On The Eight Baby Lady

Ok, so the mother of octuplets? Batshit crazy. The woman exhibits many or most of the classic signs of an animal hoarder. Really, it's uncanny and rather terrifying.

“I know I'll be able to afford them when I'm done with my schooling.” I'm not sure which is more laughable, her plan to support a family of 15 on less than $50,000 a year (even with food stamps and Medicaid), or the the idea that she is going to go back to school in the fall with 8 seriously premature babies under 1 year and 6 other kids under 10.

I would almost feel better if she would just own up and say she was planning to exploit the fuck out of the kids for Discovery Channel and shitty Wal-Mart books. At least then I'd believe she had a plan.

“All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life. I love my children.” Well, fucking AWESOME. You know, animal hoarders claim to love the animals that are suffering in their care. The difference between normal people who love animals and people who hoard animals is that normal people recognize that their means, their space, and their energy are all finite.

Do people manage to successfully raise and provide for exceptionally large families? Yes. However, it's pretty un-fucking-likely that she is going to join their ranks. Most people who have 14 children don't have them under the age of 10--biology doesn't often work that way. Further, most people who choose to have not only older children to help the household run, but an adult partner.

Do I think that there is something wrong with single parenthood? Nope. I don't. Do I think there is something wrong with having really large families? Not exactly. I sort of question the ethics of bringing so many lives into the world from a an environmental standpoint, but really? People can choose to raise their kids to consume little and tread lightly, and maybe that huge family will consume less than the West County trophy family and their 1.1.1 ratio of individuals, bathrooms, and Humscalades.

HOWEVER I do think that there is a fundamental problem with bringing children into the world for whom you cannot provide--regardless of how many children are in question. The only way that this woman can ever hope to provide for those kids is by exploiting the holy living shit out of them, and that's a pretty fucked up plan.

Suleman? Yeah, batshit crazy. Her doctor? Should have his license balled up and shoved up his ass. I have not experienced the pain of infertility. I cannot imagine what that's like. Per her statements, Suleman had difficulty conceiving. Who knows why? I don't believe she's shared her diagnosis.

Whether she needed help to conceive or no, she could obviously carry a pregnancy--the woman already had 6 kids. So her doctor placing six embryos into her 33-year-old body is completely fucking ridiculous. This was not some last ditch Hail Mary attempt. This was a woman with SIX children. Two split? WHO GIVES A SHIT? Even if they hadn't, she still would have had sextuplets. How the fuck is THAT a good outcome, for mom, for babies, or for the community?

Clearly, what we need is for the medical community to step up to the plate and police themselves--with rules and guidelines and big-like-the-hand-of-god consequences for those who flout them. Like I said, I've never experienced infertility, and I'm not a reproductive endocrinologist. There might be cases where it makes a certain amount of ethical and/or medical sense to transfer that many embryos into a woman. This was CLEARLY not one of those cases.

However, if doctors don't do something about themselves soon, then lawmakers will. Don't believe me, and think personal choice will prevail? We have in place all manner of laws to protect people from their own stupid fucking choices. Example? Suicide is illegal. Call 911, say you plan to kill yourself, and soon the cops will be at your house to lock your crazy ass up for your own good.

I've read on various blogs and online communities that this is an issue of reproductive freedom and choice. And to some extent, I agree. Further, laws are very rarely subtle or sophisticated, and by design they are not meant to deal with the individual, but instead the aggregate. It would be a bad thing for lawmakers to regulate the use of these technologies because they really won't be able to do a very good job, but it would be a worse thing for no one to do anything.

On A Year Ago Yesterday

I realized today that the last time I ever talked to my friend Russell was a year ago yesterday. He came to my birthday party. We talked and drank, and we made plans to go out for dinner or drinks when I got back from a trip I had coming up.

I wanted to hear about his new girlfriend, and to talk to him about Jason.

Part of me feels terrible that I didn't recognize yesterday for the anniversary that it was. I know, though, that it doesn't exactly matter. If Russell could vote, he'd probably vote in favor of cocktails and butter.

I just wish I had raised that cocktail to him. I will, though. He'd be for it.

On An Evening's Shopping

*sigh*

Okay, I think we covered this a couple of years ago but it seems to be time again.

Let's review:

1. Not all women with big boobs have a six pack and the hips of a ten-year-old boy.

2. Women with REAL big boobs often desire underwires. Otherwise, our tits are sad and smooshy. My boobs? Scoff at shelf bras

3. Curvy girls are not all elderly fatasses who should be forced to wear woolen swim muumuus.

I am getting married, for fuck's sake, and have a week in Mexico with various delightful alcoholic beverages being brought to me and my new husband to look forward to. MY TITS SHOULD LOOK GLORIOUS WHILE THIS IS GOING ON.

I have a demand. Someone needs to supply it. Otherwise capitalism fails. If I can't find a bathing suit, the terrorists have won.

On The Mortgage Crisis

So, I know I promised a full accounting of Floorpocalypse 2008*, but I'm still too close to the crisis to talk about it. If you don't like the way we run things around you, I encourage you to bitch about me on your own blogs. Or message me to complain...I look forward to ignoring you

Instead, I think I'm going to talk about something else that continues to annoy the holy living fuck out of me, the "mortgage crisis." I do reserve the right to veer at any time into more generalized bitching about people being fucktards, but let's just see where we wind up, 'kay? 'Kay.

Because you're reading this, I'm assuming you haven't recently woken from a coma. That being the case, I'm sure you're aware that the housing market in this country is well and truly fucked. Every day brings more and more bad news. Real estate was long considered one of the surest, safest places to invest one's money. I suppose this can be adequately explained by the intrinsic scarcity of land combined with the fact the folks need places to live and store their accretions of crap. Whether it's a rental or a ranch house, a home of some kind is a pretty fucking basic necessity. So what happened?

