I Have No Pants, And I Must Scream

Slut-Shaming + Femicide: http://thecurvature.com/2009/12/02/13-year-old-girl-commits-suicide-after-classmates-spread-nude-photos/

I'd never heard of a coffee shop that served hot dogs at all, let alone exclusively.

I've now taken 2 members of my household to the hospital this week. We're dropping like horny flies.

Mom is waking up every 2-4 hours. Taking care of her is turning from a 16-hour-a-day job into a 24/7 job.

Winter Break is upon us. The streets are overrun with kids. They're everywhere. When did "kids" become "Them" and not "Us?"

No, really.



I took this on my phone at the hospital. She's about an hour and a half into a morphine high. Not enough to kill the pain, but it did dull it, and made her even more silly than normal.

Last week, my grandpa took my mom with him on a 7-day cruise through the Caymans and the Bahamas aboard a 300-meter 18-story floating city of a luxury liner. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her, a trip she never would have been able to afford on her own, and she enjoyed it thoroughly.

That is, until the last day, when she choked on her Coke, passed out, and fell to the ground. She suffered a broken rib, a black eye, and some memory loss for a few hours (she didn't even know why she was on a boat). Since she had a head injury, the ship doctor wouldn't give her any pain medication and woke her up every 30 minutes for the next 12 hours. They wanted to keep her in Florida for a couple days for observation, but she didn't have any people there, couldn't afford to stay in a hotel, and hates hospitals as a general rule, so she just suffered through the first available flight home instead.

Now she's been home for 4 days, and her condition continues to deteriorate. I finally took her to the hospital yesterday, when she heard her ribs snap apart while sitting down. The new X-rays revealed that 2 more of her ribs were broken - the doctor must have missed the hairline fractures on the other two, and the CRACK! sound she heard was the other two finally giving and separating. She can barely move without assistance. Any sort of standing, sitting, laying, reaching, bending, coughing, hiccuping, or (especially) laughing inflicts spasms of agony upon her. She needs help to stand up, to sit down, to obtain any object that happens to be out of reach. Since it even hurts to breathe deeply, she's been issued what basically amounts to a bong that doesn't get you high, in order to keep her lung from collapsing.

I've literally been waiting on her hand and foot when not running errands for her for 16 hours a day for the last 4 days. I'm exhausted. I'm the sort of person who requires an hour or two of solitude every day, and when I don't get it, I go fucking crazy. I haven't been getting it. I've been sleeping with my door open so I'll hear her if (when) she needs my help. I'm not whining about this to her, obviously. I'm an asshole, but I'm not a fucking asshole.

She's brimming with gratitude, and I'm not sure if that's the best part or the worst part of this situation. She keeps saying "I don't know what I'd do without you." Which is strange, because for the last 5 months I've been living here, I haven't contributed a fucking thing. I've just been hiding in my room, wearing headphones, cleaning up after myself, generally trying to leave so little trace of my presence that people forget I'm here, and occasionally actually going to class.

I guess it's fortunate after all that I haven't found legitimate employment yet. If I had a job right now, I wouldn't be available for this.

On the bright side, her boss stopped by last night on his way home, to get her signatures on some very important paperwork. Paperwork which will fast-track her sick leave and back-date her medical coverage to before she got injured. So she won't lose any wages while she's incapacitated, and she won't get as badly reamed by the American medical industry. And he assured her that her job is safe. She worked with him at another company, but still, not bad for having been there all of 2 weeks and change. It's a load off her mind. She was sure to supply him with a souvenir bottle of authentic Tortuga rum.

The doctor prescribed her some very effective painkillers, but even they don't actually eliminate the pain. According to Mom, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most painful experience ever, the pills drop it from a 7-9 to a 4-6. The hospital staff all told us that the only thing which will actually kill her pain is Time. She's looking at a good 4-6 weeks until her ribs are fully healed. Unfortunately, it seems Time is not some crazed butcher who cleaves its victims in twain with a chainsaw. Rather, it is a more insidious, sadistic killer, who prefers to savor its victims agony. I painted a mental picture for my mother, of Pain chained up in a cellar behind a half-completed new wall, desperately screaming "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MONTRESSOR!" And Time simply smirking, applying mortar to another stone and replying "Yes. For the love of God." For the 100th time since her return, I made her laugh, then grimace, then laugh some more.

