It's 1970something, and I'm still in high school. My best pal, CW, and I drive down to New Orleans with her mom to see the Rolling Stones play at the Superdome. Van Halen is the opening act. I only remember a few things about this trip, mainly because it was so long ago. I remember sitting in some French Quarter restaurant eating a fried oyster po’boy and French fries, and drinking an ice tea. Of course, being a Southerner, I can tell you what I ate thirty years ago, but I can't tell you much else.
Our waitress was this waif of a woman, with an apron slung low across her hips. She was short on manners, and very matter of fact, but she got the job done quickly and efficiently.
I remember I had half the po’boy in my mouth, and Fleetwood Mac's Rhiannon played in the background. All of a sudden, the waitress bounded across the dining room and grabbed the massive wrought iron handle to the large wooden door, a relic from the last century, with wood gray from the years and the weather. She slammed the door shut and flung her body across the frame. Three guys approach and stop cold.
“What’s wrong? Wasn’t the service good?” she asks.
“Yeah,” one of the guys says.
“Then why didn’t you leave a tip?”
It was the first time I understood the word audacious, and I knew right then and there, whoever this woman was, I liked her style.
A few years later, CW and I are back in New Orleans with some college friends. We’re freshman. We’ve been inside a club, and when we come out, we realize our car has been towed or stolen. We see some policemen up the street. We walk up and realize that they have two guys with them, about our age. The guys are handcuffed. We ask one of the police officers what we should do about the car. Before he can answer, the other one answers a call on his radio.
“We gotta go,” he says to his partner. “There’s been a knifing.”
They uncuff the guys and leave us standing there with them. We look at the criminals, they look at us.
freed
“You ladies want to go have a drink?”
We did not, and begged off, using our missing car as an excuse.
Then there was the time another good friend, AC, and I drove to New Orleans from the University of Southern Mississippi, where he went to school. There was a car full of us, all hellions determined to kill some brain cells and create a night we’d never forget. Mission accomplished. At the end of a long evening, we sat in the Café Du Monde after hours of drinking and ingesting god knows what, and we ordered the house specialty, beignets. The beignets were warm and light in my hands, the powdered sugar coating the pads of my fingers. I stuck one finger in my mouth licked off a sweet glob of it and believed with every cell in my body that this was the best thing I had ever tasted.
Every evening of every road trip to New Orleans always ended up with beignets at Café Du Monde.
Later, I would travel to New Orleans with my husband for short vacations. We usually tried a different hotel each trip, but there were always a few traditions. Muffaletto at the Central Grocery, cocktails at NOLAs, burgers at the Camilla Grill, and, of course, Café Du Monde.
Sometimes we’d walk through Audubon Park or visit the zoo. The old oaks with the thick, low branches veiled with Spanish moss were, for me, the main attraction. My dream home was any one of the number of the two story clapboard houses bordering the park. I imagined professors from Tulane living there, and I thought of the wonderful things each house must have held, the great books, the wonderful, interesting, colorful art, indicative of local artists, and, typical of me, the wine, bought from Martins Cellar.
We always threatened to take the backwater cruises but never did. AC and I always talked wistfully about planning a reunion of the friends who took that road trip to New Orleans that night long ago. We never did. Every time my husband and I went to New Orleans, we always said we needed to make time to visit it at least once a year. We never did.
Everyone in that city is devastated by what’s happened. Their lives have changed. Their lives, as they knew it, have ceased to exist. The people in New Orleans tonight live worse than the poorest neighborhoods in India. That’s saying something.
It’s too soon to say what will happen to this city, that when it recovers, what it will be like? My fear is that the place we loved, the place where no one ever had a bad time, is gone. I’m not saying that the people will just move away. In fact, logically, I know that to a certain extent, life will go on as it did before. There will still be Zydeco and gumbo and beignets even. But so many of the town’s buildings are ruined, and part of New Orleans allure is its old, ragged architecture. I have images of a new town, condos, clean, track homes, taking the place of the old, beautiful, shabby ones. You can rebuild a town, but you can’t rebuild the charisma.
And as for those people, how do they start over? When everything is taken away from you, all your possessions, your home, your neighborhood, your job, where do you begin again? And what do you do in the time that it takes to rebuild New Orleans?
As for me, as soon as the city is open for business, I plan to book a trip. I want to show this town that gave me so many good times my support. New Orleans was never just a city to me. It was an ongoing promise of decadence yet neither me nor New Orleans could live up to the expectation. At the same time, it’s a town that always gave me pleasure. And lots and lots of good memories. And hangovers. And weight gain. But that’s why I loved the place, at least, that’s one reason.
August 31, 2005
August 28, 2005
How many Bush Minions does it take to change a light bulb?
1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;
2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs
to be changed;
3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;
4. One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret
stockpile of light bulbs;
5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the
new light bulb;
6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor,
standing on a step ladder under the banner: Light Bulb Change Accomplished;
7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting
in detail how Bush was literally in the dark;
8. One to viciously smear #7;
9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush
has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;
10. And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between
screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.
2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs
to be changed;
3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;
4. One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret
stockpile of light bulbs;
5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the
new light bulb;
6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor,
standing on a step ladder under the banner: Light Bulb Change Accomplished;
7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting
in detail how Bush was literally in the dark;
8. One to viciously smear #7;
9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush
has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;
10. And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between
screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.
August 24, 2005
Good New: W Declines in Polls. Bad News: He's Still President
According to the latest Harris poll, more and more Americans are starting to figure out what Democrats knew all along. It’s easy to hate Bush.
What’s troubling is that there are still 40% of the American population, according to this poll, that like him. To those 40% I have a good-old fashioned Ann Landers-style suggestion: Wake up and smell the coffee.
Are these 40% the type of people who are die-hard fans no matter what their hero does? Are they the same people who defended Michael Jackson, OJ, and Britney when she came out with that awful show? The same people who left the rest of us scratching our heads and going, Why? Are you 40% the ones responsible for such unexplained things like the popularity of awful musicians like Toby Keith, bad TV like Fear Factor (I just don’t get its appeal), and the popularity of the “Chicken Soup” series of books? Are do you just have a hard time saying, okay, “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
Even when Bill Clinton was running around the Oval Office playing cigar sex with Monica’s hoohoo, I had a hard time defending him. In fact, once, when I lived in San Francisco, I got so mad at something the local democratic government did (I can’t remember what it was now) that I actually reregistered as a Republican. But then, I got over my rash anger. It just so happened that a Republican pollster called me during this time. I have to admit, I took some delight in telling her that as a registered Republican I was pro-choice and felt our grand old part was too exclusionary. And you know what? The pollster hung up on me. The Republican’s get-out-of-my sandbox mentality works all the way down to the polling level.
But I digress.