Stupid happened. In a big and important way.

Lots of people like to blame low interest rates; I can't imagine a parallel universe in which I cared any less, really, about the policies of former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan. I wouldn't want a job where I was somehow supposed to "steer" the US economy, as though such an absurd notion were even a remote possibility--might as well try to fucking test drive Greenland around the North Atlantic. I will weigh in on whether his fiscal policies were good or bad in my next life when I'm pursuing my PhD in economics. Or never. I like never, but I digress...

Bargain basement interest rates did, undoubtedly, contribute to the "housing bubble." When money is really cheap, it becomes possible to borrow more of it. Duh. The thing is, though, that's not what really caused the mortgage crisis, or even the housing bubble.

These things, you see, were actually caused by dummies who really, REALLY suck at math and really, REALLY excel at self-delusion.

Anyone who isn't storing his brains in a pouch duct-taped behind his scrotum (or in her vag...whatevs), should have looked at the housing market of the past few years and realized that was completely beyond the realm of possibility that houses were going to appreciate at, in some areas, double digit rates. Come. The fuck. On. The ONLY way your house should double in value in two years is if all the land to the West of you tumbles into the Pacific and you suddenly have beach frontage.

I'm not talking about a spectacular level of financial savvy, here. You don't need to read the financial trade rags to know that housing prices simply could not continue to gain the way they did in from, say, 2001 to 2005. You know why ANYONE can figure that out?

Because a shit-ton of borrowed money, even at a low interest rate, still winds up requiring a big damn monthly payment. Take the average salary in an area, divide by big damn monthly payment, and you have no one who can afford to live in a damn house. If people can't afford a home, they'll rent. Or move away. Housing prices get high enough, and no one will buy houses.

Which actually might have happened, if not for various "exotic" loan products and the dumb fucks who signed on the dotted lines.

Okay, quick PSA here. If someone asks you to sign something promising to repay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you don't understand what it says, DON'T for the love of god and all that is holy sign the damn thing. I'm not talking about all the legalese and whatnots, most mortgage paperwork is made entirely of equal amounts of nonsense and absolute shit. However, there are important bits. They have numbers on them. If the numbers don't make sense, or aren't what you thought you agreed to, or seem to have an unexpectedly large collection of zeros to the left of decimal, then walk away. Maybe shank a fucker with the pen on the way out.

Of course, people didn't do that. They were going to buy houses! Or refinance and put on a deck! A bigger kitchen! Designer Laser Vaginoplasty! As though the general idiocy of people running around off-leash isn't bad enough, banks jumped in to help them acquire absurdly overpriced houses that they could never hoped to afford using any sort of halfway normal loan product.

When finally even interest-only mortgages were not enough to help borrowers overreach to get into houses, banks came up with the so-called "pay-option" ARM products. The premise behind this loan is so stupid that I can hardly imagine the individual for whom it would be appropriate. Still thinking. Still nothing. Maybe people who are in their last year of residency to be a brain surgeon or a crotch redecorator and, as such, expect to realize a 500% jump in income in the next 6-12 months. Maybe.

Now, there are undoubtedly people out there who wound up with these loans who didn't ask for them, who didn't understand the, who didn't really want them. HOWEVER, these are also people who either willfully ignored the fact that the loan in question was substantially below market rates (as though they lived in a rarefied vacuum exempt from the machinations of market competition), or who didn't even bother finding out what a normal loan should have cost them. Whatever. Either way. Please report to the gonad irradiator so that my children never have to put up with your children.

Add to that people who knowingly lied on their loan applications, or allowed others to lie for them. Everybody goes on and on about stated and no-documentation loans and how awful they've turned out to be. Again, duh. If you have to LIE to get into a house, it probably doesn't bode well for you overall. These loans actually have legitimate uses, and if not used in the service of acquisitive morons they aren't necessarily bad. They are now, though, exceedingly difficult to get at all.

Yes, there were stupid loans and bad loan officers. There is plenty of blame to dole out to the loan companies and the banks and the dipshits who weren't paying attention as the lunatics took over the asylum.

Who, however, do I really blame?

I blame the people who didn't read their loan docs. The people who didn't ask a fucking question. The people who decided that somehow, someway, arithmetic just didn't count in their own special case. I blame the idiots who thought that $30,000 income = $300,000 house. Locally, I blame the morons who weren't going to be happy unless they had 4 bedrooms and 3 baths and brand new through and through. I blame the people who, pissing logic and reason the wind, made a series of incredibly stupid choices and who now, on the far side of it, don't even recognize their own culpability.

I have given this a lot of thought, more even then the average bear. I've concluded that a large proportion, possibly a majority, of people who are at risk of losing their homes actually DESERVE to lose them. Yep. You heard me right. Most people who are in this mess put themselves there, and did so either purposely or with so little actual thought as to border on the absurd.

As for whether or not to circumvent the actions of fate and try to save these morons from themselves, I'm somewhat torn. A small part of me does feel bad for the offspring of these unholy unions of greed and stupidity--these kids didn't ask to wind up losing their bedroom because Mom and Dad blow at math. A much larger part of me would like to see something keep things based only on self-interest--I would like my home to at least RETAIN its value (although in my area price gains were much more modest so the crash is not so keenly felt). I like my little 30-year fixed rate cottage, but I do hope to sell and move in the next few years.

That all said, though, I refer back to my earlier points regarding attempting to affect this economy, and to this article, which explains why some people would be foolish to pay their loans no matter what.

