Depression sucks. Spending two SOLID MONTHS in it? Sucks even harder. Not saying it's over now, but I am enthusiastic enough about my life now to dedicate a blog post to it.
(And for once, I can't really point at any identifiable trigger for the depression. Chemicals. And work. More work than chemicals, probably)
Work has been...slow. Winter in south texas DOES equal an influx of (old) people (sorry snowbirds, but if I go for a bike ride, six different people almost run me over and four of them have white hair, it's the kind of thing you notice. But to the young woman who ONLY looked left before she pulled out, thus almost hitting the cyclist on the sidewalk (I know I know, bikes shouldn't be on sidewalks, but we have no bike lanes on the highways and I don't want to be strawberry mush) because she couldn't be arsed to look right? Fuck you. I could have been a kid, that was a big ass truck you were driving, and you wouldn't have seen an eight year old running after something at the last second the way you did me. Also, this hypothetical tot wouldn't have gotten the hell out of your way like I did, because kids are not fast like bikes are. Remember what you learned in kindergarten next time, and look BOTH ways. Driving cars does not absolve you of that responsability. And Again: FUCK. YOU.)
My boss, on the other hand, has proven that She. IS. AWESOME. It is not often that a boss will call a customer an idiot TO HER FACE (online) but when they do...it doesn't hurt that we were already talking about this particular lady BEFORE she posted a bad review of the very thing that made her an idiot. Her complaint was that we didn't know what a Cosmo was. Which would be reasonable IF (reasons in order of stupid):
1.The waitress wasn't two weeks new, having never worked at a restaurant before.
2. The waitress wasn't twenty years old. That is, too young to drink AND too young to remember (and have watched or been interested in) Sex in the City. (trust me. She's a nice girl, she looks cool, but you only have to look at her to know she never came within sixteen miles of watching Sex and the City) the show that made Cosmos into a Thing.
3. IF WE ACTUALLY HAD A FULL FUCKING BAR. Apparently, not having a full collection of booze is the most offensive thing a restaurant can do. Yes, eaters of the world, we, the waitstaff of this humble, family-owned restaurant, went out of our way to PERSONALLY INCONVIENCE YOU by not carrying liquor AND not knowing what your muddle of a drink is.
I actually watched this happen, and it was kind of amazing. New girl hands woman menu, woman hands it back, demands Cosmo. The waitress, not knowing that a Cosmo contains vodka, takes the order and then has to go back to the table to explain that we cannot serve strong liquors here, as we have no liquor licence AND NEVER HAD. We had NO indications that we served anything other than beer and wine. I will concede that having to go back to the table was the error on our part, but the girl literally did not know that a Cosmo was something we could not legally make. Lady then goes berzerk. How DARE we not know what a cosmo is. How DARE we not be able to serve it to her when she condescended to explain it to us. How DARE we not have a full bar. She got up and left. Good riddance, says the boss. We don't need people like that in here anyway.
And then we read the review and found out something interesting: Cosmo-lady had been here before. And loved it.
Thing is? Up until recently, we've NEVER had a liquor licence. We've NEVER been able to serve anything stronger than Port or Sake. So the first time she was here? There would have been no Cosmo. Come three years ago? No Cosmo. Ironically, about a week later? We DID get our liquor licence, though we lied our ass off to customers and said it was still in the pipe (Had to buy the booze before we could serve it. Oh, and Fun Fact time! Texas law requires you buy restuarant booze from a liquor shop licenced to sell to restaurants. So if the only licenced shop in your county is the single worst store in said county? And they give you a really pathetic bulk discount? And continually either forget portions of your order or get the wrong stuff? Tough shit.)
So if Cosmo-Lady had come in AFTER we got the licence, installed the bar and purchased the booze? She could reasonably have held us accountable for not knowing what a Cosmo was (vodka, cranberry juice, something else I forgot. We don't get a lot of orders for the things). But she would never have known that her waitress didn't have a clue what a Cosmo was, because we also got a couple of great cheat books to go by, and when someone orders an incomprehensible mess, we can either figure out what the hell it is, or fake it.
So no, Lady. Even if the waitress had been a fully trained bartender with awards for her skills and services, you would not have gotten your boozed up cranberry juice. You would have been told that immediately (Sorry, beer/wine only!) but you wouldn't have gotten it. You can complain about bad service. You can complain about the decor (though why you would want to is beyond me) and you can complain about the food. But it's REALLY unreasonable to complain that you didn't get something that, by law, we cannot give you.
It's like the more recent time when a pair of customers threw the menu back in my face and asked for something not on the menu at all. I think it was bacon wrapped shrimp. Sounds awesome, and IF they were someone we knew and IF it were not a busy-as-hell Friday night (time taken out to wrap shrimp in bacon is time better spent making the things that ARE on the menu that we ARE prepped for, for regular customers who don't have the brass-faced gall to dictate our menu to us) I might have tried to sweet talk the cook into doing it. IF the customers had not gotten bitchy with me for not immediately going "OH, Sure! I'll just zip on over and ask the cook to make something he's never made before on the busiest night of the week!" and instead saying, "Uh...I have no idea what that is" (they didn't even say "Shrimp wrapped in bacon", but gave it the title we apply to fish in crawfish sauce. And we have several other dishes named things that mean something completely different in another restaurant. How the fuck should I be able to translate your Dish X into "Shrimp wrapped in Bacon" when Dish X means something else here?) "but I'll see if we can do it."