I have been felled by The Plague. The pestilence is upon us, and there shall be no quarter, asked nor given.

I caught up on Family Guy last night. The first thing that springs to mind is this:

The only thing I like less than Miley Cyrus is a string of jokes about raping Miley Cyrus.

Also, American Dad is, surprisingly enough, surpassing Family Guy in quality, and The Cleveland Show is, not at all surprisingly, a steaming pile of absolute shit. More on that later.

My grandpa has pneumonia. I drove him to the hospital yesterday. We spent all day there. I watched two shifts of orderlies come and go. The poor doctors and nurses, on the other hand, were pulling 12s.

I'm going to spend all weekend at home. Partially in case he needs me again, partially in an attempt to quarantine myself. Looks like Transformers is gonna have to wait until next weekend.

Of course, the crazy stubborn bastard isn't changing his vacation plans, so he's still planning to leave on Monday. On the bright side, he's taking my obnoxious aunt with him, so I'll have the house to myself for a few days.

In other news, since becoming hopelessly addicted to The L Word (just in time for it to end), Kate Moennig has joined the ranks with Ani DiFranco and Tina Fey, turning my ultimate threesome fantasy into a foursome ("moresome?"). This video makes a decent summary as to why (especially those last few stills at the end). Apparently I'm as attracted to bifauxnen (my new favorite TVTrope) as I am nerdy chicks with glasses and hippie chicks.

I'm finding it more difficult than usual to fake being a real person.

I'm hiding.

I'm slipping.

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of love for Stephanie Meyer's literary abomination Twilight on the Friend lists of my various blogging and social networking profiles. This never ceases to amaze me, given how the mere mention of it ignites within me the fury of ten-thousand suns as I scream "WHY?!"

I read the series last year, shortly before the movie buzz hit full-force. I expected trashy disposable fare on par with the Anita Blake series (whose many, many flaws are a subject for another day). What I got was worse. It's like Eragon, except the author avatar is the damsel-in-distress instead of the hero. It was quick, it was easy, it was disturbing (though not for the reasons the author intended), and it was only out of a sense of morbid fascination akin to that accompanying a train-wreck that I was able to make it to the end of even the first book.

Normally, this is the part where I would rant and rail against what I perceive to be the shortcomings of the work, and its author. However, others before me have done a much better job of it. There really isn't much of anything I can say about the series that hasn't already been said. So instead, I'll merely refer you to their words:

This review gave me some new insight into why these books are so popular with...well, the people they're popular with. And it isn't difficult to understand. To some extent, I've even been on the other side of it. One lover described my appeal as that of "an intense, disreputable-looking nice guy." Rocking the bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold image was pretty much how I got laid in high-school. Well, that, and carrying around a white knight complex the professional damsels-in-distress could smell from a mile away. But I digress. (Or do I?)

But she was also critical of it: For anyone who thinks that Twilight is "deeper" than Harry Potter, ask yourself if you'd be willing to read a book about nothing but Harry and Ginny's tortured love-angst, cutting out every single other plot point in the entire seven-book series.

Shinga's summary of Twilight...

...and Breaking Dawn

Head Trip was actually how I first became aware of Meyer's "writing."

The Editing Room gave the film version of Twilight the same hilarious skewering they give everyone else. Excerpts from their version of the "script" include:

KRISTEN STEWART (V.O.): Once upon a time, there lived an enchanting girl named Stephenie Meyer, er, I mean, Kristen Stewart. She was so awesome that her awesomeness couldn’t be contained in Arizona, so she moved to Washington to stay with her father, who was totally lame and not cool.

KRISTEN: Wow. I guess this is what it looks like when the unpopular fat girl’s pathetic daydreams get written down and published into a bestselling book.