Now THAT, my friends, is what we call an unforeseen consequence.

*Credit The Boy for this well-turned phrase.

On Civility

It would appear that there are any number of adults out running around off-leash who need a refresher course in truth, consequences, and the art of the apology. I know, I know, it’s been a long time since Sandbox when this shit was all originally covered, but that’s why I’m here. Here follows a quick primer on . . .

Civil Interaction One-Oh-Fucking-One

1. Own your shit.
When you were a kid and you hit little Sarah Jane in the head with a plastic bucket in the sandbox, it is un-bloody-likely that Teacher let you off when you said, “I don’t know what happened.” No. You got The Look until you admitted the fact that you did just take a swipe at your little mate in the sandbox, which leads to the fact that . . .

2. Behaviors have consequences.
Or at least they should. Behave like a fucking douche, and expect to be treated accordingly. Using our example, when you clobbered little Sarah Jane with the plastic bucket, she cried and Teacher probably snatched you up by your chubby little kid arm and gave you a stern talking before positioning you with your runny little nose in a corner. After you had used that invaluable time to examine the architectural wonder of two joined walls, you were probably advised to. . .

3. Apologize for fucking up.
Returning to our example, it is likely that after you had ample opportunity to “think about what you have done,” you were told to apologize to young Sarah Jane. It doesn’t matter that young Miss S.J. has since moved onto a snack of lime Kool-Aid and graham crackers and has put you and your little plastic affront quite out of her head. No, your little stunt still warrants an apology. Further, the apology has a set form, along the lines of “I’m sorry I hit you with a bucket and hurt you.” Attempting a variation on “I’m sorry you made me hit you with a bucket,” would get your little snot-nose deposited right back in Asshole Kid Corner.

This, my friends, is really the trellis around which most human interaction ought to wrap itself. Look around, you’ll see these principles at work in the workplace, in the public, and in your personal life. Learn them, practice them, know them, embrace them.

Tune in later, when we cover advanced lessons, such as Cleanliness May Not Be Next to Godliness, But It Is A Helluva Lot Better Than Wallowing In Filth.

On New Years

Welcome to 2008.

In my lifetime, I've made two New Year's Resolutions that stuck. When I was 15, I resolved to quit eating meat. That one stuck--from the I was 14 time I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian for 14 years, and I still don't eat things that are warm-blooded.

Last year, I resolved to spend more time in bars. THAT one, I must say, has gone like clockwork. In the past year, I have passed countless perfectly good evenings in smoky bars only to wake the next morning reeking so of juniper scented-gin that squirrels followed me. It has been, I must say, brilliant.

This year, though, I don't have much in the way of resolutions. Oh, sure. I can stand some self-improvement. I could eat better. I could exercise more. I sure as shit won't resolve to drink less as that will undo all the hard work of last year, but that still leaves plenty of personal improvement possibilities.

2007, it turns out, was a pretty good year. Sure, there was the unmitigated horror of Corporate Happy Fun job, but at this point I've decided that god hates a quitter and I'm staying until the place makes me start burning myself with lit cigarettes. Sure, one of my co-workers apparently gave up reading for the New Year, but fuck it.

On December 31st, 2006 The Boy tried to chat me up. I was drunk, and felt kicked like a dog, and frankly? I thought he was just fucking with me. By December 31, 2007. I was sitting next to him at a wonderful dinner, waiting to kiss him at midnight. It was, I think, a fantastic turn of events, brought about in no small part by the aforementioned bars and gin, and the fact that when given the choice, I took the chance on turning "right to go make out."

So, maybe that's my resolution. Just as much gin, and more right turns.* Might as well take some more chances. They've worked out so far.



*No more making open spots on my make-out dance card. Don't cry for me Argentina, though. . . we're getting married.

On One Small Lesson Learned

Six years ago, I had a hangover.

I had been out to late with the then-husband and my best friend. We had enjoyed a wonderful dinner of olives and pasta and far, far too much wine. I woke up the next morning tired and dehydrated with a brain batted in cotton.

It was a glorious morning, the kind of early autumn day that seems as though it were colored out of a 64 Crayola box onto newsprint by an incredibly beautiful second-grade child. I unceremoniously deposited myself into my car to get to my dead-end job that I truly, deeply, disliked.

I don’t know at what point the news from NPR began to penetrate my post-drunk fog. Somewhere on the drive; at some point before I parked, I noticed that Bob Edwards (I think he was the Morning Edition host at the time) sounded completely, totally, confused. Lost. Bob Edwards was, in the coolest and most professional way possible, freaking out.

I walked into the ground floor of the building where I worked. There was a third-rate radio station there, one that got its news directly from some wire. The people in the booth looked gobsmacked; the woman had her hands over her face. The men gaped.

And that was when I realized we were fucked.

I am certain that everyone has a story that is, to a greater or lesser extent, similar. Where they were. What they were doing. What they thought. I remember being unmoored; like I didn’t know the world. Given my visceral, blood-thirsty reaction, I didn’t really feel like I knew myself. As I said at the time, it was like I couldn’t imagine a world without crying in it.

I don’t know that I’ve ever managed to make meaning out of September 11th, 2001. I don’t know if one really can. Maybe there is no meaning that can be made of 2974 dead. No meaning. Just a glass to be raised; a candle to be lit; a prayer to be said.

And, for me? A life to be lived.

Because after the shock of 9/11, I came to and realized that I was only going through the motions of my life, and that I was not doing a terribly good job of it. Once the shock of the attacks wore off it occurred to me that it was inexcusable for me piss away my life in the most mediocre way possible, when 2974 people had abruptly, suddenly lost their lives and couldn’t do anything at all with theirs.