This is like going up to a foot doctor and, spur of the moment, asking him to operate on your kidneys. He could probably do it if he had to, but probably not the way you want it, and it's not a very smart thing to do. And if the doctor, or in this case, the cook, is not your friend and is already elbows deep in the stuff he IS good at doing? Door's over there. Don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out.
*deep breath*
Okay. I'm better now. And having a boss that will back you to the hilt on both occasions? IS. AWESOME.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Dear Julia Roberts
You're a good actress. Admittedly you do one role. Cute. Akward. Giggly. America's Sweetheart--okay, in that one movie you were actually her sister, but there is no way in hell anyone thought they were talking about Catherine Zeta-Jones when they started pitching that movie, you know? But to get back to my point...you're a good actress. Good. And you have to know how to pick scripts that display your abilities to their fullest. Like, you know, America's Sweethearts. (I refuse to see Eat, Pray, Love. I know it's probably a good movie, but watching a rich white woman act in a movie about a rich white woman who talked her publisher into paying for her world tour isn't my idea of a good hour spent, ya know?)
So I have one question: HAVE YOU GONE COMPLETELY MENTAL???
Jesus. I have to go take a shower now. Back in five.
Okay, let's start with the endurable stuff: It's costume porn, the sets are awesome, and the CGI castle doesn't make me want to rupture something from the wincing. Which I did thirty seconds in, when I heard someone say the words blah blah blah in a fantasy movie. One that isn't Shrek related. Although this is less kissing cousins to Shrek and more that one guy who lives up in the mountains with his mother and his sister (They're the same bloody person)
...
(How about the shop, then?) /hot fuzz quote
Anyway, I get that Shrek and it's offshoots are popular, having modern in-jokes in fantasy material is equally popular, but you know what? There's a demographic you're supposed to be courting, given that this is competing with another, identical movie. And I hate Kirsten Stewart. I hate sitting through Twilight Movies (GODDAMN YOU LIONSGATE FOR PUTTING HUNGER GAMES TRAILER IN FRONT OF BREAKING DAWN you will suffer for this I promise you) (Yes I know I can watch it on Youtube)(I already have) (I'm still going to see it on the big screen) (I am that obsessed) and watching KStew stumble through her horrible dialogue. Snow White and the Huntsman is now officially on my Please God Don't Let it Suck prayer list. Because it looked that awesome. (Probably because she didn't talk)
I get that studio executives somewhere heard that a Snow White movie was being made, and they decided the best thing they could do is make a competing Snow White movie so that people intending to see KStew would go see this one (let's be honest here. I can smell the slapped together desperation through my laptop) and get a big name actress to give it some form of legitimacy. But lemme let you in on a little secret: The villian? Should not get top billing in the picture. Because I do not care yet. Well, unless your goal was to make me want the villain dead, because if that's the case they've done a pretty good job. This means that 1. there was nobody famous in the right age range for Snow White, who was desperate enough to take the role. 2. they had to make do with what they could get.
But there's a huge difference between "make do with what we can get" and "HEY! JULIA ROBERTS!"
I will probably wind up seeing SWatH because it looks awesome. This? Does not look awesome. This is a version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that contains a fucking midget joke. It contains Tony Montana references (AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME) and everything else sucking combined could not begin to compare with how much you suck in this trailer, Julia.
I haven't seen the movie yet. I don't intend to go see the movie yet, because I'm REALLY tired of Hollywood dressing up fresh steaming turds with the Brother's Grimm and us fantasy fans having to make do.
Why are are you in this, Julia? Seriously. I was warned. Don't watch this. It's horrible. I watched it. And I'm going, hey, it's not so bad. Cliched, a little overly polished--and then you open your mouth and I go "huh?" My jaw dropped. The evil nega-fan within me stared in horror and then began rocking in the corner. I had to check my laptop to make sure it hadn't begun to bleed out the USB ports.
Were you blackmailed? Please tell me you were blackmailed. And then tell the world what it was, because whatever it was it can't possibly be as bad as having to see you in this movie. I know you have kids now (I think) and that you'd like to make movies your kids can watch. Please see the above part where I mentioned this has a midget joke in it. Probably more than one. (And let's not even mention the Snow white, S'no way joke. Seriously. If we never mention this again I can probably block it out forever). I know that using little people as the butt of the joke is kind of the latest modern fad, but blackface was pretty popular for a while there, too.
And aging beauty jokes? Seriously? Julia, you might have a couple lines that you would call wrinkles, but not only will no one else on the planet ever notice them, a little botox will buff that right out (oh god, there's going to be a botox joke in this, isn't there? I know it. I just fucking know it. I'm going to come back in six months and write in, yep, there was a botox joke). And Julia, I hate to break it to you, but there is no way in FUCK you'd ever need a corset. E.V.E.R. Let alone need to have it be wrenched together.
I am hoping desperately this is a terrible hoax, and that you were blackmailed into participation in this terrible hoax, and that I never have to see that thing again.
I'm going to go wash my blog out with holy water now.
So I have one question: HAVE YOU GONE COMPLETELY MENTAL???
Jesus. I have to go take a shower now. Back in five.
Okay, let's start with the endurable stuff: It's costume porn, the sets are awesome, and the CGI castle doesn't make me want to rupture something from the wincing. Which I did thirty seconds in, when I heard someone say the words blah blah blah in a fantasy movie. One that isn't Shrek related. Although this is less kissing cousins to Shrek and more that one guy who lives up in the mountains with his mother and his sister (They're the same bloody person)
...