KRISTEN STEWART: Hey, where did you go? Because you are exceedingly mean to me, I find myself attracted to you.
ROBERT PATTINSON: Sounds like textbook daddy issues, you fat cow.
KRISTEN STEWART: (swoons)
ROBERT PATTINSON: You have a bright career as a stripper ahead of you.

This serial essay analyzes the works from the unique and fascinating perspective of one raised in the Mormon church, highlighting just how much Stephanie Meyer hasn't overcome her origins. (I say again and again, you can never truly understand a work of art unless you understand the artist, and the circumstances that shaped the artist's life.)

This essay has actual numbers on its side! Facts & figures abound.

discipuladc's critique resonated with me particularly strongly, as I've both witnessed first-hand, and participated directly in, more than my fair share of abusive relationships. Relationships where the concept of "boundaries" just doesn't exist.

Shinga also wrote up a hilarious chapter-by-chapter parody here.

I hate this series so much it makes the blood boil in my veins. I hate Stephanie Meyer. I don't hate her fans, but I hate the fact that she has fans. I hate the oppressive church that created her. I hate her one-dimensional passive superficial self-insertion protagonist. I hate that Meyer's idea of "the perfect man" feels less like a hero and more like a controlling, possessive, unbalanced meth addict. I hate that entire generations of girls are being trained to equate stalking with courting, and domination and abuse with love. I hate that such repetitive, uninspired, and downright laughable writing, of the sort that wouldn't pass muster in a high-school English class, is raking in truckloads of cash, while far better, far more worthy stories fall into obscurity. Stories that actually have a plot, or three-dimensional characters, or conflict or climax of any kind - you know, all the things Meyer goes out of her way to avoid, so she can get back to talking about how bloody fucking perfect Edward is.

I don't hate that this series is wish-fulfillment. I hate that this society has shaped women and girls alike to have wishes a series like this could fulfill.

I had a brother who's worked at the company for 3 years. I have 5 years of relevant experience. I aced the interview, developed a strong rapport with my prospective manager. I'm the only applicant in the history of the company to ever score 100% across the board on every aptitude test. I had a recommendation letter from a previous manager so glowing and comprehensive even the interviewer was impressed. And I still didn't get the job.

Because, after spending 2 weeks interviewing 300 people, all of who applied in good faith, they just decided to rehire a former employee. Thanks a lot for wasting our time, assholes.

...What, you thought this post would be about a woman? :-P Admit it. You did, didn't you?

Bea Arthur dead at age 86.

This vexes me. I am throughly vexed.

Bea Arthur was nine different kinds of awesome. She was intelligent and charismatic. Sarcastic, sassy, and snarky. She brought to American television a sense of dignity it's pretty much lacked ever since, and a wit as dry as the Sahara Desert (just the way I like it). As one friend would say, she had femininity without being defined by it. She didn't even break into TV until she was 50. Once she was in, she spent the next three decades taking a sledgehammer to every glass ceiling and stereotype she could find.

And she always had the class and the foresight to know when to leave the party while it was still roaring. At her insistence, her shows always went out with a bang at the height of their popularity, rather than gradually losing steam and finally throwing in the towel long after the viewers stopped caring.

Take any episode of Golden Girls and stack it up against any episode of, say, Sex & The City. It will become clear before the first commercial break just how far we haven't come in the realm of empowered female-fronted popular fiction. Any given episode of Golden Girls could pass The Bechdel/Wallace Test with it's eyes closed.

It will also become blindingly appallingly obvious before the opening credits roll just how much better the writing and acting was on Golden Girls. Sarah Jessica Parker doesn't deserve to scrape the dogshit off of Bea Arthur's shoes, and the same goes for the rest of her band of airheaded twits when ranked alongside Betty White, Rue MacClanahan, or Estelle Getty (R.I.P.). Though I guess I have to give the former credit where credit is due - they spent six seasons and a feature film delivering that dialogue without once throwing up in their mouths on-camera.

Look - I'm 5-feet-9, I have a deep voice and I have a way with a
line. What can I do about it? I can't stay home waiting for something
different. I think it's a total waste of energy worrying about
typecasting.