Since then, I have struggled and won and lost and fallen out of trees and hit-every-damn-branch-on-the-way down and hit the ground and dragged myself back up. I haven’t written the great American novel. I haven’t created some great work of art. Hell, I haven’t even cut my grass in weeks. But I haven’t settled for miserable. I haven’t decided that just hanging on is enough.

I don’t think my small life is any, any kind of monument to their lives lost. I do think, though, that my small life would have been incredibly smaller without the remembrance of their unwitting, unwilling sacrifice.

2974 lives wasted is 2974 more than too many. It taught me not to waste one more.

On Anger

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine at a party when he mentioned that he liked my blog. I was reasonably flattered, as I have assumed right along that in general the only people who would read it are those that have to, such as The Boy and The Liquor Fairy, and the occasional stalker who finds it by accident while trolling for victims. Also, I quite enjoy his meandering vitriol, which means that I count him in the .02% or so of the population whose opinions I don’t dismiss out of hand.

As we chatted, he mentioned that one of the things he liked about my blog is the fact that I’m so “angry.”

Hmm.

Even though I knew he meant it in a good way, my first response was to dispute that fact. “I’m not angry,” I protested, “I’m . . . not . . . I’m a pleasant person. I’m NICE.”

Who the fuck do I think I’m kidding? I’m not nice, I’m polite, and sometimes I can’t even manage that convincingly. Hell, I don’t even want to be nice. In fact, I am pretty angry. I’m not joyless or bitter about it, but I spend a decent amount of time in a state of low-grade rage.

Why? Well, god. There are just so many reasons.

I have been pissed about President Halfwit since the word go. I am pissed that he was elected the first time, and I’m REALLY pissed that he was elected again. He’s a fucking idiot of the first order, and I’m beginning to suspect he might be batshit crazy to boot. Do not even get me started on the rest of monsters in his administration.

I am tired of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights being read like lists of suggestions.

Speaking of the Bush administration, I remain pissed off at Ralph Nader. I will always be pissed off at Nader. If Nader’s teeth were on fire, I would not piss in his mouth. I will always, ALWAYS blame Nader for Bush. Every dead soldier in Iraq? Nader’s fault. As soon as the first woman dies after Roe v. Wade is completely gutted by those bastards on the Supreme Court, I’m sending him the picture of her bloodied corpse (which I feel certain will appear in the local paper or online). If he’s dead by then I’m taking it to his grave. I love a futile gesture as much as the next girl, truly I do. There is, however, a line between making a noble but futile gesture and being a megalomaniacal asshole.

While we’re on the subject of dead women, I’m sick of being a second class citizen. I am angry that we cannot manage to treat the decision to have a child as though it were anything but a flippant decision on par with picking a fucking handbag; one that is the exclusive province and problem of women. I’m angry that after all this time, people still talk to my boobs. I’m tired of a lot of things having to do with being a chick. I am sick of “women’s issues” being somehow different and inferior from regular “issues.” Hell, I’m mad that my first reaction upon being told that I’m angry was to insist that I’m not. I should be angry—I’m not stupid. My first reaction should not be to feel bad about that.

BUT, I have it lucky. No burqa. No child marriage. No dowry. I can leave my house. See a doctor. Go to school. I might be cranked about some of the bullshit that goes on in this country attendant on my having a uterus that goes on in this country, but at least I’m here. At least I don’t have a target on me, or a very low price on my head. At least I usually don’t feel expendable.

I am angry about reality television.

I am angry people who don’t have enough sense not to, at the very least, vote against their own best interest. Do you come from a LOT of money, preferably OLD money? No? Then why. The Fuck. Would you ever. EVER. Vote Republican? You stupid ‘git.

I am angry about those stupid health care personal savings accounts folks keep bandying on about it. The whole proposition of “People will choose more wisely if they are spending their own money,” is asinine. Yeah. I just randomly SPEND healthcare dollars. I go to the doctor because I love waiting and old magazines. I take birth control for shits and giggles, not because I don’t want to have a kid I can’t afford to feed. And when the time comes I need a mammogram? It will just be because I want to have my boobs mashed. Are there people who over-utilize healthcare resources? Sure, but most don’t. Most avoid the doctor unless they need to go, either for illness or for a checkup to prevent illness. Since most people don’t like waiting, co-pays, or needles, most people partake as little as possible in the healthcare system.

You know what will happen when people are forced to pay cash for their own healthcare, without assistance from insurance? Lots and lots of dying, punctuated with gangrene and tumors the size of grapefruits.

And finally (for now), I am angry that so many people don’t recognize the difference between “everyday” and “every day.”

On Daughters

So, a few weeks ago, one of the men I work with took the morning off to go with his pregnant wife to her ultrasound appointment. It was the big one—the one that let them know what flavor of baby they were expecting. When he came it, he was all atwitter with having seen his gilled little offspring swishing around in his watery, temporary home.

No, I’m not using the universal masculine here. The happy couple will be welcoming a bouncing baby boy in some few months, he will be their second. My co-worker was surprised, as he and his wife were both convinced that this baby was a girl. That doesn’t surprise me. I suppose when a woman finds herself playing host to the most perfect of strangers, an unknown so complete that the first indication of its presence is a pee-soaked stick, there is a certain desire to ascribe some sort of trait to it; to give the growing bump some sort of identifiable characteristics.

As Co-worker was discussing this unanticipated penis-enhanced state of affairs, he mentioned that he wasn’t disappointed. He was, in fact, relieved. Relieved that he would not have to worry about fathering a girl; relieved that he would endure fewer sleepless nights and headaches. Relieved because boys are easier.