(How about the shop, then?) /hot fuzz quote
Anyway, I get that Shrek and it's offshoots are popular, having modern in-jokes in fantasy material is equally popular, but you know what? There's a demographic you're supposed to be courting, given that this is competing with another, identical movie. And I hate Kirsten Stewart. I hate sitting through Twilight Movies (GODDAMN YOU LIONSGATE FOR PUTTING HUNGER GAMES TRAILER IN FRONT OF BREAKING DAWN you will suffer for this I promise you) (Yes I know I can watch it on Youtube)(I already have) (I'm still going to see it on the big screen) (I am that obsessed) and watching KStew stumble through her horrible dialogue. Snow White and the Huntsman is now officially on my Please God Don't Let it Suck prayer list. Because it looked that awesome. (Probably because she didn't talk)
I get that studio executives somewhere heard that a Snow White movie was being made, and they decided the best thing they could do is make a competing Snow White movie so that people intending to see KStew would go see this one (let's be honest here. I can smell the slapped together desperation through my laptop) and get a big name actress to give it some form of legitimacy. But lemme let you in on a little secret: The villian? Should not get top billing in the picture. Because I do not care yet. Well, unless your goal was to make me want the villain dead, because if that's the case they've done a pretty good job. This means that 1. there was nobody famous in the right age range for Snow White, who was desperate enough to take the role. 2. they had to make do with what they could get.
But there's a huge difference between "make do with what we can get" and "HEY! JULIA ROBERTS!"
I will probably wind up seeing SWatH because it looks awesome. This? Does not look awesome. This is a version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that contains a fucking midget joke. It contains Tony Montana references (AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME) and everything else sucking combined could not begin to compare with how much you suck in this trailer, Julia.
I haven't seen the movie yet. I don't intend to go see the movie yet, because I'm REALLY tired of Hollywood dressing up fresh steaming turds with the Brother's Grimm and us fantasy fans having to make do.
Why are are you in this, Julia? Seriously. I was warned. Don't watch this. It's horrible. I watched it. And I'm going, hey, it's not so bad. Cliched, a little overly polished--and then you open your mouth and I go "huh?" My jaw dropped. The evil nega-fan within me stared in horror and then began rocking in the corner. I had to check my laptop to make sure it hadn't begun to bleed out the USB ports.
Were you blackmailed? Please tell me you were blackmailed. And then tell the world what it was, because whatever it was it can't possibly be as bad as having to see you in this movie. I know you have kids now (I think) and that you'd like to make movies your kids can watch. Please see the above part where I mentioned this has a midget joke in it. Probably more than one. (And let's not even mention the Snow white, S'no way joke. Seriously. If we never mention this again I can probably block it out forever). I know that using little people as the butt of the joke is kind of the latest modern fad, but blackface was pretty popular for a while there, too.
And aging beauty jokes? Seriously? Julia, you might have a couple lines that you would call wrinkles, but not only will no one else on the planet ever notice them, a little botox will buff that right out (oh god, there's going to be a botox joke in this, isn't there? I know it. I just fucking know it. I'm going to come back in six months and write in, yep, there was a botox joke). And Julia, I hate to break it to you, but there is no way in FUCK you'd ever need a corset. E.V.E.R. Let alone need to have it be wrenched together.
I am hoping desperately this is a terrible hoax, and that you were blackmailed into participation in this terrible hoax, and that I never have to see that thing again.
I'm going to go wash my blog out with holy water now.
Monday, October 24, 2011
F**king bugs.
So one thing we always had as kids were praying mantis. es. (Plural form of mantis?) I mean...there is not a cooler bug in the universe. They look like cats designed by aliens, act like cats (ever watched one clean itself?) and eat other bugs that we human things generally don't like. And the other day we found one. "We" being my brother's awesome if slightly ADD girlfriend. And then I found another one. We've never had more than one mantis at a time, so I figured hey, why not, you know? And as having two we-eat-everything-we-see-moving kind of creatures in the same container usually results in one eating the other, we separated them. Number one is as every mantis ought to be. See bug. Eat bug. But the other one... He just kind of ... sat there.
See, the fun of owning a mantis is care and feeding. Emphasis on "feeding". Yes. I am a mean and cold-hearted bitch. But it is cool. And when the mantis won't eat...you get kind of bored. And when you have two mantis...es...is...s...(seriously. Why have autocorrect if it won't spit out the damn word?) And you're bored, you decide to put them together to see what they'll do.
My brother's slightly ADD girlfriend? Put them together about ten minutes ago. As for what they'd do with each other...well...
...yeah.
See, the fun of owning a mantis is care and feeding. Emphasis on "feeding". Yes. I am a mean and cold-hearted bitch. But it is cool. And when the mantis won't eat...you get kind of bored. And when you have two mantis...es...is...s...(seriously. Why have autocorrect if it won't spit out the damn word?) And you're bored, you decide to put them together to see what they'll do.
My brother's slightly ADD girlfriend? Put them together about ten minutes ago. As for what they'd do with each other...well...
Friday, October 21, 2011
Disturbing blog stuff
So we get to check search strings when we look at our stats (yes. I check almost every day, unless I haven't posted in a while. Yes. I'm that much of an attention whore) and I've got a new record for "most disturbing search string"
Megamind porn movie.
MEGAMIND PORN MOVIE.
Megamind porn movie.