What could you do about it? What did you do about it? You were Awesome, that's what you fucking did about it. You came, you saw, and you bloody well conquered. Sleep well.



(And yes, given the opportunity, I would have hit that. Right up to the day she died, I would have hit that like the fist of an angry god.)

On my way to celebrate my 28th birthday last night, my car was totaled.

A gargantuan SUV stopped suddenly in front of me on the freeway. It felt like she slammed on her brakes and went from 70mph to a dead stop. I never did find out why she stopped like that. Her vehicle was so massive I couldn't see anything going on in front of it. I did likewise, and managed to just barely stop short of her. I think there was about a meter of clearance between us. I didn't even have time to be relieved before the driver behind me (apparently far less attentive) rammed me into her.

My poor car was the meat in a wreck sandwich. The pieces clanked and bent and popped as the other two vehicles dislodged themselves. The rear bumper of the SUV in front of me fell off, dislodging my hood. Which then proceeded to smash into what was left of my windshield.

My front and rear bumpers are both hanging by threads. The front end is leaking from at least two places, and possibly as many as four. One is obviously coolant, from where the front of the radiator was rended. Another is probably the battery, since it was dead by the time the towtruck dropped me off at my house.

( Wreck Front )

( Wreck Windshield )

( Wreck Rear )

I'm almost certain the insurance company will want to total the car. My mom's ex-con mechanic friends could probably get the job done for around $500-600 by scavenging the parts from Pick-&-Pull. But if I took it to a real shop, they'd probably charge two or three times the actual listed value of the car. I might buy it back from them, or I might just wash my hands of it.

I loved that car. It served me well. It got me wherever I needed to go, whether that was the corner store down the street, work twenty miles away, or seven hundred and seventy-seven miles (a very fortuitious number) to perform a wedding ceremony (and become probably the first minister in the history of the Western World to streak his own wedding reception). It was roomy, comfortable, remarkably fuel-efficient for its size, and most of all, it was safe. I'm going to miss it.

I truly feel that, of all the people involved in this collision, I am the one least at fault. I'm not the one who stopped in front of 70mph traffic, and I'm not the one who hit anyone. I'm just the one who got caught in the middle. And that pisses me off. I mean, what else was I supposed to do? If I had tried to swerve into another lane instead of stopping, I'd have probably side-swiped one of the other oncoming cars. For fuck's sake, we sat there for a full five minutes before the cars in the other lanes finally showed the common decency to slow down and let us cross over to the side of the road.

The driver in front of me was as gracious to me as she was irritated at the guy behind me. Who she emphatically agreed was the one at fault. He was some college kid whose insurance was in his parents name. Which, combined with the "sporty" and "new" nature of his vehicle, leads me to believe they were still making payments on it. Gods I hope so, because that means they were carrying full-coverage insurance. We'll see.

I confess some wry amusement at the state of his vehicle. His entire front end was imploded, while my rear bumper was still attached. Buicks may not last forever, but they are damned sturdy. At the speed that little bastard was going, if I had been driving a smaller car, I could very well be dead right now.

That was pretty much the anthem of the evening from then on. Mom came and picked me up, and while I arrived too late for the originally-planned bowling and dinner, she did enjoy the three seasons of 30 Rock I brought over on my portable hard drive. And I enjoyed the delicious cake she slaved half the night over. It's worth noting that my mother refers to the oven as "the pan closet," and hasn't really cooked since her children learned how to operate the microwave. So baking a cake is truly a momentous gesture on her part. The evening was salvaged, at least.

I'm so relieved that I had no passengers with me. And I'm very, very glad to be alive. Though I have to admit, there is a certain appeal to the synergy inherent in dying on your birthday.

( That is some big cake )

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=113726&catid=339



I just hope Allen Ray Andrade doesn't get off as easy as Michael Magidson, Jose Merel, and Jason Cazares did for murdering Gwen Araujo.

The Power of Rock

"Are you guys ready?"