Who the heck still thinks Bush is doing a good job? He’s wrecking the country. The economy is not strong (and don’t even try to argue with me that it is, that just means you are one of the die-hard 40%). We are polarized as a nation. Bad celebs like Toby Keith still have a career, which is hellish enough, but what’s worse is we are in this senseless war when we should be out hunting terrorist and trying to banish the Toby Keiths of this country to France, who embrace our bad celebs. Thank them for that, you 40%.
What’s troubling is that there are still 40% of the American population, according to this poll, that like him. To those 40% I have a good-old fashioned Ann Landers-style suggestion: Wake up and smell the coffee.
Are these 40% the type of people who are die-hard fans no matter what their hero does? Are they the same people who defended Michael Jackson, OJ, and Britney when she came out with that awful show? The same people who left the rest of us scratching our heads and going, Why? Are you 40% the ones responsible for such unexplained things like the popularity of awful musicians like Toby Keith, bad TV like Fear Factor (I just don’t get its appeal), and the popularity of the “Chicken Soup” series of books? Are do you just have a hard time saying, okay, “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
Even when Bill Clinton was running around the Oval Office playing cigar sex with Monica’s hoohoo, I had a hard time defending him. In fact, once, when I lived in San Francisco, I got so mad at something the local democratic government did (I can’t remember what it was now) that I actually reregistered as a Republican. But then, I got over my rash anger. It just so happened that a Republican pollster called me during this time. I have to admit, I took some delight in telling her that as a registered Republican I was pro-choice and felt our grand old part was too exclusionary. And you know what? The pollster hung up on me. The Republican’s get-out-of-my sandbox mentality works all the way down to the polling level.
But I digress.
Who the heck still thinks Bush is doing a good job? He’s wrecking the country. The economy is not strong (and don’t even try to argue with me that it is, that just means you are one of the die-hard 40%). We are polarized as a nation. Bad celebs like Toby Keith still have a career, which is hellish enough, but what’s worse is we are in this senseless war when we should be out hunting terrorist and trying to banish the Toby Keiths of this country to France, who embrace our bad celebs. Thank them for that, you 40%.
August 22, 2005
If Cindy Can’t Ruin W’s Vacation, No One Can
I’m a personal fan of Cindy Sheehan. Hell, anyone who wants to ruin W’s five week vacation is okay by me. My only problem with her is she actually wants to meet the man. Meet him? I want to forget he even exists. Ahh, but she’s a better woman than I am, as are most women, and men, come to think of it.
Cindy writes a forceful piece for truthout.org. Perhaps the most telling part of her correspondence is when she tells this story:
“I got an email the other day and it said, ‘Cindy if you didn't use so much profanity ... there's people on the fence that get offended.’
And you know what I said? 'You know what? You know what, god damn it? How in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence?'”
How huge of a moron do you have to be to worry about the profanity coming out of this woman’s mouth? She lost her son in a senseless war. If you are offended by her little four letter words, well, sweetheart, fuck you. Grow up and grow your own belief system, not something you were told in some backwater church.
Cindy, I think what you are doing is fantastic. I think W should be hanged for treason for the way he and this gang have stolen an election, started a war on false premises, polarized this country and turned a good portion of the world against us (Thank God Poland is on our side . . . or did they change their minds?)
But honestly, what can he say to you if he meets with you? First of all, I doubt he will meet with you. It would require him to have courage and honor. If he did meet with you, if Karl Rove twisted his arm, what could he possibly say? He’ll mumble nonsense about staying the course, being full of resolve, etc., whatever, yadda, yadda, yadda, bite me.
He will twist the situation into his advantage. Nix that. Rove will do the twisting. You and W will pray. Fox News will report that you said he is a good man, an honorable man, a man full of resolve. Though you won’t feel this way, they’ll make you look like you are humbled by this great, great idiot. I mean man.
Stay in his face. We should all stay in his face. But it’s not his fault, is it? It’s really the fault of the people who voted for him. They are the ones that owe you answers.
Cindy writes a forceful piece for truthout.org. Perhaps the most telling part of her correspondence is when she tells this story:
“I got an email the other day and it said, ‘Cindy if you didn't use so much profanity ... there's people on the fence that get offended.’
And you know what I said? 'You know what? You know what, god damn it? How in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence?'”
How huge of a moron do you have to be to worry about the profanity coming out of this woman’s mouth? She lost her son in a senseless war. If you are offended by her little four letter words, well, sweetheart, fuck you. Grow up and grow your own belief system, not something you were told in some backwater church.
Cindy, I think what you are doing is fantastic. I think W should be hanged for treason for the way he and this gang have stolen an election, started a war on false premises, polarized this country and turned a good portion of the world against us (Thank God Poland is on our side . . . or did they change their minds?)
But honestly, what can he say to you if he meets with you? First of all, I doubt he will meet with you. It would require him to have courage and honor. If he did meet with you, if Karl Rove twisted his arm, what could he possibly say? He’ll mumble nonsense about staying the course, being full of resolve, etc., whatever, yadda, yadda, yadda, bite me.
He will twist the situation into his advantage. Nix that. Rove will do the twisting. You and W will pray. Fox News will report that you said he is a good man, an honorable man, a man full of resolve. Though you won’t feel this way, they’ll make you look like you are humbled by this great, great idiot. I mean man.
Stay in his face. We should all stay in his face. But it’s not his fault, is it? It’s really the fault of the people who voted for him. They are the ones that owe you answers.
August 21, 2005
W and the Long Hot Summer
Shame on me. W has been on vacation all month and I haven’t made fun of the longest presidential vacation in history not even once. What can I say that the late night hosts haven’t already said? Except that I wish he’d take off the rest of his term and stay in Crawford. We need a vacation from him -- and his entourage.
If you haven’t already heard the jokes, La Blogda has done the work for you. Here is, in my opinion, the best of the jabs at W, as told by the late night folks.
"President Bush is on a five-week vacation. From what? President Bush, before he went on vacation, he signed a bill that will extend daylight savings another month. He said it proves we're winning the war on darkness" --David Letterman
See, now here’s proof W isn’t the brightest lipstick in the cosmetic drawer. If we’re not in a war of darkness, I don’t know who is.
"A lot of people are every critical of President Bush for taking the entire month of August off for his vacation. But his staff points out, there's nothing at the White House he can't do at the ranch because the ranch is fully equipped. It's got the treadmill, the weight room, the jogging path, the big screen TV, they get Nickelodeon. It's got everything he would do." --Jay Leno
Actually, Jay, you left out the pretzels for him to choke on.
This will be the longest presidential vacation in 36 years. This means President Bush has now been on vacation for 27% of his presidency. That means the country could be 27% more screwed up than it already is." --Jimmy Kimmel
Okay, that’s the truth, so technically, it’s not funny.