MEGAMIND PORN MOVIE.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
In Which A Dedicated Pro-Lifer Jumps Ship.
So today I found out that Mississippi state House, on Nov. 8th, is voting on a bill that would grant “personhood” to human embryos. And I realized that despite years and years of education in Why Abortion is Bad and When Life Starts and a gazillion other things my good Christian parents have educated me about, despite being a dedicated Christian (with kinks) and a Republican (technically) I really don't like this. Having this pass and set precedent for other states would be a really bad thing for me. You know, because I'm one of those “woman” things with ovaries and a uterus.
And no. I’m not saying this because limitations on birth control, which is what this group is advocating, would limit my happy fun sexy times. I don’t have happy fun sexy times. I have not had sex. Ever. And I don’t plan on having sex in the immediate future, partially because me having a baby right now would be a really bad thing. Even if I were on birth control I probably wouldn’t be having sex, because I have some really good evidence that the pill doesn’t always work.
Me.
Yep. I’m a pill baby, folks. Not only that, but Mom was on the pill because her doctor told her it’d be a really BAD idea for her to ever get pregnant again. She’d lost two babies before she had me, and when she did get pregnant with me, the first time she went in for a checkup the doctor could feel my head.
And you know, maybe it’s me shoving my head up my own ass here, but that tells me that God really wanted me here. Enough to bypass every safety mechanism my parents put in place because Mom having babies was Not A Good Thing according to everyone. And this leads me to why this bill pisses me off.
Point the First: I am poor. Anyone I marry is likely to be poor. Therefore, if within the next ten years or so I decide to get married, it probably will not be “right” for me to have a baby. Note that I am considering this in the relm of “marry” because, religious leanings aside, given how often birth control has failed in my family if you want to get in my pants you’d better fucking be ready to marry me before you cross the finish line, so to speak, because I cannot afford to have a baby if and when I get married right now, let alone if I’m on my own. In fact, every other consideration off the table, under every conceivable set of probable circumstances shows me that I probably will not ever be able to afford a baby and provide the level of care and life the child would need.
With "good of the child" as my primary concern, it's a bad idea for me to have kids. So who the hell are you to take this decision away from me? To tell me that if I want to have a relationship with someone I’d better have a baby plan in place first? I’m already paranoid about having a kid, in or out of wedlock, before I’m ready to raise and care for that kid. And I want to have a kid! I just know me having babies right now is a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea. This is a decision I’ve made carefully and soberly, and to have somebody tell me “tough luck” and take the few, unreliable tools I DO have for managing my future away from me is not fair. If I can’t afford a fucking CAR, sir, I can’t afford a baby. And you’re telling me that I also can’t afford to have a relationship, MARRIED OR NOT, because I can’t even have birth control?
And hey? Pro-life people? Did you see that place above where I said “Even if I’m on the pill, I probably wouldn’t have sex”? Does it not occur to you that some people use hormonal birth control for something OTHER than not making babies? That maybe us women people need to be able to function and not be incapacitated with cramps? Or deal with the anemia that comes with excessively heavy periods? That being able to predict when the monthly gift deposits itself on our door might be a good thing? Oh, and you know the mood swings that come with? Do you want to combine brittle emotional states with chronic depression? You want to know what a fucking funhouse it is to have S/I issues and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that once a month I get to hold on to my sanity by the skin of my teeth? Because I sure as fuck didn't, and I got to anyway.
You want to control crime? Make sure you don’t have poor families with sixteen mouths to feed. Make sure women don’t have to fucking sterilize themselves to ensure that “woopsie daisy, there’s a baby” doesn’t get in the way of feeding their other children. Make sure that the family a person has is the family they can afford to feed. Want to prevent abortions? See above.
And that brings me to Point number two. This is aimed at the religious people. The people who want to do God’s will in life, who think that preventing abortions is it.
Who the BLAZING BLUE FUCK do you think you are? How DARE you shove your head so far up your own ass that you think anyone can abort something God wants to have happen? Do you see that part above me? The part where I said I’m a pill baby? Do you think that one single person God wants in this world hasn’t been born? Do you think we really have that much power? Really? You really want to think that human beings have more power than God?
Do you think God is so weak that a surgeon with a scalpel and a vacuum can undo something he wants done? Is your God so powerless that he can’t secure the birth of every child he desires?
Judge not, lest you be judged, sir. And you’re judging. You’ve decided that every teenager who gets pregnant is a careless sex fiend. You’ve decided that every career woman who decides to go on the pill is a feminazi ice bitch. Every poor person who visits planned parenthood is someone getting an abortion, and every woman who gets an abortion is a whore.
In your world, there are no rape victims.
In your world, biology is perfect.
In your world, everyone can scrape together the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to bring a single healthy baby into the world.
You don’t see the pain.
You don’t see the desperation.
You have the compassion of a jar of mayonnaise.
You know that part in the bible? Splinter in your friend’s eye? BIG FUCKING LOG in yours? Abortion is a splinter. Abortion is a matter between the individual WOMAN faced with that choice and God. So is birth control. So is everything else in a WOMAN’S life. May I emphasize that again? If I decide that I am neither financially nor emotionally nor physically stable enough to have a baby it should be my fucking choice. You cannot tell me what I am capable of. It is my body, and I’d rather become a nun than bring a child into the world when I cannot provide a stable, healthy home for it. Children, marriage and sex are decisions that are between ME and GOD, and not some rich politician who probably spends twice my monthly rent on BOOZE, or gas, or electricity for his air conditioning, who doesn’t see things from my perspective, who has never seen things from my perspective, who, if he did see me, would see me as a waitress and would ogle my boobs and cut my tip in half if I protested.