*sigh*

Now, I feel confident that if Co-worker were in fact expecting a girl, he would still eagerly anticipate the arrival of the little hitchhiker and then devote his life to doing everything he could to make sure she turned out happy and healthy and whatever else it is that parents want for their offspring.

I also feel confident that Co-worker gave little if any thought to what he was saying. Hell, the vast majority of people never give thought one to the trite drivel that spills from their mouths. In his mind, I’m sure that he thinks it’s an accepted truth—girls require more work and worry.

I was vaguely insulted.

No. Not drag someone down to HR insulted. I wasn’t even sufficiently annoyed to point out to him the stupidity I perceived in his statement. Instead, I just thought to myself, “Damn. Do men think we’re made of spun glass or something? What could possibly be so much more difficult about helping one’s daughter become a functioning adult?” I also wondered if he realized he’d discussed the difficulty of girls in front of several women. Women who, by definition, used to be girls.

Like so many things, though, the whole thing became crystal fucking clear once I spent some time really paying attention.

Later that same week, many of us went to a Happy Hour to celebrate the monumental career mistake we all made by entering this particular job. Okay, that was the reason I was there and I won’t speak for anyone else. Whatever, doesn’t matter.

So anyway, there is a group of us sitting around the table. A woman with whom I work brought her husband along, and he was discussing his 17-year-old from a prior relationship. A different male co-worker (CW2) mentioned his own teenager.

As a matter of getting a acquainted, the Husband and CW2 sorted out the genders of their respective high-schoolers. Husband has a daughter, CW2 has a son. CW2 sort of laughed at the plight of Husband, pointing at him and saying “I don’t have to worry about mine. You do.” Husband communicated his agreement with the statement through his chagrined chuckling.

Schmuck.

So. This is all more of the “I am a guy/I used to be a teenaged boy, so I know how they think.” Apparently, because boys and men are lust-filled nincompoops, girls are harder to raise.

What. The fuck. Ever.

I will give CW2 the benefit of the doubt and assume that he has done what he can to teach his sons to treat girls and women with respect; that he has not in fact raised some little monster who after a few keg-stands will require a knee to the groin to take no for an answer. Rather, I assume that he just assume that it is the natural order of things that men are the hunters and women are the hunted.

Clearly, this dude has never seen me on my game.

Once I began spending time with men who could reliably identify and locate the clitoris, I was every bit as sexual as any man my age. While I will not argue that I always made the wisest decisions where men were concerned, I did always *decide*. No one ever “talked me into” sex. Frankly, I’ve yet to meet anyone that clever. Have men lied to me to get me into bed? I suppose so, once or twice I maybe even allowed myself to fall for it. Women do the same dishonorable shit, though, so this whole predator/prey mindset rings hollow.

I don’t want to hear about the catty nastiness of teenaged girls, either. Yes. Many, if not most, teenaged girls have a terrible streak of interpersonal nastiness. However, as I recall, the teenaged boys weren’t measurably better. They’re cruelty just took on a different form. Believe me, as someone who was homely and bookish in my early teens I got an up close and personal experience with the myriad varieties of teen cruelty.

The one thing I will give fathers (and mothers) is that their daughters are at much greater risk of being the victims of violence. Domestic violence; rape; murder, the trifecta of parental horrors and sleepless nights. All of these are much more likely to happen to daughters than to sons.

The solution to this problem, though, is not to welcome daughters with apprehension. Indeed, treating your little girl as though she’s made of fluff pretty much guarantees she’s going to be. If you treat them as reasonable and intelligent creatures, they’re likely to behave as such.

The other solution, obviously, is that parents to need to wake up and smell the 21st fucking century and stop this whole “boys will be boys and I don’t have to worry about my son” attitude. Maybe if parents of boys devoted a modicum of fucking effort to raising civilized human beings, the parents of girls could unload part of the burden of guaranteeing the next generation was not made up of uncivilized knuckle-draggers.

On Anniversaries

Yesterday was, in a bizarre example of life’s occasional symmetry, the anniversary both of my marriage and of my divorce.

On May 12, 2001, I meringued up in a traditional fluffy white dress and walked down the aisle to meet the man on whom, it turns out, I had settled. Four years later at 2:30 in the morning on May 12, 2005, I realized that I was finished and that my marriage was over. Normally, I would call it May 11th due to my usual insistence that the next day doesn’t begin until one has slept and wakened, but that’s not important to this story. Whatever. Close enough, non? What does matter is that I can still remember the noise I made when I realized my marriage was over, indeed I don’t think I can forget it, but I don’t think I could ever reproduce it.

Let me pause here and say that I have never, for even one instant, regretted the fact that I’m no longer married to my ex-husband. Hell, I can still almost give myself a facial tic just by thinking about him.

Because unlike many of my fellow humans I do have a tendency to use my forebrain, I have made peace with the mistake that was my marriage and the . . . extraction . . . that was my divorce. The Ex was, at the time of our marriage, a drunk. I sort of knew it, but my wedding and marriage was all about denial, so I went right ahead. In retrospect, I met The Ex far too soon after what was, in essence,a bit of a nervous breakdown and a short but dreadful series of heart bruising and breaking. I didn’t need to get married; I needed an intensive round of the therapy.

That said, The Ex doesn’t get a free pass. He wanted to get married, and I was just the next woman who happened along. I think he knew less about who he was and what he wanted than even I did. Eventually, The Ex got sober. Once he cleared the whiskey cobwebs from his brain and soberly appraised the situation, he realized that he didn’t particularly like me. Which made me not particularly like me, either, but made me like him even less.