President Bush still having his five-week vacation. Today President Bush announced he is going to leave his ranch in Texas to visit Idaho for two days. However, Bush told his supporters, 'Don't worry, I won't do any work there either.'" --Conan O'Brien
President W, you have fun on your vacation, you hear? Run around in you flight suit or play “shoot ‘em up cowboy” all day long. Don’t you worry about a thing, President Cheney is still running the country, just like your daddy planned.
If you haven’t already heard the jokes, La Blogda has done the work for you. Here is, in my opinion, the best of the jabs at W, as told by the late night folks.
"President Bush is on a five-week vacation. From what? President Bush, before he went on vacation, he signed a bill that will extend daylight savings another month. He said it proves we're winning the war on darkness" --David Letterman
See, now here’s proof W isn’t the brightest lipstick in the cosmetic drawer. If we’re not in a war of darkness, I don’t know who is.
"A lot of people are every critical of President Bush for taking the entire month of August off for his vacation. But his staff points out, there's nothing at the White House he can't do at the ranch because the ranch is fully equipped. It's got the treadmill, the weight room, the jogging path, the big screen TV, they get Nickelodeon. It's got everything he would do." --Jay Leno
Actually, Jay, you left out the pretzels for him to choke on.
This will be the longest presidential vacation in 36 years. This means President Bush has now been on vacation for 27% of his presidency. That means the country could be 27% more screwed up than it already is." --Jimmy Kimmel
Okay, that’s the truth, so technically, it’s not funny.
President Bush still having his five-week vacation. Today President Bush announced he is going to leave his ranch in Texas to visit Idaho for two days. However, Bush told his supporters, 'Don't worry, I won't do any work there either.'" --Conan O'Brien
President W, you have fun on your vacation, you hear? Run around in you flight suit or play “shoot ‘em up cowboy” all day long. Don’t you worry about a thing, President Cheney is still running the country, just like your daddy planned.
August 19, 2005
The Really Annoying “Client”
The bad thing about having a day job is that every two minutes, you run up against some one who either annoys you or just pisses you completely off. I have a bevy of folks I could write about over the course of my career, but I’d like to take this opportunity to describe the most annoying “client” in the world. I will call him Ricky B. He’s cheery. He’s neurotic. He’s lonely. And when you pick up the phone and he’s on the other end, he’s is your worse nightmare.
“Hello?”
“Biiiiiinnnnnxxxxx! How are YOUUUUUUUUU!”
Every time I pick up the phone, I fear this is what I’ll hear. Ricky is a “client” because he orders the minimum amount of product that he can from us once a year, and then goes into arrears over the small amount he owes. The Powers That Be won’t refuse to do business with him. The Powers that Be also don’t get calls from him.
Never has any client been so dedicated to our company though. We don’t know why. He barely uses our product.
We think he’s lonely. He has a wife. He has kids. Instead of focusing on them, he wants to help us be a success. He wanted to take one of VIPs to a Far East country to introduce him to our clients there. Problem is, we know our clients. For months he called me about the trip, and not just me, but about 5 or 6 people. We all kept saying, “they are our clients, we don’t need an introduction.” I guess he didn’t listen. Finally, one day, he did hear me and said, “you have clients there?”
We’ve unionized, however, all us workers on Ricky’s radar. One of my coworkers, whom I’ll call Bernice, had a conversation with him yesterday that went like this.
“Hello.”
“BERNIIIIIICE!”
“No, this is not Bernice. Can I transfer you?”
“Yes, thank you. It’s urgeeeeeeeent.”
Bernice has a very distinct Boston accent. The fact that he does not know it’s her is a testimony to his brilliance.
Everyone knows that when Ricky calls, they tell him I’m out. They don’t know where. They don’t know when I’ll be back. And no, I don’t have a cell phone. It’s never about business, so I’m not missing anything. Usually, he wants to ask us questions that are confidential and proprietary information that we can’t answer. Or he wants me to write a press release on how he’s offered to help us grow his business.
“I can’t write a press release on that, Ricky.”
“You caaaaaan’t? Why noooooot?”
“Because it’s not news. And because we aren’t in a partnership together.”
“But I’ve seen press releases on stuff like that.”
“Well, we can’t do that.”
“Why noooot?”
“Gee, Ricky, business is booming, we really don’t need your help. We have people here that we pay who do that.”
“But I care so much about your company. I really want to see you suceeed.”
“We are succeeding.”
“But I can heeeeeelp.”
Ricky, I want to say, you can’t even pay your measly bills.
Here’s another conversation with Ricky.
“Hello?”
“BIIINNNNX! How are YOUUUUUU?”
“Oh. Ricky. Hi.”
“HOW ARE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU?”
“Okay. What can I do for you?”
“Just fine? You are not GREAAAAT?”
“I’m rather swamped, Ricky. I have a meeting to go to in just a minute. What can I do for you?”
“WHAT’s WROOOONG?”
“I’m busy. How can I help you?”
“I can’t reach Bernice. Can you find her for me?”
“She’s not here.”
“HOW ARE YOUUUUU?”
Twenty minutes later, after he’s asked why I sound tense and why can’t I issue a press release on how he’s trying to help us grow our business, we hang up. Then I vow I’ll never answer the phone again. Then my line rings. I don’t answer it. I check my voice mail. It was a legitimate, important call. Because Ricky B terrorizes my line, I miss the calls I need.
What can you do with someone who is technically a client, and your boss insists that you have to be professional with them? When you ask your boss to deal with him, he won’t. That’s cruel. It’s worth calling the Department of Labor over. Maybe the judge in the BTK case could use Ricky as a special punishment since there can be no death sentence.
“Hello?”
“Biiiiiinnnnnxxxxx! How are YOUUUUUUUUU!”
Every time I pick up the phone, I fear this is what I’ll hear. Ricky is a “client” because he orders the minimum amount of product that he can from us once a year, and then goes into arrears over the small amount he owes. The Powers That Be won’t refuse to do business with him. The Powers that Be also don’t get calls from him.
Never has any client been so dedicated to our company though. We don’t know why. He barely uses our product.
We think he’s lonely. He has a wife. He has kids. Instead of focusing on them, he wants to help us be a success. He wanted to take one of VIPs to a Far East country to introduce him to our clients there. Problem is, we know our clients. For months he called me about the trip, and not just me, but about 5 or 6 people. We all kept saying, “they are our clients, we don’t need an introduction.” I guess he didn’t listen. Finally, one day, he did hear me and said, “you have clients there?”
We’ve unionized, however, all us workers on Ricky’s radar. One of my coworkers, whom I’ll call Bernice, had a conversation with him yesterday that went like this.
“Hello.”
“BERNIIIIIICE!”
“No, this is not Bernice. Can I transfer you?”
“Yes, thank you. It’s urgeeeeeeeent.”
Bernice has a very distinct Boston accent. The fact that he does not know it’s her is a testimony to his brilliance.