In short, sir:
And yes, that’s me judging too. And I’ll apologize to both you and God for it when I’m less pissed off.
C.S. Lewis, the great theologian and fantasy writer, said two things in passing that apply here. The first was in his biography, where he discusses the massive amount of pediastry that happened in his prep school (aka boys screwing other boys). He said that he never felt it his place to judge because he never experienced that particular temptation. Then, in The Horse and his Boy, there is a place where Aslan tells a character why it was necessary for him to scar the character across the back: the girl needed to know what she had carelessly done to her faithful servant. When the girl, now humble, asks what happened to the servant, Aslan replies that that is not the girl’s story. We each may only know our own stories.
You might believe that birth, not abortion is the morally right choice. This is great. I believe that too. But, and this is the key, you will never have to make that choice. I will. You will never have to decide between buying food and buying diapers. Between having a romantic life and having stability. And constricting my freedom just so that you can sleep at night is not and cannot be God’s will. And to think that you have any control over God’s will, in a positive or negative sense?
Look up megalomania in the dictionary. I think you’ll see your picture right next to it.
And no. I’m not saying this because limitations on birth control, which is what this group is advocating, would limit my happy fun sexy times. I don’t have happy fun sexy times. I have not had sex. Ever. And I don’t plan on having sex in the immediate future, partially because me having a baby right now would be a really bad thing. Even if I were on birth control I probably wouldn’t be having sex, because I have some really good evidence that the pill doesn’t always work.
Me.
Yep. I’m a pill baby, folks. Not only that, but Mom was on the pill because her doctor told her it’d be a really BAD idea for her to ever get pregnant again. She’d lost two babies before she had me, and when she did get pregnant with me, the first time she went in for a checkup the doctor could feel my head.
And you know, maybe it’s me shoving my head up my own ass here, but that tells me that God really wanted me here. Enough to bypass every safety mechanism my parents put in place because Mom having babies was Not A Good Thing according to everyone. And this leads me to why this bill pisses me off.
Point the First: I am poor. Anyone I marry is likely to be poor. Therefore, if within the next ten years or so I decide to get married, it probably will not be “right” for me to have a baby. Note that I am considering this in the relm of “marry” because, religious leanings aside, given how often birth control has failed in my family if you want to get in my pants you’d better fucking be ready to marry me before you cross the finish line, so to speak, because I cannot afford to have a baby if and when I get married right now, let alone if I’m on my own. In fact, every other consideration off the table, under every conceivable set of probable circumstances shows me that I probably will not ever be able to afford a baby and provide the level of care and life the child would need.
With "good of the child" as my primary concern, it's a bad idea for me to have kids. So who the hell are you to take this decision away from me? To tell me that if I want to have a relationship with someone I’d better have a baby plan in place first? I’m already paranoid about having a kid, in or out of wedlock, before I’m ready to raise and care for that kid. And I want to have a kid! I just know me having babies right now is a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea. This is a decision I’ve made carefully and soberly, and to have somebody tell me “tough luck” and take the few, unreliable tools I DO have for managing my future away from me is not fair. If I can’t afford a fucking CAR, sir, I can’t afford a baby. And you’re telling me that I also can’t afford to have a relationship, MARRIED OR NOT, because I can’t even have birth control?
And hey? Pro-life people? Did you see that place above where I said “Even if I’m on the pill, I probably wouldn’t have sex”? Does it not occur to you that some people use hormonal birth control for something OTHER than not making babies? That maybe us women people need to be able to function and not be incapacitated with cramps? Or deal with the anemia that comes with excessively heavy periods? That being able to predict when the monthly gift deposits itself on our door might be a good thing? Oh, and you know the mood swings that come with? Do you want to combine brittle emotional states with chronic depression? You want to know what a fucking funhouse it is to have S/I issues and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that once a month I get to hold on to my sanity by the skin of my teeth? Because I sure as fuck didn't, and I got to anyway.
You want to control crime? Make sure you don’t have poor families with sixteen mouths to feed. Make sure women don’t have to fucking sterilize themselves to ensure that “woopsie daisy, there’s a baby” doesn’t get in the way of feeding their other children. Make sure that the family a person has is the family they can afford to feed. Want to prevent abortions? See above.
And that brings me to Point number two. This is aimed at the religious people. The people who want to do God’s will in life, who think that preventing abortions is it.
Who the BLAZING BLUE FUCK do you think you are? How DARE you shove your head so far up your own ass that you think anyone can abort something God wants to have happen? Do you see that part above me? The part where I said I’m a pill baby? Do you think that one single person God wants in this world hasn’t been born? Do you think we really have that much power? Really? You really want to think that human beings have more power than God?
Do you think God is so weak that a surgeon with a scalpel and a vacuum can undo something he wants done? Is your God so powerless that he can’t secure the birth of every child he desires?
Judge not, lest you be judged, sir. And you’re judging. You’ve decided that every teenager who gets pregnant is a careless sex fiend. You’ve decided that every career woman who decides to go on the pill is a feminazi ice bitch. Every poor person who visits planned parenthood is someone getting an abortion, and every woman who gets an abortion is a whore.
In your world, there are no rape victims.
In your world, biology is perfect.
In your world, everyone can scrape together the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to bring a single healthy baby into the world.
