I'm just gonna say it.

Drag is the new blackface.

I used to kind of love drag performances with their over-the-top-ness and wacky fashion and shiny glittery stuff, but now it just looks like a perverse mockery of the practice of femininity that is forced down women's throats every single day in every single way. And I can't consider it fun, or funny, or anything but misogynistic. Every single stereotype of femininity is ramped up, overdone, and made to look ridiculous. THEY can step out of it, just try it on for size, but women? No. We are supposed to be painted, plucked, shaved, high-heeled, push-up-braed & corseted, pantyhosed, dyed, buffed, and dipped in wax EVERY SINGLE DAY. Which is expensive, time-consuming, painful, toxic, and, well, just go read The Beauty Myth if you want the full breakdown.

I sound like Tom Waits today.

I was trapped in a small room with 200 dusty, moldy, mildewy artworks for several hours yesterday. Not so much "trapped" literally but I had to dig through them for the 6 or 7 shite things left to us by a donor whose will was, shall we say, VAGUE and LACKING IN FUCKING DESCRIPTIONS. So I breathed in rather a lot of shit and now my throat and tonsils feel swollen and sore and raspy, and I sound like Tom Waits. It's awful. I barely made it through a 45-minute lecture last night, and tomorrow I have to teach for 75 minutes. I want a pill to make it better. My woo-woo friend K. was all, like, take some probiotics and echinacea and maybe an Airborne and some vitamin-C. And because I am irritable I went off on how bloody fucking stupid the Airborne concept is: "Hi, I'm a teacher! I don't know anything about nutrition, health, or science, so please buy my totally untested unverified snake oil because IT WAS MADE BY A TEACHER." I consider this pro-stupid thinking of the highest order.* What I want is some sort of synthetic over-priced snake oil that my insurance will pay for that ACTUALLY WORKS, even though it may have a lot of possibly deadly side-effects. Because not only am I feeling like ass, I am irritable. Because I THOUGHT I was merely going to go pick up some stuff, I didn't know I would be in an unventilated room full of airborne toxins for most of the morning and some of the afternoon.


*"Pro-stupid" is my new substitute term for "anti-intellectual." Let's just call a spade a spade, knowwhaimsayin?

media check

DNA, wev

I am off this evening to a family reunion, although in truth I would prefer to be watching Battlestar Galactica. We aren't a sociable people, my paternal side of the family, so in my forty-mumble-mumble years of life, we've never had a reunion. I have no idea what to expect, except that there will probably be a large quantity of anti-social, stubborn, big-headed individuals. Sounds fun, right? I just hope there's alcohol. In fact, I just realized, I need to stop and get some beer on the way.

Wish me luck. I am alarmed.

"abstinence only" "sex education": the ultimate oxymoron

Here in the US, sex education dollars are tied to the 'abstinence-only' agenda, which not only does NOT provide useful information, it provides misinformation. Mississippi, being a poor state, and very conservative, was happy to take those dollars and git-along with the abstinence-only agenda. And guess what this agenda reaps?

Mississippi is now first in the nation in teen births, gonorrhea, and chlamydia.

We are so proud.

And now, let me share with y'all a nugget of teen wisdom learned in the trenches by a friend of mine who, as part of her job, does *real* sex ed sessions for any organization who asks. Get THIS shit:

According to the teens of the Piney Woods of Mississippi, there is a surefire way to tell if a girl has an STI. What you do is, you take a bit of your earwax (yes, you read that right: earwax) and put it on her "pearl" (yes, you read that right: her pearl, not her clitoris). If it burns, she has an STI. If not, she don't.

How ya like that one?

{Also, if she floats when you throw her in the creek, she's a witch.}

On the upside, it means that teenage boys are now aware that girls have "pearls" and apparently know how to find them. Whether they know what to do once they've found it, well, I am doubtful.

Fleet Foxes

Believe the hype.

I don't buy music much, as I have three linear feet of record albums, three binders full of CDs, and a couple of baskets of old cassettes. I figure, I've got plenty of music, why spend $20 on new music when I can hear it on pandora.com or on college radio? And I categorically refuse to spend money on mp3s, as they are a shitty, lossy format. Start selling .wav files, iTunes nazis, and you might start getting my dollars, but until then, eff that. Mp3's suck. So the last CD I bought was Wilco's Sky Blue Sky, which came with a bonus DVD, and that was like, um, a year ago?* However, last night I stopped in at Hattiesburg's own T-Bone Records (and coffee shop) to visit my pal Mik D and get caffeinated before teaching a class, and so I said to Mik, I said: "Fleet Foxes. Should I believe the hype?" And he said yes, and so I bought the CD - for $15, which is a reasonable price for an album even though I think $20 is not, what can I say - and, yes, I say unto thee: believe the hype, and go buy it yr own bad self.

*Fucking BONUS, yo! Wilco's playing Jazz Fest this year. I am SO for that.

decree

HENCEFORTH, there shall be no Cats in the Closet, for it has come to my attention that someone has decided to spend his free time peeing in shoes in the closet. Until such time as I can test the pee to determine which furry hooligan has picked up this unsavory habit, the closet is now a No Cat Closet.

That is all.

News You Can Use

The U.S. Ranks First in Cheese

This is totally useful information, right?

That fancy stomach virus you've been hearing about?

It's true what they say about it: the puking, the pooping, the chills, sweats, aches, and pains, every symptom, you couldn't ask for a finer flu, no sir. If you want a stomach flu, this is the one for you. Come over here, let me drink out of your bottle if you're looking for a reason not to go to work for the next, oh, four or five days? After which, if you're lucky, Herr Stomach Flu will allow you to eat an entire bowl of ramen noodle soup! And you will feel like the luckiest girl in the world, slurping that twenty cents' worth of salty, noodly hotness.