Everyone knows that when Ricky calls, they tell him I’m out. They don’t know where. They don’t know when I’ll be back. And no, I don’t have a cell phone. It’s never about business, so I’m not missing anything. Usually, he wants to ask us questions that are confidential and proprietary information that we can’t answer. Or he wants me to write a press release on how he’s offered to help us grow his business.
“I can’t write a press release on that, Ricky.”
“You caaaaaan’t? Why noooooot?”
“Because it’s not news. And because we aren’t in a partnership together.”
“But I’ve seen press releases on stuff like that.”
“Well, we can’t do that.”
“Why noooot?”
“Gee, Ricky, business is booming, we really don’t need your help. We have people here that we pay who do that.”
“But I care so much about your company. I really want to see you suceeed.”
“We are succeeding.”
“But I can heeeeeelp.”
Ricky, I want to say, you can’t even pay your measly bills.
Here’s another conversation with Ricky.
“Hello?”
“BIIINNNNX! How are YOUUUUUU?”
“Oh. Ricky. Hi.”
“HOW ARE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU?”
“Okay. What can I do for you?”
“Just fine? You are not GREAAAAT?”
“I’m rather swamped, Ricky. I have a meeting to go to in just a minute. What can I do for you?”
“WHAT’s WROOOONG?”
“I’m busy. How can I help you?”
“I can’t reach Bernice. Can you find her for me?”
“She’s not here.”
“HOW ARE YOUUUUU?”
Twenty minutes later, after he’s asked why I sound tense and why can’t I issue a press release on how he’s trying to help us grow our business, we hang up. Then I vow I’ll never answer the phone again. Then my line rings. I don’t answer it. I check my voice mail. It was a legitimate, important call. Because Ricky B terrorizes my line, I miss the calls I need.
What can you do with someone who is technically a client, and your boss insists that you have to be professional with them? When you ask your boss to deal with him, he won’t. That’s cruel. It’s worth calling the Department of Labor over. Maybe the judge in the BTK case could use Ricky as a special punishment since there can be no death sentence.
August 18, 2005
BTK Strangler Deserves Much Worse
Normally, I make futile attempts at humor when I write this blog. This time, it’s straight up because I want to write about a subject that is devoid of anything funny. The BTK Strangler is getting 10 life sentences, because the killings took place before Kansas reinstated the death penalty. This case has made me realize that I’m actually all for the death penalty. I’ve always been a bit neutral on the topic in the past, which is odd since it’s a passionate subject, and when it comes to passionate subjects, I usually have an opinion. With this case, I’ve actually stopped and thought about capital punishment for two seconds, and I’ve realized that I don’t care if someone was tortured as a child and is now mentally unstable. Crazy is no excuse for the sick things this twisted F#!k did.
I can’t think of a death sentence appropriate enough for this sick motherf&#$*, unfortunately. He’d love anything twisted or perverted. Is there such a thing as a boring death sentence? I guess the chemicals they inject could be considered boring, though I’ve read that they actually do cause pain. Fine. Shoot him up, but make sure to inject a little Borax into the cocktail.
This will not happen. We can only hope that when he goes to jail, the other badasses will make him wish he was never born. That’s a good start.
I can’t think of a death sentence appropriate enough for this sick motherf&#$*, unfortunately. He’d love anything twisted or perverted. Is there such a thing as a boring death sentence? I guess the chemicals they inject could be considered boring, though I’ve read that they actually do cause pain. Fine. Shoot him up, but make sure to inject a little Borax into the cocktail.
This will not happen. We can only hope that when he goes to jail, the other badasses will make him wish he was never born. That’s a good start.
August 16, 2005
Manners for the Religious Right
All this news of the Gaza Strip has got me thinking about the Bible and manners. I think a great idea for a book would be drawing parallels from the Bible to real life modern day etiquette. For example, when the Three Wise Men bought incense and stuff to that barn where Jesus was born . . . it was nothing more than a hostess gift for Mary!
Being a savage heathen (i.e., Democrat), I really don’t know a lot about the Bible. But I do know that those chicks back then loved to wash guys’ feet. You know what I think that was all about? It’s today’s equivalent of polite flirting. Instead of whipping out the suds and towels, we wink, we twirl our hair, we even give them our phone number if we are either a) really drunk and b) convinced they aren’t serial killers. Back then, they didn’t have better beauty through science, or phone numbers, so they really had to work hard to get a guy’s attention. I can just see some ladies having cocktails one night and one of them saying, “What can we do to get these guy’s to notice us? Hey I know, let’s wash their feet.”
When Jesus made that fish and bread multiply to the point where he could feed a hungry crowd, I think he was showing the proper way to host a party. “Okay, I’ll feed you poor slobs this time, but get a hint. Next time you have me over for dinner, don’t ask me to bring my own Levin bread and wine.”
Take stoning as another example. Today, we just do an intervention when a friend has an annoying problem, like leprosy. “Dude, your face is falling off. Get some help.”
While the early Christians moved away from the whole “let’s sacrifice something,” trend, today we’ve circled back to that tradition. For example, W was mad because his daddy lost the first Gulf War, so he started a new one and sent soldiers in. There you go, sacrificial lambs.
Well, that’s all I can remember of the Bible from Sunday school, and God knows (no pun meant) that was ages ago. So if you can think of other parallels between the Bible and modern day etiquette, let me know.
Being a savage heathen (i.e., Democrat), I really don’t know a lot about the Bible. But I do know that those chicks back then loved to wash guys’ feet. You know what I think that was all about? It’s today’s equivalent of polite flirting. Instead of whipping out the suds and towels, we wink, we twirl our hair, we even give them our phone number if we are either a) really drunk and b) convinced they aren’t serial killers. Back then, they didn’t have better beauty through science, or phone numbers, so they really had to work hard to get a guy’s attention. I can just see some ladies having cocktails one night and one of them saying, “What can we do to get these guy’s to notice us? Hey I know, let’s wash their feet.”
When Jesus made that fish and bread multiply to the point where he could feed a hungry crowd, I think he was showing the proper way to host a party. “Okay, I’ll feed you poor slobs this time, but get a hint. Next time you have me over for dinner, don’t ask me to bring my own Levin bread and wine.”
Take stoning as another example. Today, we just do an intervention when a friend has an annoying problem, like leprosy. “Dude, your face is falling off. Get some help.”
While the early Christians moved away from the whole “let’s sacrifice something,” trend, today we’ve circled back to that tradition. For example, W was mad because his daddy lost the first Gulf War, so he started a new one and sent soldiers in. There you go, sacrificial lambs.
Well, that’s all I can remember of the Bible from Sunday school, and God knows (no pun meant) that was ages ago. So if you can think of other parallels between the Bible and modern day etiquette, let me know.
August 11, 2005
Open Up the Flood Gates
I have a new best friend. This guy,here, James Chaney, left the Republican party because, surprise, the “GOP had drifted so far from its traditional moorings in honesty, practicality and common sense so as to be unrecognizable to many rank-and-filers like me.” Or me!