"Were you ever truly 'ready' to make love for the first time? Then don't ask me if I'm ready to rock!"*

Some were born to love.

Others, to kill.

But I was born TO ROCK!!!**

I awoke this morning afternoon to discover a strange numbness upon my fingertips. Had I slept on my hands? No, they were callouses. Fresh new callouses, from five straight hours of playing Rock Band 2. With a full band.

See, suczar's boyfriend, and Boyfriend's sidekick-slash-PLP*** messaged me on Facebook**** last night, around 22:00, to let me know they were short a guitarist. Never one to leave even my acquaintances in such Dire Straits, I naturally Jumped At The Call. Within the hour, we were rocking out, carving a bloody trail of power chords, lyrical truths, and broken dreams halfway across the globe.

After the first couple of sets, suczar herself showed up, and (after the sustained application of every ounce of peer pressure we could muster) our trio became a quartet. We transitioned into the world of female-fronted rock, joining such esteemed contemporaries as Ani DiFranco, Within Temptation, and Joan Jett. But sadly, not Otep, since suczar has no Metal Voice, and refuses to cultivate one. Though she does have a beautiful singing voice nonetheless.

I started the first couple of sets on Easy Mode, as I have never owned any of the Guitar Hero or Rock Band games that I love so much, and as such, have never had regular practice. After scoring no less than 98% on each song, I decided to push myself to the next level and crank it up to "Medium." I was slapped back down, hard. I only bombed out on one song out of three, but I bombed out on it twice before we finally completed it. So I crashed against the Medium wall and retreated in shame back to Easy.

After yet another entire set of Easy songs, the stain on my honor overwhelmed me, and with the enthusiastic consent of my comrades, I once again decided to push myself. And this time, I rose to the occasion. After a couple songs in the high 80s, I completed every song we attempted at 90% or above, on Medium. And we got 4 or 5 (out of 5) stars on every one of them. We accepted every challenge the game threw our way. Play an encore after the set ends? Play a more difficult version of the same song? Meet a certain threshold of quality and gain twice as many fans, but lose twice as many if we fall short? Bring it on. We took on all comers.

Fueled only by Deluge and sheer willpower, we played until our eyes bled and our hands were withered claws.

Put plainly, we kicked ass. We were Rockers. And we Rocked Out.

And I finally earned the right to call myself..."a Medium guitarist."






*Yes, I actually said that.

**That, too.

***Platonic Life Partner. Look it up. Jay & Silent Bob, Simon Pegg & Nick Frost, etc.

****I wasn't actually on Facebook, but rather, on Digsby, a 3rd-party client through which I can run all my email, instant messaging, and social networking accounts. I highly recommend it, especially if you were ever a fan of Trillian or Pidgin. It's like those programs, only more.

I'm pretty sure I helped a friend get laid tonight.

Which makes the speeding ticket ALMOST worth it.

I'm shaving my head for cancer tomorrow. Because cancer cells need love too! We have to raise money and awareness to keep the cancer alive! (That's how this works, right?)

If you'd like to help sponsor me, follow this link:

http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/shavee_info.php?ParticipantKey=2009-345007

No donation is "too small."

Thanks!

(In case you don't get the title reference)

Don't ask me to retrace the series of tangents and furious link-clicking that brought me to this. Let's just say that Wikipedia is a harsh mistress, but she is fair.

Did you know that the legal brothels in Nevada have restaurant-style menus?

I didn't either. I'm as amused as I am vaguely uncomfortable.

I consider myself, if not a professional pervert, at least an enthusiastic and well-read amateur. And I only know what half the stuff on that list is. Even Google and Wikipedia only helped reveal another 25% or so. I'm half-tempted to call their customer service line or toss them an email, just to fill the gaps (heh) in my...knowledge.

I'm torn when it comes to the issue of sex work. Split, right down the middle.

On one hand, I don't like it on principle. The idea of turning human sexuality into a commodity offends me on a deeply personal level. It just doesn't seem like a good idea, for all involved. It feels innately dehumanizing, though the degree varies from one situation to the next.

