Tomorrow, McComb, Mississippi

Wednesday, Los Angeles.

Ah, my glamorous life.

I have a lot of half-written posts swimming around in my head, about the trials and tribulations of being a hetero radical feminist, for one thing, and then there was this review of The Other Boleyn Girl I was going to write (right on the tip of the news cycle, I am, right?), but then my students, damn it, gave me another freakin cold and so I have spent the last four or five days on the sofa sampling the absolute worst cable TV has to offer. I mean, for one thing: Sober House. I thought addicts were self-absorbed toxic motherfuckers. Until I met: celebrity addicts. Cheesus Fucking Christ on a Cracker. The entitlement! The stupidity! It's not a train wreck, it's a train wreck on the Titanic, with a side of the Inferno. Hey guys, we're four days out of rehab. Let's go clubbing! Idiots. The poor women on that show need man rehab. Like 28 days without men bossing them around and treating them like meat, and then an all-female sober house. And no boyfriends. Gah. So much to blame, so little time.

So anyway, I am off to a conference in Los Angeles later this week. If I see any of those celebrity addicts I'll let y'all know.

new favorite swear word

I have a bad habit of saying "son of a bitch" for various sweary reasons. Family legend has it that it was, in fact, my very first swear word (awwww!). At the age of two or three, I was in the car with my dad, he hit the brakes pretty hard, and I piped up with a toddler-sized "son of a bitch!". Dad came home feeling rather sweary with Mom, who hadn't realized I was listening and learning that one says "son of a bitch" when one has to slam on the breaks.

Having decided to try to eliminate anti-female gendered slurs from my swearing vocabulary, I've replaced "bitch" with "asshole", for example. I never did use the four-letter c-word, in case anyone is wondering. I finally - finally - after cogitating and wondering for some time - came up with my New Favorite Swear Word. Are you ready? Because it's awesome.

SON OF A COCK!

Say it loud, say it proud: SON. OF. A. COCK.

So satisfying. So pointy. So leaving-other-women-out-of-it. There's really been quite enough mother-blaming in the world. I'm quite happy, however, to blame somebody's behavior on his father. Son of a COCK!

not really news

Rich people don't pay taxes. Everyone knows this. Why is anyone surprised that Democrats and Republicans alike are guilty of avoiding taxes whenever possible?

I mean, duh.

Etiquette

So, I've turned into the sort of person who says, upon being notified of an engagement, "Congratulations... wait a minute, are you even old enough to get married?" And then, upon being informed that the betrothed are 18 and 20, proceed to tell them that they are far too young to be married, in fact, I was married at 19 and it was MUCH TOO YOUNG, and they should wait.

I'm pretty sure Miss Manners wouldn't approve.

So now I'm faced with the dilemma of responding to the news that a friend is pregnant with twins, a FORTYISH friend, and all I can think of to say, I swear to Maude, is:

"Better you than me!"

Perhaps I shall let the moment pass in silence.

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.

geographically challenged

I can't go anywhere without missing at least one turn in the directions, or going the wrong way, and I never, ever know which way is north, south, east or west. But! Big Brother has launched satellites, and Santa has given me a magic box, and now Big Brother and the magic box know where I am, how fast I am going, and how to get where I want to go! This is both genius and slightly terrifying, or at least paranoia-inducing.

I look forward to never being lost again. Truly.

Happy Holidays, yo!

outrageous

Just, I'm sputtering, this is so outrageous.



There is one organization fighting for women's reproductive health in Mississippi, and they are in need of an instant cash infusion. Please help if you can:

Planned Parenthood of Alabama (which also serves Mississippi)

Unearthed the sewing machine

...to make Morsbags, reusable shopping bags, which will serve as gift bags this xmas. My sewing skills, being unused for lo these many years, mean each bag takes more like an hour than 20 minutes, but mainly because every time I try to make a bobbin or thread the machine, it's like I'm reinventing the fucking wheel. Why can I not remember how to do it from one time to the next? I hope to bring down construction time with each new iteration. Perhaps one day, I will cross stitch witty sayings or initials or skulls-and-crossbones upon them, but for now, I'm lucky to turn 4 pieces of fabric and a mile of thread into something that holds other somethings. I'm also fortunate in that I inherited my Grandma's sewing supplies - ALL OF THEM - so not only do I have every sewing tool one could possibly need, I have at least three of them. Plus several bins of fabric. Take that, expensive gift bag industry! HaHA!

Herewith, Morsbag 1:



and Morsbag 2:

Bushco's Ugly Legacy

Part Eleventy Six Thousand:


From Black Mesa to the Western Shoshone's Mount Tenabo, the Bush extended corporation of thieves is seizing Indigenous lands in the final hours.

Upgrading the apparatus

People, I have made what I suspect is a life-changing home appliance purchase. First, the background. PoopMaster Ferris, the 9-year-old Siamese thug, has recently been diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. As one might imagine, the weeks leading up to a diagnosis of feline IBS were fragrant in the extreme. Frankly, as a person not much inclined to cleaning, I was doing a lousy job of attending to the task at hand. Plus, my gag reflex is sensitive. Anyway. The recent regimen of antibiotics and steroids seemed to be working, until midday yesterday, when something apparently distressed his delicate GI system. This weekend's "pet messes" (as the cleaning industry so delicately refers to puddles of wretched stinking poop on my oriental rug) were absolutely soaked into the fibers. I dredged from my memory the recollection of an advertisement featuring a smiling blonde hausfrau in neatly pressed khakis (aren't they always?) happily toting around a Little Green Machine which appeared to suck up huge and horrific messes in an instant.

My friends, I hied myself to the Walmart, as I live in Buttcrack, Mississippi, and the only place one can find a vacuuming or cleaning device of any sort on a Sunday is the WalMart. I was determined to spend any amount of money up to and including the $200 currently in my checking account in order to avoid spending the evening on my knees trying to clean cat poop out of the carpet. I took a deep breath, plunged in, and purchased two - TWO - kinds of cat food in an effort to find one that does not cause the Beast's Bowel to be Irritable, and then I went to the vacuum aisle. Yes! Victory! A Bissell Little Green Machine, alleged to be "Green" as in eco-friendly, even. A bottle of pet-specific Bissell fluid was $20, but did I hesitate? I did not. The self-checkout revealed the $99.98 machine to, in fact, be on sale for $79.98, which I consider a sign that this, indeed, was the appliance for me.

I will pass over in silence the tedious details of cleaning, because, dear MAUDE, cleaning is boring, but I will summarize thus: in a short amount of time, with almost no effort on my part, my task was completed. The machine sits in the utility room, locked and loaded, ready for its next task. And I, my friends, will sleep a little easier tonight.