You don’t see the pain.
You don’t see the desperation.
You have the compassion of a jar of mayonnaise.
You know that part in the bible? Splinter in your friend’s eye? BIG FUCKING LOG in yours? Abortion is a splinter. Abortion is a matter between the individual WOMAN faced with that choice and God. So is birth control. So is everything else in a WOMAN’S life. May I emphasize that again? If I decide that I am neither financially nor emotionally nor physically stable enough to have a baby it should be my fucking choice. You cannot tell me what I am capable of. It is my body, and I’d rather become a nun than bring a child into the world when I cannot provide a stable, healthy home for it. Children, marriage and sex are decisions that are between ME and GOD, and not some rich politician who probably spends twice my monthly rent on BOOZE, or gas, or electricity for his air conditioning, who doesn’t see things from my perspective, who has never seen things from my perspective, who, if he did see me, would see me as a waitress and would ogle my boobs and cut my tip in half if I protested.
In short, sir:
And yes, that’s me judging too. And I’ll apologize to both you and God for it when I’m less pissed off.
C.S. Lewis, the great theologian and fantasy writer, said two things in passing that apply here. The first was in his biography, where he discusses the massive amount of pediastry that happened in his prep school (aka boys screwing other boys). He said that he never felt it his place to judge because he never experienced that particular temptation. Then, in The Horse and his Boy, there is a place where Aslan tells a character why it was necessary for him to scar the character across the back: the girl needed to know what she had carelessly done to her faithful servant. When the girl, now humble, asks what happened to the servant, Aslan replies that that is not the girl’s story. We each may only know our own stories.
You might believe that birth, not abortion is the morally right choice. This is great. I believe that too. But, and this is the key, you will never have to make that choice. I will. You will never have to decide between buying food and buying diapers. Between having a romantic life and having stability. And constricting my freedom just so that you can sleep at night is not and cannot be God’s will. And to think that you have any control over God’s will, in a positive or negative sense?
Look up megalomania in the dictionary. I think you’ll see your picture right next to it.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Movie Bitch: Armageddon
So my brother put Armegeddon in the other day, and because I like to pretend I have good taste in movies it's been a really long time since I've watched it.
Having watched it, I've made the three following, seemingly contradictory realizations.
1. Micheal Bay is a very talented story teller. And I'm not being sarcastic. He manages to hit every note just right, to convey all the information you need to become attached to characters, involved in a story, and afraid for the life and livelihood of every person involved. But he's hampered by a severe handicap.
2. Micheal Bay is a total moron.
and finally,
3. Armageddon is a very polished, well put together, extraordinarily well structured turd. See ya after the break.
Having watched it, I've made the three following, seemingly contradictory realizations.
1. Micheal Bay is a very talented story teller. And I'm not being sarcastic. He manages to hit every note just right, to convey all the information you need to become attached to characters, involved in a story, and afraid for the life and livelihood of every person involved. But he's hampered by a severe handicap.
2. Micheal Bay is a total moron.
and finally,
3. Armageddon is a very polished, well put together, extraordinarily well structured turd. See ya after the break.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Block Party!
Okay, so yesterday I mentioned that I finished my shawl, and that I needed to block it. And I have, it's done, and all I can say is OMG pins. God save us all from PINS.
And I am now going to give you the full story of CW's First Blocking Adventure.
The first thing you do when you block is decide that this is easy; you've done the hard part. You've knitted the garment. This, in book language, is like writing the first draft (aka "lace chart") editing it (knitting it) and then shipping it off to an agent according to all the submission guidelines. You think that the hard part is done. "All" that is left is the blocking.
I mean, Grandma used to do this. How hard can it be?
Serious lace knitters may want to break out the popcorn.
So first you gather your equiptment, which according to the internet are: Bedsheet, pins, sheet of plastic, pins, spray bottle, pins, wool wash or baby shampoo, pins, a place to do it, and while you're at it you might want to pick up another box of pins. You are (thank god) smart enough to know better than to do this in your little tiny trailer house because your bed is too small, you'll have to do this blocking thing on the floor and whatever room you choose to do it in will be out of commission for the rest of the day. So when you go to Wal-mart to get items, you first stop at Maternal Unit's place of work and request the use of her king-sized bed for the day, because the king-sized bed should be more than enough room to block a shawl that is about four-and-a-half feet wide, unblocked.
If anyone reading this has ever blocked a piece of lace before, they are laughing at me.
Maternal unit gives Okay, so you go to walmart and buy one white cotton blanket, forgoing the pretty blue one only because you remember the words "color fast" in the internet instructions, one clear plastic shower curtain, one spritz bottle, one box of T-pins (40 count) and, instead of a second box of T-pins, about two hundred quilting pins. There is, of course, no way in hell you would EVER need that many pins, but hey, you might need to do this again and some of the pins might rust.
Like I said. Experianced lace knitters. Now laughing their ass off.
So you go home, strip bed of sheets, put down plastic sheet, put down cotton blanket, pin in place, and put lacy thing in sink for first washing.
And the learning begins.