What’s heartwarming is that he got flooded with emails and phone calls from others who shared his same disgust with the party.
Of course, it seems to me that no matter what party is in office, they end up pissing off their own members so that you always see a flood of departures from one party to the other. Back and forth we go. One moment we’re all liberal, the next conservative. Okay, I feel a tangent coming on about our nation’s ADD, but, let me just relish in this one moment to say thank you to Mr. James Chaney. Welcome to the other side. If you stay a while, I’m sure we’ll have you good and disgusted again in no time.
What’s heartwarming is that he got flooded with emails and phone calls from others who shared his same disgust with the party.
Of course, it seems to me that no matter what party is in office, they end up pissing off their own members so that you always see a flood of departures from one party to the other. Back and forth we go. One moment we’re all liberal, the next conservative. Okay, I feel a tangent coming on about our nation’s ADD, but, let me just relish in this one moment to say thank you to Mr. James Chaney. Welcome to the other side. If you stay a while, I’m sure we’ll have you good and disgusted again in no time.
Yeehaw, Rumsfeld Wants to Celebrate
Only someone in the Bush administration would think that throwing a hoedown is the appropriate way to mark 9/11.
Evidently, the Pentagon will host a massive march and country music concert to mark the fourth anniversary of 9/11, Rumsfeld said during an Iraq war briefing on August 9.
“Now for the fifth anniversary, we’re going to have a hay ride, a beer drinking contest and a million person square dance, the largest ever.” Rumsfeld said. Noooo, I’m lying about that one. Unfortunately, I’m not lying about the first.
"This year the Department of Defense will initiate an America Supports You Freedom Walk," Rumsfeld said (honest). The walk, and concert, are the Pentagon’s way of showing support for the troops, which is an awfully nice gesture, particularly since it’s W’s fault the troops are in Iraq. What’s more disturbing is that once again, Rumsfeld and the W posse are linking 9/11 with Iraq.
I think country music is too square for such a bold gesture. I want to see W, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld on stage rapping.
“We support you, you mofos, don’t ever doub it, no sense in poutin’ ‘bout it, keep up the good job, don’t you know we are your mob . . . “
Okay, even I have to admit that’s a really bad attempt at rap.
Sinatra! Maybe they could get Sinatra impersonators to put on a performance.
“I’ve got you, under my skin . . .” Hmmm. Those lyrics take on an eerie undertone when you consider the context.
Evidently, the Pentagon will host a massive march and country music concert to mark the fourth anniversary of 9/11, Rumsfeld said during an Iraq war briefing on August 9.
“Now for the fifth anniversary, we’re going to have a hay ride, a beer drinking contest and a million person square dance, the largest ever.” Rumsfeld said. Noooo, I’m lying about that one. Unfortunately, I’m not lying about the first.
"This year the Department of Defense will initiate an America Supports You Freedom Walk," Rumsfeld said (honest). The walk, and concert, are the Pentagon’s way of showing support for the troops, which is an awfully nice gesture, particularly since it’s W’s fault the troops are in Iraq. What’s more disturbing is that once again, Rumsfeld and the W posse are linking 9/11 with Iraq.
I think country music is too square for such a bold gesture. I want to see W, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld on stage rapping.
“We support you, you mofos, don’t ever doub it, no sense in poutin’ ‘bout it, keep up the good job, don’t you know we are your mob . . . “
Okay, even I have to admit that’s a really bad attempt at rap.
Sinatra! Maybe they could get Sinatra impersonators to put on a performance.
“I’ve got you, under my skin . . .” Hmmm. Those lyrics take on an eerie undertone when you consider the context.
August 10, 2005
The Strange Tale of the Very Bad Houseguest
This blog entry is a long time coming. My hubby would probably prefer that I don’t write it, that I let bygones be bygones and take the high road. Trouble is, sometimes when you do that, you end up with an ulcer, or worse, you have W as president.
So here it is: the story of a humble blogger and her husband, who took in a long-time acquaintance down on his luck as a houseguest. This person, I’ll call him Harold, had moved to Vegas from a town in the Deep South. Back story: Harold and my dear friend, “Tennessee,” have known each other for many years, when both were struggling actors in NYC. Tennessee went on to produce and direct theater in Los Angeles. Harold faced the music and started selling janitorial supplies in a mid-size southern town. They kept in touch; Harold more so than Tennessee.
Let me stop you at this point and say that if at anytime in this story, you should get bored, I urge you to keep reading. Aliens make an appearance toward the end. Not just any aliens, either, I’m talking shape-shifting lizard aliens who worship demons from the fourth dimension. Uh-huh. Now you want to keep reading.
Anyway, Harold got tired of his Deep South town and set his sights on Vegas. He found a girlfriend on the Internet and moved in with her. Strangely, the relationship didn’t last, and within two months, she kicked him out. That’s where I come in.
I talked hubby into letting Harold move in with us. We had known him for about twenty years, though not well. He struck us egotistical and odd, but he seemed to have good intentions, which I appreciated as so many people don’t (Dick Cheney, are you listening?). Many (okay, all) of Tennessee’s other friends had at one time or another been deeply offended by something Harold did or said and refused to even talk to him. At one point, Harold even did something that offended me, and I had stopped talking to him, but that was years ago and I couldn’t remember what he had done. Besides, people change, hopefully, and I thought I should give him another chance. His only other option was to return to the South, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone except moronic cowboys from Crawford, Texas.
Hubby agreed to let Harold stay three weeks, and no more. He understood what I was ignoring: A) it would hard have someone else live in our home and B) Harold is egotistical and odd.
In all fairness, Tennessee warned me. I think his exact words were, “I’m warning you, this is a mistake. Don’t blame me when he pisses you off.”
One reason I offered Harold a room was that he had just quit a job he started a week earlier. They lied to him, he claimed – a pattern of Harold’s. People/companies lie to him or flake on him, repeatedly.
Nonetheless, the boy needed money and shelter. The other reason I offered him a room is I imagined my self as a modern-day abolitionist, freeing victims living in the red states. I’m a dumbass, what can I say?
Harold soon got another job, but quit that because the hours were unappealing to him, and also, they lied to him. Anyway, he was sure that he was going to get this “too-good-to-be-true” job where they would pay him a ton of money to be a marketing director, something he knew nothing about (sales people are not marketing people, end of story). The job never came through because as everyone but Harold knows, if it’s too good to be true, it ain’t gonna happen.
The job situation, not to mention the Internet girlfriend kicking him out, were signs enough that Harold is trouble with a capital T. But, as mentioned, I’m a dumbass. So for me, the first sign of trouble I noted was when Harold repeatedly jumped in and took hubby’s side when he thought I was being too tough on him, which is often. I’m short, a bit chubby, overworked, am far from rich and there is a Republican in the White House. Being nasty to my husband from time-to-time is the one great pleasure I get in life.