Like all things that are ultimately doomed a breaking point was eventually reached, and suddenly the Kate that I had somewhat lost reasserted herself. Realizing that my situation was fucked, my marriage was fucked, and the fool to whom I was married was completely fucked—I decided that it was time to leave. And to take most of the furniture with me.

There is some friendly back and forth among my friends and I as to whether or not he ever really loved me. Since I don’t think he ever really knew me, I say not really. In all fairness, I don’t know if I loved him enough for our marriage to have worked even had the halcyon period immediately following his sobriety continued.

In the moments when I do not feel like tarting up the truth in pretty ribbons and bows, I knew the person I was marrying pretty well. He had all the depth of your standard casserole dish. I failed to predict how out of control his drinking would get, sure, but I knew it was a problem because it was a familiar one (shout out to the family!). The problems we encountered after he stopped being a drunk were unanticipated, but predictable. Oops. His behavior changed, but only because he quit filling the echoing hollow of his empty inner-life with booze and began plotting to fill it with work and children for whom he expected me to care.

I married Mike because I didn’t think I was going to do any better. I divorced him because I realized that it didn’t matter if I could do better because I sure as hell couldn’t feel any worse. After Mike’s surprise at my announced decision wore off his relief was, as I recall, palpable. He wanted out as well, he just wasn’t strong enough to do it.

What took the longest time for me to come to terms with, indeed what still troubles me from time to time, was the fact that I was, after all, the kind of woman who would make these mistakes. I got married for foolish, selfish reasons. This led, inexorably, to divorcing. I failed not because my marriage ended, but because a stupid, weak choice necessitated my marriage ending.

That sound I made on that late, late night when I finally realized that my marriage was finished, that terrible, pained yip, was not the sound of me mourning the end of that relationship. No. It was the sound of realizing that I was not the person I thought I was.

Oh well.

Two years later I am okay with the person I am and okay with the mistakes I made. Not proud of them, or indifferent, but okay. I needed, I think, to fucking burn myself in all that. It seared off an awful lot of fluff. I hope that it didn’t temper me, that it didn’t make me hard; that’s not what I want. I would never want a stupid mistake made when I was young and raw to forever harden that part of my life. I don’t think it has.

I will not, however, be making that fucking mistake again.

On Captialism, Telecommunications Edition

Capitalism failed me again today.

Because my dad always held my intelligence in high esteem, he never had a problem explaining rather adult concepts to me. Before the age of 10, I had a rudimentary grasp of, in no particular order, perspective drawing; the internal combustion engine; why it was a bad idea to engage Israel in a war; the proper way to administer a headbutt; and the basic elements of capitalism. Supply and demand, opportunity cost, laissez faire economics (he didn’t use the words “laissez faire,” but whatever), monopolies, and why people in the USSR stood in line for toilet paper—all of these things were explained to me before I began the 4th grade.

Now, why can’t someone explain it to huge-normous corporations with which I am unwittingly forced to conduct business?

Having finally decided that Charter Communications is no longer worth trying to work with, I chose to go back to AT&T and get a landline phone and DSL. I need to be able to shop for sex toys and type swear words at will, so I need to get online at home.

This whole process turned into an utter goat-rope. I should be a communications company’s wet dream. I loathe ordering by phone. I am more than happy to send my personal information out over the interweb just so that I need not actually open my mouth and talk with another human being. It’s cheaper for the company, it keeps my hair from falling out. Why, dear god, why can’t we make this happen? What low-rent dropout programmers are working on the website for AT&T, and why can’t they make the P.O.S. work?

And, perhaps most importantly, whose dick do I have to suck to get these people to take my money?

On Bathing Suits

There is, for the average woman, perhaps no better way to ruin a perfectly good day than to go shopping for a new bathing suit.

In less than two weeks I will be shaking the dust of this little town and going on vacation. If the universe is feeling particularly merciful, the weather will be warm and sunny enough for me to bask outside and listen to the ocean. If the universe is NOT feeling merciful, per usual, there is a hot tub. Either way, though, I need a new bathing suit. Preferably one that does not make me want to hurt myself, or make my companions want to gouge out their own eyes.

Now, I understand that it is a rare woman indeed who feels perfect confidence in a suit. I don’t know any; I don’t think I even want to. My problem isn’t the leap of faith between dressing room and lounge chair. No, it’s finding a suit that I even want to take from the rack to the dressing room.

You see, there’s this thing about me. Things, really. They’re boobs. And they’re real. And without support, they become sad and pouty. They rebel. They refuse to participate in planned activities. Uncontained fake boobs will drift about the room and bounce off the ceiling like big souvenir helium balloons from the zoo. Real boobs, being of this Earth, are subject to the more fundamental laws of physics. Like that bastard, gravity.

So. I need to find a bathing suit that will offer the girls some support so that they enjoy their time in the sun, however brief it might be. And because I have the body of someone who enjoys food and drink without the stupid interference of jogging, I need some kind of coverage.

Here’s the thing, though. I am not a post-menopausal shapeless sack. I have curves, a waist even. My body is not perfect, but I don’t absolutely make people fucking ill. And I don’t care to drape myself in yards of lycra like some hideous redone throwback to the 19th century. Cut me some slack here, people.

Grrr. Bastards.

On Approaching Spring and Surviving Winter

Winter is losing its grip on St. Louis’s throat. Yesterday when I walked outside in the morning it was practically balmy—at least 40 degrees. I almost wept with gratitude. Then I promptly slipped on a patch of ice and gave myself a minor injury, proving that clumsy knows no season.