So much misogyny, so much anger and hatred and violence, is expressed through the sex trade. I don't know if that is because the modern sex trade is distorted by the phallocratic rape culture I live in, or if there is something integral to the pratice that taints it at the source.

On the other hand...well, there are two hands on the other side. So my viewpoint on this issue is like some sort of irradiated mutant from the sewers of the 31st century, only with more eyes and fewer tentacles.

I've read accounts of street-corner hookers being beaten and drugged-up by pimps, being stabbed and left for dead in back alleys. I've also read accounts from loving couples who treated themselves to a threesome with a call girl on a Nevada ranch as an anniversary present, expressing their gratitude for a wonderful evening. So this is anything but a simple issue. I've read too many books and blogs, too many letters and memoirs, from the people who actually do sex work instead of just talking about it, for this to be "simple" for me.

First, the ethics of prostitution are conceptual. The reality is that it happens whether it's legal or not. When it's legal, as it is in Nevada and New Zealand, the prostitutes have rights under the law. They have legally-mandated standards when it comes to working conditions and treatment by employers and customers alike. They can call the police when a customer assaults them, without fear of being taken to jail themselves, without fear of not being taken seriously. Standards are set, and enforced, for sanitation and regular disease screening.

I'm not trying to make it out to be Paradise. It's a job, like any other. For some, it's a fun job. But it's still a job. And while some of them are doing what they love and getting a paycheque in the bargain, others do admit to feeling trapped. Because sex work ultimately will trap you if you let it. The money is too good. Things that seem possible at $200/hour are unthinkable at $10/hour. And as lucrative as it can be, the longer you spend in the sex trades, the more it eats away at your earning potential for any other industry. You can start escorting at 19, then blink and find yourself a 30-year-old with no work experience you can put on a resume for any job that doesn't involve taking your clothes off.

By the way, if you're about to argue that legal prostitution blurs the lines between "rape" and "paying what's owed," then fuck you. If I pay you to paint my house and you decide not to at the last minute, I am legally entitled to get my money back. That's it. I am not allowed to grab your arm, stick a paint brush in your hand, and start moving it up and down. It is absolutely possible to rape a prostitute, regardless of any financial transactions involved.

And in those places where it is legal, guess what? The sky hasn't fallen yet. Fire and blood aren't raining down to cleanse the Earth of the nonbelievers. The sun still rises in the morning. Cats and dogs (dingos?) haven't put aside their differences. They aren't uniting under a common cause, pooling their resources toward usurping the rule of humanity in between marathon sex sessions.

Second, at the risk of sounding ableist, cripples and freaks need love too. (I'm hoping any disfigured readers will find my candor refreshing enough to not feel insulted.) Let's not beat around the bush here. Whether they're the victim of genetics before birth or injuries and disease after, some people draw the short straw in life and wind up extremely disabled and/or fucking hideous. And a good personality will only get you so far when everyone who sees you either mocks you or feels sorry for you, neither of which is sexy. Unless you have a fetish for humiliation play, or are a self-labeled "Nice Guy." But I digress. Then there are the people who suffer from mental and developmental disorders that don't necessarily carry a physical marker, like several forms of autism (Asperger's being the shining crown jewel in this particular crown of shit). These people look normal at first, but enduring the uncomfortably-amusing ordeal that is their attempts at social interaction quickly reveal that they don't have the first fucking clue how to deal with people. And it's not their fault, either. So if one of these unfortunate people decides to turn to a professional to ease their loneliness and sate their libido, who am I to judge them, or the professionals who accept their patronage? In this sense, prostitutes really do perform a public service, by giving at least a taste of a fundamental life experience to people who otherwise probably would never have it.

I don't like that prostitution exists. I don't see myself ever hiring a prostitute. But I don't presume to judge a person who wears that particular hat, regardless of their motives. And you shouldn't either. All we can really do is help. Help make sure that the people who choose to practice it enjoy as much safety and dignity as the rest of us. And help the people who want out to get out. But telling them what to do, what to think? Telling them that they're bad or wrong? Punishing them? That doesn't help. That has never helped.