That aside, there were times when both Hubby and me recognized that I wasn’t being hard on him, and Harold was still jumping in and defending perceived offenses. Once, when we’d been drinking, Harold started in on me about hubby, and I said, “Oh shut the f*&k up.” I say this expression the way most people say, “Hey, how are you.” It’s kind of my version of Bob Hope’s “Thanks for the memories.” Harold teared up. The next morning, first thing, he told me that I was mean when I was drunk. I was quite offended. I’m mean when I’m sober, too.
There were a thousand small things, too, that warned me of trouble ahead. Every time I opened a bottle of vitamins, drank water, looked sideways, Harold had an opinion on ways to do it healthier. Harold is a “health” legend in his own mind. Example: my doctor suggested I take chewable calcium. Harold told me that they would just float around in my stomach., never to be absorbed by my system. I imagined my little semi-digested calcium chew floating in my stomach like a mangled glob on a raft. It seemed peaceful in a way. I wanted to down a glass of wine so they would have some beverage to make their experience complete. Harold had two boxes full of vitamins and supplements, meant to do everything from keeping Harold in shape (didn’t work) to mentally health (really didn’t help).
Harold likes to help, and he told me that he would try to get me a job at the too-good-to-be-true job working for him, but that they usually hired “hot” babes, so it might be tough. Then he told me not to get offended because I was too old to be hot, and hey, “you look better heavier, anyway.”
I’m not the only cantankerous person in the house. Hubby is quite the crabby ass. When hubby disagreed with him about anything, Harold came running to me to complain. When I disagreed with Harold, he ran to hubby complaining. It reminded me of a child playing his parents. What did he expect us to do? Side with him? Actually, my hubby probably did, that SOB.
After meeting my rather wealthy friend, “Uma,” (I think she’d like that alias) Harold proceeded to hit on her in very aggressive, almost mental-rape type of way. “You have nice lips,” he said to her. “I’d like to kiss them.” This was not a fix-up, by the way. Uma came to see us and Harold happened to be there. Anyway, Uma laughed off the kissing comment and tried to be nice (her mistake, it’s like feeding a stray dog). Later she told me she was very “grossed out,” and that Harold had a “bottomless ego.”
Three weeks turned into six and I told him it was time to end our little roommate adventure. Had I not said that, he would have given me the perfect out anyway when he told me that not only did he believe in aliens, which I had known — I just thought he meant androgynous gray men — but that W, Cheney, Queen Elizabeth, the Rothschilds and Chris Christopherson were all actually a shape-shifting race of lizard aliens bent on a new world order. Chris Christopherson? That explains “A Star is Born.”
Harold’s theory on 9/11? The terrorists didn’t do it. W and Cheney had the towers wired with bombs. There is “verifiable evidence,” on the Internet, which we all know is about as credible as this blog.
I disagreed with him, of course, but I looked into some of the “research” he cited, which all turned out to be written by a variety of quack charlatans with jail records and other nefarious histories, and I told him so. Did that piss him off! There I go again, being too tough and difficult.
We emailed each other our rebuttals because by this time he had gone back to the South for a week to get out of our hair for a while (the nicest thing he did for us). I held to my facts, and with no facts to stand on, Harold’s emails took on the quality of a nutty old guy. There was no punctuation and lots of run-on sentences (kind of like this blog). He got belligerent. The correspondence ended with me telling Harold, yet again, it was time to move out. He had to have the last word and hurled a variety of insults at me.
A week passed and Harold didn’t return. He didn’t give us the courtesy of letting us know when he’d be removing his junk from our house. Finally hubby contacted him via email and Harold eventually came back weeks later and removed his stuff. He had a gift for hubby. A baseball cap. He loves my hubby, who oddly didn’t want Harold to live with us and was the one who told me to kick him out after three weeks, and again at six weeks. About two months later, Harold sent my husband a thank you email. My husband wrote back and said that I was the one he should actually thank. So I got a two line email from Harold.
What did I want? Too much. I wanted an apology for the many small offenses he made under my roof. I wanted an acknowledgement of his deep ingratitude. I wanted him to say that he would get therapy. I also wanted him to apologize for making me defend W. I actually heard myself saying, “W is not a lizard alien.” I don’t like giving W credit for anything except for being a complete jackass.
People need a reason to believe. They need a reason to blame their sorrows on something other than themselves. In Harold’s case, he believes he has terminal bad luck, that he is a good and noble person abused by all the lizard aliens who worship demons of the fourth dimension.
There are many Harolds in the world. There is no rehab for them. They can’t accept that their life is their responsibility. They blame their failures on everything from W being a lizard, to corporate America being big fat liars. Of course corporations lie. That’s why work is called a job.
The moral of this story is, of course, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. I know I sound mean, and it’s probably awful of me to write a blog entry about this episode. But, I am awful, so get over it. What’s truly depressing is that those few times in life when you want to help someone, they take it for granted, they show no gratitude and they try to convince you that W is a lizard.
W is many bad things, but he is not a lizard. He’s a snake.
So here it is: the story of a humble blogger and her husband, who took in a long-time acquaintance down on his luck as a houseguest. This person, I’ll call him Harold, had moved to Vegas from a town in the Deep South. Back story: Harold and my dear friend, “Tennessee,” have known each other for many years, when both were struggling actors in NYC. Tennessee went on to produce and direct theater in Los Angeles. Harold faced the music and started selling janitorial supplies in a mid-size southern town. They kept in touch; Harold more so than Tennessee.
Let me stop you at this point and say that if at anytime in this story, you should get bored, I urge you to keep reading. Aliens make an appearance toward the end. Not just any aliens, either, I’m talking shape-shifting lizard aliens who worship demons from the fourth dimension. Uh-huh. Now you want to keep reading.
Anyway, Harold got tired of his Deep South town and set his sights on Vegas. He found a girlfriend on the Internet and moved in with her. Strangely, the relationship didn’t last, and within two months, she kicked him out. That’s where I come in.
I talked hubby into letting Harold move in with us. We had known him for about twenty years, though not well. He struck us egotistical and odd, but he seemed to have good intentions, which I appreciated as so many people don’t (Dick Cheney, are you listening?). Many (okay, all) of Tennessee’s other friends had at one time or another been deeply offended by something Harold did or said and refused to even talk to him. At one point, Harold even did something that offended me, and I had stopped talking to him, but that was years ago and I couldn’t remember what he had done. Besides, people change, hopefully, and I thought I should give him another chance. His only other option was to return to the South, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone except moronic cowboys from Crawford, Texas.
Hubby agreed to let Harold stay three weeks, and no more. He understood what I was ignoring: A) it would hard have someone else live in our home and B) Harold is egotistical and odd.