Spring, of course, is not here yet. But it’s coming. It’s hard to explain the feeling, the promise of it in the world. Usually, spring makes its promise during the January thaw. This year, however, the January thaw was apparently pre-empted by more harsh and wintry ass-kicking. Now, even though I know that winter isn’t over, I am equally confident that spring is coming.

It’s something about the quality of the mud, and the way the dogs act, and something about the birds. That, coupled obviously with the warming temperatures and lengthening days, is doing something to renew my will to live.

Hopefully it will also do something to kill the chocolate tapeworm I must be harboring. I’ve been craving chocolate in what I’m sure is my body’s way of releasing needed endorphins into my cold-addled brain. Fine, as long as my butt stays roughly the same size.

On Monologues and New Year's Non-Resolutions

I came, I saw, and I . . . moaned. A lot and loudly.

This weekend was The Vagina Monologues. It was a great experience, if not entirely what I expected. In future, I hope to get some direction from any directors with whom I work. “Thanks,” while appreciated, is not exactly useful in developing a character.

Still, though, a good time. I stood in front of a roomful of about 100 people and moaned—loudly and repetitively. A year ago I wouldn’t have thought I could do such a thing.

I find that I’m in an interesting place right now. I turned 30 in October, a milestone that I greeted with much the same enthusiasm as my annual gynecological exam. Like my trip to the stirrups, I figured it as a necessary evil that would pass more painlessly if I mostly ignored it and tried to relax. While my actual birthday was about that good (attention boyfriends of the world: do not stand up your girlfriends on their 30th birthdays—no excuse is sufficient or will staunch the inevitable flow of tears), my 30th year has, thus far, been rather enlightening.

My friends who are a couple of years older than I told me that being 30 was a self-changing thing. That I would feel more secure in myself, more certain, and less-inclined to the struggles and self-doubt that characterizes people’s 20s.

I don’t know if it’s the passage of the mile marker that is 30, or if it’s the fact that the latter part of my 20s were filled with sundry disasters that, at the end of last year, culminated in a sort of interpersonal Armageddon—wherein the worst thing I could imagine happening to me (that did not involve death or physical harm to self or close friends/family) actually happened. Once “the worst” has happened, it becomes increasingly difficult to give any more than a fleeting fuck about “the rest.”

I said before on this blog that I don’t much go in for New Year’s Resolutions. I still don’t. I have, however, embraced a couple of mottos:

1. What are you trying to prove?

Whenever I look at taking on a new task/chore/job/challenge/whatever—I ask myself what it is I’m trying to prove, and to whom I am trying to prove it. If I realize I’m trying to prove something not in question (“I’m smart”) to a random “them” about which I really don’t give a damn, then I opt out. If I’m trying to prove something that I care about to myself, then into the breach.

2. If I don’t owe you money; I don’t owe you anything.

Civility, decency, respect—sure. Otherwise, unless your name is Chase Manhattan and you are holding my freakin’ mortgage, then I don’t owe you a damn thing. There are some exceptions made for very dear friends who have a right to expect some things from me, and who pay me back in kind, but in general I’ve spent far too much time worrying a great deal about what others want or need, or think they want or need. Fuck’em and feed’em fish heads.

3. What could happen?

Thank you, Julie Powell of the Julie/Julia project, for this one. Want to try out for a play . . . what could happen? Want to take time off school/quit school entirely? Refer to Motto #1 to and quit already . . . what could happen? Stand in front of a roomful of people and pant . . . what could happen? Yes, this does lead to things like my recent Peanut Butter Dessert Disaster—but it also leads to fun things like first kisses with new people.

On SotU

I have been sick of late. It began as a mere sore throat and eventually evolved into a full-blown consumptive cough so wet and diseased sounding that I briefly considered going out shopping for a proper outfit to wear while wasting away, complete with shoes. And perhaps a hat. Nothing, it seems, brings out my inner-Victorian like a head cold. After a day home from work and the liberal application of warm, sleeping pets, I am pleased to say that I’m making a full recovery.

I did not, however, watch President Retread’s State of the Union. I was too sick to get drunk, and too smart to sit through it sober.

Because I don’t live under an overpass, though, I have of course heard about many of the . . . things . . . he said. Calling them “policy initiatives” would be a gross insult to the world of ideas. What can you hope to expect from a man roughly as bright as a desiccated firefly ass hours after its brutal amputation by a sticky and undisciplined 6 year old?

Not much, obviously. It seems, though, that no matter how low we set the bar President Retread manages ably to clothesline himself upon it rather than going over. Case in point, his recent suggestion that tax breaks be offered to those Americans with jobs but without insurance, to be financed by taxing as income the employer contributions of employed Americans with insurance.

Now, to be fair. This isn’t a new idea. This turd is one that has been suggested before and is simply being presented to the unsuspecting public with a fresh coating of sparklies. Further, the plan wouldn’t tax all Americans with employer-provided health plans, just those Americans with good health plans. If your insurance sucks, well then, it can continue to suck beneath the radar of new taxation.

Now, in general, I’m a pretty pro-tax kind of girl. We pay less in taxes than any other Western industrialized nation; in we return we expect (and get) far less from our government than other citizens. Because, for reasons large and small, there are really ALL KINDS of things that the free market really sort of sucks at, I think this is a crappy trade for the vast majority of Americans. Including, namely, me and most people I know and love.

President Retread isn’t talking about restructuring the tax code, though. No, he’s talking about paying for a tax break for one group by adding another tax somewhere else. The problem? Dear god, where do I start?

