gestational diabetes
gestational hypertension
placental abruption
low amniotic fluid
high amniotic fluid
cervical insufficiency
death

my new favorite political artwork

Hell, it ain't pretty, but 37 years later, the sentiment still holds:



Larry Rivers, America's No. 1 Problem, 1969
acrylic on shaped canvas sheathed in plastic with cut plastic affixed to silver metallic paper

Reproduced without any permission whatsoever.

[haters, before you get all hinky, Larry Rivers was a MALE ARTIST, so get a fucking grip already]

I've got a million of 'em.

Reason #1,219 not to have children:

Seven-year-old steps on a Little Debbie snack cake. Seven-year-old walks all over the courtyard with smushed icing and cake on shoe. Seven-year-old tracks Little Debbie into classroom. Does seven-year-old know he is tracking crap every where? Yes. Does he care? Hell no.

meme

meme

pick up the nearest book, look at page 123, reproduce sentences 6-8:

from Mira Schor's "Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture"

"Success can lead to paranoia. Those young men everyone looks to as examples are all obsessedwith those who might want to get at them, knock them down. Because of their success they see themselves as targets, as indeed they had targeted the previous generation, for the link between progress/success and forms of patricide is grafted onto the belief structure of Western civilization."

[this is actually the second nearest book, as the nearest is a dictionary, which has no sentences in it]

got a secret?

oh yes you do. It's hard to keep secrets, isn't it? You can cage them up in the far reaches of your memory, but they still rattle the bars now and again. Sometimes one will escape and dominate all of your waking hours with the awful secret you are keeping. Should I tell A. that his wife is cheating on him? Should I tell B. that her relationship is a train wreck? Should I tell C. that I know he's got one foot out the door? Should I tell NASA that I've perfected warp drive? Should I tell the CIA that Osama bin Laden is shacked up in a Motel 6 in Purvis, Mississippi, binging on pork rinds and Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper? You know, that kind of stuff.

Every Monday I go to PostSecret.com and see the fresh batch of anonymous secrets. They're sad, or happy, or weird, or funny, in different combinations. You know that each person telling a secret is relieving himself or herself of a burden.

Hey, hetero!

I would totally love to see this in Mississippi:

Hey, hetero!