In all fairness, Tennessee warned me. I think his exact words were, “I’m warning you, this is a mistake. Don’t blame me when he pisses you off.”
One reason I offered Harold a room was that he had just quit a job he started a week earlier. They lied to him, he claimed – a pattern of Harold’s. People/companies lie to him or flake on him, repeatedly.
Nonetheless, the boy needed money and shelter. The other reason I offered him a room is I imagined my self as a modern-day abolitionist, freeing victims living in the red states. I’m a dumbass, what can I say?
Harold soon got another job, but quit that because the hours were unappealing to him, and also, they lied to him. Anyway, he was sure that he was going to get this “too-good-to-be-true” job where they would pay him a ton of money to be a marketing director, something he knew nothing about (sales people are not marketing people, end of story). The job never came through because as everyone but Harold knows, if it’s too good to be true, it ain’t gonna happen.
The job situation, not to mention the Internet girlfriend kicking him out, were signs enough that Harold is trouble with a capital T. But, as mentioned, I’m a dumbass. So for me, the first sign of trouble I noted was when Harold repeatedly jumped in and took hubby’s side when he thought I was being too tough on him, which is often. I’m short, a bit chubby, overworked, am far from rich and there is a Republican in the White House. Being nasty to my husband from time-to-time is the one great pleasure I get in life.
That aside, there were times when both Hubby and me recognized that I wasn’t being hard on him, and Harold was still jumping in and defending perceived offenses. Once, when we’d been drinking, Harold started in on me about hubby, and I said, “Oh shut the f*&k up.” I say this expression the way most people say, “Hey, how are you.” It’s kind of my version of Bob Hope’s “Thanks for the memories.” Harold teared up. The next morning, first thing, he told me that I was mean when I was drunk. I was quite offended. I’m mean when I’m sober, too.
There were a thousand small things, too, that warned me of trouble ahead. Every time I opened a bottle of vitamins, drank water, looked sideways, Harold had an opinion on ways to do it healthier. Harold is a “health” legend in his own mind. Example: my doctor suggested I take chewable calcium. Harold told me that they would just float around in my stomach., never to be absorbed by my system. I imagined my little semi-digested calcium chew floating in my stomach like a mangled glob on a raft. It seemed peaceful in a way. I wanted to down a glass of wine so they would have some beverage to make their experience complete. Harold had two boxes full of vitamins and supplements, meant to do everything from keeping Harold in shape (didn’t work) to mentally health (really didn’t help).
Harold likes to help, and he told me that he would try to get me a job at the too-good-to-be-true job working for him, but that they usually hired “hot” babes, so it might be tough. Then he told me not to get offended because I was too old to be hot, and hey, “you look better heavier, anyway.”
I’m not the only cantankerous person in the house. Hubby is quite the crabby ass. When hubby disagreed with him about anything, Harold came running to me to complain. When I disagreed with Harold, he ran to hubby complaining. It reminded me of a child playing his parents. What did he expect us to do? Side with him? Actually, my hubby probably did, that SOB.
After meeting my rather wealthy friend, “Uma,” (I think she’d like that alias) Harold proceeded to hit on her in very aggressive, almost mental-rape type of way. “You have nice lips,” he said to her. “I’d like to kiss them.” This was not a fix-up, by the way. Uma came to see us and Harold happened to be there. Anyway, Uma laughed off the kissing comment and tried to be nice (her mistake, it’s like feeding a stray dog). Later she told me she was very “grossed out,” and that Harold had a “bottomless ego.”
Three weeks turned into six and I told him it was time to end our little roommate adventure. Had I not said that, he would have given me the perfect out anyway when he told me that not only did he believe in aliens, which I had known — I just thought he meant androgynous gray men — but that W, Cheney, Queen Elizabeth, the Rothschilds and Chris Christopherson were all actually a shape-shifting race of lizard aliens bent on a new world order. Chris Christopherson? That explains “A Star is Born.”
Harold’s theory on 9/11? The terrorists didn’t do it. W and Cheney had the towers wired with bombs. There is “verifiable evidence,” on the Internet, which we all know is about as credible as this blog.
I disagreed with him, of course, but I looked into some of the “research” he cited, which all turned out to be written by a variety of quack charlatans with jail records and other nefarious histories, and I told him so. Did that piss him off! There I go again, being too tough and difficult.
We emailed each other our rebuttals because by this time he had gone back to the South for a week to get out of our hair for a while (the nicest thing he did for us). I held to my facts, and with no facts to stand on, Harold’s emails took on the quality of a nutty old guy. There was no punctuation and lots of run-on sentences (kind of like this blog). He got belligerent. The correspondence ended with me telling Harold, yet again, it was time to move out. He had to have the last word and hurled a variety of insults at me.
A week passed and Harold didn’t return. He didn’t give us the courtesy of letting us know when he’d be removing his junk from our house. Finally hubby contacted him via email and Harold eventually came back weeks later and removed his stuff. He had a gift for hubby. A baseball cap. He loves my hubby, who oddly didn’t want Harold to live with us and was the one who told me to kick him out after three weeks, and again at six weeks. About two months later, Harold sent my husband a thank you email. My husband wrote back and said that I was the one he should actually thank. So I got a two line email from Harold.
What did I want? Too much. I wanted an apology for the many small offenses he made under my roof. I wanted an acknowledgement of his deep ingratitude. I wanted him to say that he would get therapy. I also wanted him to apologize for making me defend W. I actually heard myself saying, “W is not a lizard alien.” I don’t like giving W credit for anything except for being a complete jackass.
People need a reason to believe. They need a reason to blame their sorrows on something other than themselves. In Harold’s case, he believes he has terminal bad luck, that he is a good and noble person abused by all the lizard aliens who worship demons of the fourth dimension.
There are many Harolds in the world. There is no rehab for them. They can’t accept that their life is their responsibility. They blame their failures on everything from W being a lizard, to corporate America being big fat liars. Of course corporations lie. That’s why work is called a job.
The moral of this story is, of course, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. I know I sound mean, and it’s probably awful of me to write a blog entry about this episode. But, I am awful, so get over it. What’s truly depressing is that those few times in life when you want to help someone, they take it for granted, they show no gratitude and they try to convince you that W is a lizard.
W is many bad things, but he is not a lizard. He’s a snake.
August 07, 2005
Republicans Use Kids as Weapons of Mass Annoyance
Why do Republicans love kids so much? They smell. They are loud. They are only cute when they are your offspring. By the way, I’m talking about kids, not Republicans. If W had his way, no woman would ever be able to get another abortion, which means there are more kids around to annoy me. W, I know I hate you, but why do you hate me so much? Huh?
I’ve come to this conclusion: Republicans love to complicate things. For example, they love kids. Kids, kids, kids. Truth is, kids just aren’t practical to have around because they are so damn annoying. Name one parent you know who is not stressed. There. That’s my point.