If one finds oneself in the lowest tax bracket, one likely won’t pay enough in taxes to even benefit from the full deduction. Lots of people, like ME for instance, really can’t afford to have my health care taxed as income. Do I benefit from it? Duh. Can I eat it? No. My insurance plan is reasonably good, but it might not be the “gold standard” type of plan that would qualify as taxable. However, how many workers have accepted crappy pay raises or worked at crappy jobs because the benefits were good? Lots. Plus, this friggin’ idea isn’t indexed to the rate of inflation in the health sector. So even if you’re reasonably good insurance isn’t taxable now, it might be in about—say—20 minutes.

Breathe, girl, breathe.

This idea is so stupid in so many ways that it is easy to miss the bigger issue: this plan fails to address the fact health care ought to be a basic right. Instead, it is slowly becoming a precious commodity that is increasingly hard to afford for vast numbers of Americans.

On the Bright Side

In case anyone is reading this, and doesn’t already know, the last five months or so have done an admirable job of bringing home my place and function in the universe. To be perfectly honest, actually, the last year and-a-half has been less than stellar.

Okay, so the wheels started to wobble at the end of ’04, but no need to dwell, eh?

Of late, though, every day feels vaguely like a new, fresh, low-grade ass-kicking. I am tired. I am pissed off. I am not getting laid which does absolutely nothing for my disposition. Despite the fact that I am most-assuredly NOT an optimist, I’m doing my level best to put a bright and smiling face on things as much as possible. Granted, the smile is a byproduct of some pretty serious teeth-gritting, but given the alternatives, there’s really no choice.

Well, no choice that does not involve risking jail time.

It’s not so much that I’m trying to get “back on track” (a phrase I loathe and think smacks of ra-ra corporate bullshit); more I’m trying to feel like I’m not tied to the damned track. And if I can find a ticket window that will sell me a ticket to someplace that doesn’t suck, so much the better.

To that end, I’m trying to expand my personal endeavors. Example the first? This blog. A good exercise I think, even if virtually no one reads it (hi, Mandy). Example the second? Well, I’m writing a play. Of course, right now it’s not very good—I’m not sure it can ever be—and even if it could I don’t know anyone to put it on. Whatever. That’s not the problem at this point. At this point the problem is the end of Act 1. Or rather, the problem is that I don’t know yet how Act 1 ends.

And I’m making new friends. Or trying to. “What of your long-time local friends?” you ask. Hmm. How can I say this? We had a 15 minute conversation about banking the other night. Behold, a pale horse. It was like I had landed on a space called “Shuffleboard” on a mythical Monopoly board and had been forced to move my little pewter dog directly the AARP holding pen.

Yeah. I’m thirty. And single. And not getting any. And I don’t have actual money. Banking has got to be only slightly less boring to discuss than . . . um . . . I’ll get back to you. It’s not that I don’t love these people, but clearly I’m in a different place right now. A very. Different. Place. Where checking account interest doesn’t matter because there is never any damn money in there, anyway.

And finally? More acting. Not for money, because god, I’m broke enough as it is without having to worry about that flavor of madness. But for fun, I hope, with people I like and can learn things from. Again I hope. We’ll see, I suppose.

Now if only I could get a pause in the daily ass-kickings. Because, yeah. That’d be awesome.

On Time

Well, yesterday I blathered on for quite some time about St. Louis in January and the New Congress. Luckily, I wasn't particularly enamored with my post. Blogger ate it. Good bye, post. We hardly new ye'.

Anyway.

Mercifully, this January in St. Louis has lacked the bone-snapping cold so common to the after-holidays in our region. The weather? Gray and dreary—it’s like someone ordered it special just for me. It’s the perfect background for my aggressive moping. This is the time of year when the weather and the post-holiday letdown usually leave me unmotivated and depressed. Lately, I’ve just been unmotivated and depressed generally, the holidays were just the final dollop of yummy whipped misery.

So, the interminable gray of midwinter is upon us. I feel slothful and dull, as though I’m encountering the world at its maximum viscosity. I am trying to find things, many things, anythings, to do to fill the stack of hours between waking up and sleeping, that time between my alarm clock and the witching hour when it becomes reasonable (rather than pathetic and weird) to go to bed. Time is like a nest of baby birds, and I am constantly looking for bits to drop into the twitching, gaping mouths.

So I walk the dog. I watch absolutely terrible reality television and feel superior to the people I’m watching. I eat popcorn and chocolate to excess. I write. I read. I drink too much.

When I was divorcing, there was about a three week period when I still lived in Florida in the house I then shared with my not-yet-ex-husband. I had set myself up in the guest room and I spent all my non-working hours in there, emerging only to forage for food, to check my e-mail in my adjacent office, or to use the bathroom.

I was trying to avoid the Ex, any encounter was more likely than not to turn into a screaming fight—I recall on one memorable occasion looking around for something close to hand with which to brain him—but I was also trying to disengage from that life, from all the things I was walking away from. The house I was leaving. The state I was leaving. The perfect job I was leaving. The dog I was leaving. The marriage I was leaving. The only social interaction available to me was long-distance calls to friends and family who were hours and hours away, and who, despite their considerable efforts, could only do so much to help while away the time. Of which there was so. Damn. Much.

Time felt like it had stopped. Broken. Like some unfeeling fuckwad who just hated me had monkeywrenched the entire operation of the universe to trap me forever in that guest room. That was lilac. With pink carpet. And in Florida. There were times when I almost could not remember what it was like to have a life that did not consist of sitting on the floor in a room watching t.v. and waiting to go to bed.

Finally, though, the three weeks ended and I moved out. I returned to St. Louis and commenced wild experimentation in new ways to ball up my adulthood.

And right now, I’m sitting at my desk, and reminding myself that time does pass. Eventually.