Internet says to treat lace being washed very carefully. About five seconds after turning on the faucet I understood that "very carefully" means "treat as if any form of agitation will upset the capsule of radioactive nitro glycerine wrapped in the middle of the shawl". You might think this is an exaggeration. It is not. First, warm, wet wool + agitation=felt. Felt is not something you want to happen to your six-month project because this cannot be undone. Second, this six-month project is made out of relatively unstable handspun yarn that your mother usually refers to as "hair". And it has just absorbed about a gallon and a half of water that you cannot get back out. Because wringing? Agitation. Crumpling into ball and squeezing? Agitation. And the fiber? Gets very fragile when wet. So you now have a very fine lacy thing that is much more fragile now then when you put it in the sink, and is way, way, way heavier.
So washing means fill sink with cold water. Submerge shawl. Spread baby shampoo over shawl and squeeze very, very gently (We're talking tomato-test squeeze) to get shampoo through everything. Drain sink, supporting shawl the entire time because you don't want fragile string getting sucked down the drain. Fill sink back up. Slosh shawl around carefully to get shampoo out. Drain sink. Realize there is still shampoo in shawl. Fill sink. Slosh. Drain. Realize there is still shampoo. Repeat process until water is clean of suds, which is about three more fill-slosh-drain repeats than you want to preform.
Now you have to get heavy, wet, fragile shawl out of sink and to bed without breaking anything. You try pressing shawl against side of sink. You get about a cup full of water out. There is still a gallon or so in the shawl. Next best thing: lay towel out on floor, spread shawl on towel, roll it up and press on it. No wringing. We still cannot wring. Bodacious amounts of water will bleed through towel. Bring the whole thing, towel, shawl and all, to bed all rolled up like a wooly burrito. Lay on bed, unroll. breath sigh of releif because, hey, hard part's over, right?
Ha ha.
This shawl is a circle. And we want it to stay a circle, which means we have to pin it into a relatively round shape. Now, do any of you remember how hard it is to draw a perfectly round circle? Imagine having to draw that circle using six bazillion tiny dots. These dots being pins.
Logically, you'd think that the shawl, being a circle, would work kind of like a compass and you can use its natural diameter to trace the outline. This would be true, if washing it had not turned the shawl into elastic. You set the shawl on the bed, and because the first step is to pin the compass points, you grab one point of your pretty, pointy edging and pin it to the edge of the bed. You go to the other side, and start pulling. And keep pulling. And. Keep. Pulling. Until you find yourself holding about six inches of shawl that did not exist before you got it wet. Six inches that are much bigger than the king sized bed. Oh, well. Four more pins, and now you have the compass points pinned down, more or less where they ought to be.
Only you don't know about the "more or less" part. Yet.
Then you start pinning points in the middle. And then points in the middle of that. And then points in the middle of that, until you have touched the bottom of your forty-count T-pin pack and you are not nearly done pinning the points down. You realize that the pins, pins, pins internet list wasn't exaggerating at all, and your decision to buy a 200 pack instead of another 40 pack has probably just saved your bacon, if not your fingers.
And then you realize you've spent so much time pinning and are not even halfway done yet, the shawl is starting to dry out. So you spritz, and you keep pinning. You have one quarter all pinned up and you realize that the circle is looking more like well if you squint it kinda looks round. And that the line you're squinting at is made of about, oh, sixty pins (<---lowball estimate. Really low) that you now have to readjust. Spritz away, you've got another hundred and eighty pins to go.
So to fast-forward through pins, pins, pins, bleeding, pins pins pins, you've decided that since you don't have to squint quite so hard to see the circle, you're done. You go sit in the living room because it will only take about an hour for the nice, light lacy thing to dry.
Three hours later you realize that the "be careful about it drying out" and the guesstimates on drying times were made by people who live up north in the middle of the country. Not in Coastal South Texas, where the air has the same humidity and viscosity as a deep water sponge in an oceanic trench, and that all the panicked spritzing you did has probably extended drying time by a couple more hours. Which you will have to sit patiently through, because you promised you'd have it all cleaned up by the time your stepfather got home, and barring that, you'll need to stop him from throwing clothing on top of the pretty light lacy thing taking up most of his bed. And dear god in heaven, DON'T TOUCH THE PINS.
And then you go back and carefully, cautiously pull the first couple of pins out of the bed. Nothing explodes or unravels, you find no dropped stitches. You continue, growing more and more excited. When it's done you take it outside and take pictures of it, because you know what? All the work, all the sore hands and bleeding bits and the pins pins pins?
It is TOTALLY WORTH IT:
I rock. Just sayin'.
And I am now going to give you the full story of CW's First Blocking Adventure.
The first thing you do when you block is decide that this is easy; you've done the hard part. You've knitted the garment. This, in book language, is like writing the first draft (aka "lace chart") editing it (knitting it) and then shipping it off to an agent according to all the submission guidelines. You think that the hard part is done. "All" that is left is the blocking.
I mean, Grandma used to do this. How hard can it be?
Serious lace knitters may want to break out the popcorn.
So first you gather your equiptment, which according to the internet are: Bedsheet, pins, sheet of plastic, pins, spray bottle, pins, wool wash or baby shampoo, pins, a place to do it, and while you're at it you might want to pick up another box of pins. You are (thank god) smart enough to know better than to do this in your little tiny trailer house because your bed is too small, you'll have to do this blocking thing on the floor and whatever room you choose to do it in will be out of commission for the rest of the day. So when you go to Wal-mart to get items, you first stop at Maternal Unit's place of work and request the use of her king-sized bed for the day, because the king-sized bed should be more than enough room to block a shawl that is about four-and-a-half feet wide, unblocked.
If anyone reading this has ever blocked a piece of lace before, they are laughing at me.
Maternal unit gives Okay, so you go to walmart and buy one white cotton blanket, forgoing the pretty blue one only because you remember the words "color fast" in the internet instructions, one clear plastic shower curtain, one spritz bottle, one box of T-pins (40 count) and, instead of a second box of T-pins, about two hundred quilting pins. There is, of course, no way in hell you would EVER need that many pins, but hey, you might need to do this again and some of the pins might rust.
Pictured: shampoo, spritz bottle, small box of pins, large box of pins.
Not pictured: Sanity.
Like I said. Experianced lace knitters. Now laughing their ass off.
So you go home, strip bed of sheets, put down plastic sheet, put down cotton blanket, pin in place, and put lacy thing in sink for first washing.
And the learning begins.
Internet says to treat lace being washed very carefully. About five seconds after turning on the faucet I understood that "very carefully" means "treat as if any form of agitation will upset the capsule of radioactive nitro glycerine wrapped in the middle of the shawl". You might think this is an exaggeration. It is not. First, warm, wet wool + agitation=felt. Felt is not something you want to happen to your six-month project because this cannot be undone. Second, this six-month project is made out of relatively unstable handspun yarn that your mother usually refers to as "hair". And it has just absorbed about a gallon and a half of water that you cannot get back out. Because wringing? Agitation. Crumpling into ball and squeezing? Agitation. And the fiber? Gets very fragile when wet. So you now have a very fine lacy thing that is much more fragile now then when you put it in the sink, and is way, way, way heavier.
So washing means fill sink with cold water. Submerge shawl. Spread baby shampoo over shawl and squeeze very, very gently (We're talking tomato-test squeeze) to get shampoo through everything. Drain sink, supporting shawl the entire time because you don't want fragile string getting sucked down the drain. Fill sink back up. Slosh shawl around carefully to get shampoo out. Drain sink. Realize there is still shampoo in shawl. Fill sink. Slosh. Drain. Realize there is still shampoo. Repeat process until water is clean of suds, which is about three more fill-slosh-drain repeats than you want to preform.
Now you have to get heavy, wet, fragile shawl out of sink and to bed without breaking anything. You try pressing shawl against side of sink. You get about a cup full of water out. There is still a gallon or so in the shawl. Next best thing: lay towel out on floor, spread shawl on towel, roll it up and press on it. No wringing. We still cannot wring. Bodacious amounts of water will bleed through towel. Bring the whole thing, towel, shawl and all, to bed all rolled up like a wooly burrito. Lay on bed, unroll. breath sigh of releif because, hey, hard part's over, right?
Wet shawl about to be squished dry
Towel Burrito
Ha ha.
This shawl is a circle. And we want it to stay a circle, which means we have to pin it into a relatively round shape. Now, do any of you remember how hard it is to draw a perfectly round circle? Imagine having to draw that circle using six bazillion tiny dots. These dots being pins.
Logically, you'd think that the shawl, being a circle, would work kind of like a compass and you can use its natural diameter to trace the outline. This would be true, if washing it had not turned the shawl into elastic. You set the shawl on the bed, and because the first step is to pin the compass points, you grab one point of your pretty, pointy edging and pin it to the edge of the bed. You go to the other side, and start pulling. And keep pulling. And. Keep. Pulling. Until you find yourself holding about six inches of shawl that did not exist before you got it wet. Six inches that are much bigger than the king sized bed. Oh, well. Four more pins, and now you have the compass points pinned down, more or less where they ought to be.
Only you don't know about the "more or less" part. Yet.
Then you start pinning points in the middle. And then points in the middle of that. And then points in the middle of that, until you have touched the bottom of your forty-count T-pin pack and you are not nearly done pinning the points down. You realize that the pins, pins, pins internet list wasn't exaggerating at all, and your decision to buy a 200 pack instead of another 40 pack has probably just saved your bacon, if not your fingers.
Not. exaggerating. At all.
And then you realize you've spent so much time pinning and are not even halfway done yet, the shawl is starting to dry out. So you spritz, and you keep pinning. You have one quarter all pinned up and you realize that the circle is looking more like well if you squint it kinda looks round. And that the line you're squinting at is made of about, oh, sixty pins (<---lowball estimate. Really low) that you now have to readjust. Spritz away, you've got another hundred and eighty pins to go.
Mommy.
So to fast-forward through pins, pins, pins, bleeding, pins pins pins, you've decided that since you don't have to squint quite so hard to see the circle, you're done. You go sit in the living room because it will only take about an hour for the nice, light lacy thing to dry.
I mean, it's not like we've underestimated anything else, right?
Three hours later you realize that the "be careful about it drying out" and the guesstimates on drying times were made by people who live up north in the middle of the country. Not in Coastal South Texas, where the air has the same humidity and viscosity as a deep water sponge in an oceanic trench, and that all the panicked spritzing you did has probably extended drying time by a couple more hours. Which you will have to sit patiently through, because you promised you'd have it all cleaned up by the time your stepfather got home, and barring that, you'll need to stop him from throwing clothing on top of the pretty light lacy thing taking up most of his bed. And dear god in heaven, DON'T TOUCH THE PINS.
And then you go back and carefully, cautiously pull the first couple of pins out of the bed. Nothing explodes or unravels, you find no dropped stitches. You continue, growing more and more excited. When it's done you take it outside and take pictures of it, because you know what? All the work, all the sore hands and bleeding bits and the pins pins pins?
It is TOTALLY WORTH IT:
I rock. Just sayin'.
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