So, since Republicans will be ruling the world for the foreseeable future, let’s do that old democratic thing and compromise. If you simply must breed, rather than do away with abortion, let’s keep it, but also institute a law that says if you have children, they can’t leave the house till they A) learn to bathe once a day, 2) learn to shut up and 3) can read and discuss the Iliad.
So W, I’m begging you, please don’t stack the courts with anti-abortion judges. Abortion is actually people doing the right thing: preventing the impact of their bad parenting unleashed on the world. Please, I’m begging you. Leave abortion alone. Go attack some country with faux weapons of mass destruction. Just keep the population of kids down. We don’t need them. They aren’t our future. They are our present pain in the ass.
Side note to the pregnant mom who was on the flight with me from NYC to Las Vegas on Thursday, August 4. You need to stay home, sweetie. You are six months pregnant, which means you had to keep hauling your fat belly up and down the aisle of the plane, which wouldn’t have been so bad if I had a window seat, but no, I was in the aisle. To make matters worse, you kept bringing your brat daughter with you who you obviously think is cute but the rest of us didn’t because she kept touching our arms with her dirty hands and smiling her little retarded child smile that parents think is so cute but that I always misinterpret as retarded. I’ve finally learned to stop asking, “What happened to your kid?”
I need you parents to tell me why you think your right to fly your children outweighs the rights of those masses of us who don’t want to fly with your screaming bratty kids. You are selfish, you have a big ego, and your kids are annoying. Add it up: stay home or drop the kid off at the orphanage for the duration of your vacation.
Side note #2, to the Mom at the Quest Diagnostic center on Buffalo and Lake Mead at 10:00 am Friday: your child was screaming nonsense and all you can do is give him a gentle “shush.” You have a hand, smack the shit out of the brat. I would do it – gladly – but I’d get arrested, which is a real shame. If total strangers could correct kids, I wouldn’t be sitting here typing away my complaints.
I’ve come to this conclusion: Republicans love to complicate things. For example, they love kids. Kids, kids, kids. Truth is, kids just aren’t practical to have around because they are so damn annoying. Name one parent you know who is not stressed. There. That’s my point.
So, since Republicans will be ruling the world for the foreseeable future, let’s do that old democratic thing and compromise. If you simply must breed, rather than do away with abortion, let’s keep it, but also institute a law that says if you have children, they can’t leave the house till they A) learn to bathe once a day, 2) learn to shut up and 3) can read and discuss the Iliad.
So W, I’m begging you, please don’t stack the courts with anti-abortion judges. Abortion is actually people doing the right thing: preventing the impact of their bad parenting unleashed on the world. Please, I’m begging you. Leave abortion alone. Go attack some country with faux weapons of mass destruction. Just keep the population of kids down. We don’t need them. They aren’t our future. They are our present pain in the ass.
Side note to the pregnant mom who was on the flight with me from NYC to Las Vegas on Thursday, August 4. You need to stay home, sweetie. You are six months pregnant, which means you had to keep hauling your fat belly up and down the aisle of the plane, which wouldn’t have been so bad if I had a window seat, but no, I was in the aisle. To make matters worse, you kept bringing your brat daughter with you who you obviously think is cute but the rest of us didn’t because she kept touching our arms with her dirty hands and smiling her little retarded child smile that parents think is so cute but that I always misinterpret as retarded. I’ve finally learned to stop asking, “What happened to your kid?”
I need you parents to tell me why you think your right to fly your children outweighs the rights of those masses of us who don’t want to fly with your screaming bratty kids. You are selfish, you have a big ego, and your kids are annoying. Add it up: stay home or drop the kid off at the orphanage for the duration of your vacation.
Side note #2, to the Mom at the Quest Diagnostic center on Buffalo and Lake Mead at 10:00 am Friday: your child was screaming nonsense and all you can do is give him a gentle “shush.” You have a hand, smack the shit out of the brat. I would do it – gladly – but I’d get arrested, which is a real shame. If total strangers could correct kids, I wouldn’t be sitting here typing away my complaints.
August 05, 2005
Skinny Girls and the End of the World
I just returned from NYC and all I can say is that if someone doesn’t start force feeding the world’s population of Skinny Girls, then we should send them to Iraq to serve some good use other than pissing the rest of us women off.
I’m not fat. Ask my husband. He’ll tell you. I’m a bit chubby. Just a little bit. Those were his words before I hit him over the head with a frying pan.
If Americans are getting fatter, it must be happening to only men, and to me, because I didn’t see fat women in NYC. I saw size 0’s and size 2’s. We live in a society where if you are a size 4, or like me and you are a size 6, it’s time to embrace the South Beach Diet.
I have spent the last week studying Skinny Girls, and I’ve come to these conclusions:
1). Skinny Girls are whores. They are skinny to attract the opposite sex. They sure aren’t denying themselves food because it’s fun. You may call that low self-esteem. I call it them being whores.
2) Skinny Girls monopolize the treadmill for no apparent reason. This is why I gained weight in New York. Every time I went to the gym at my hotel, the W Times Square, where Skinny Girls go to breed, there was some skinny ass girl running like a jackass on the treadmill.
3) Skinny Girls are stupid. See reason #2 above. YOU ARE SKINNY. GET OFF THE TREADMILL AND LET ME AND MY BUDDHA BELLY ON.
4) Skinny Girls are smug. Just look at them looking at you. That’s a smug smile on their face. There’s a way to combat that smug look. Lay a polysyllable on them. Then you can look smug while they look confused.
5) Skinny Girls love to talk about how much men hit on them. I overheard one skinny girl on the treadmill say to another skinny girl on the elliptical machine, “So I was walking down the street last night and this guy said he could just eat me.” That’s not a compliment, dumbass, it’s verbal rape.
6) Men who like Skinny Girls actually are homosexuals. Skinny girls have the body of boys, except for those who have their breasts enhanced. But they have boy hips, which means men who are attracted to Skinny Girls are attracted to boys. This proves my long hypothesized theory that all men are gay. Thank you, Skinny Girls, for proving that.
7) The population of Skinny Girls has increased, which means the end of the world is near. There’s only one thing to do: eat up and enjoy the remaining moments of life.
Now excuse me while I go devour a bowl of ice cream in one swallow.
I’m not fat. Ask my husband. He’ll tell you. I’m a bit chubby. Just a little bit. Those were his words before I hit him over the head with a frying pan.
If Americans are getting fatter, it must be happening to only men, and to me, because I didn’t see fat women in NYC. I saw size 0’s and size 2’s. We live in a society where if you are a size 4, or like me and you are a size 6, it’s time to embrace the South Beach Diet.
I have spent the last week studying Skinny Girls, and I’ve come to these conclusions:
1). Skinny Girls are whores. They are skinny to attract the opposite sex. They sure aren’t denying themselves food because it’s fun. You may call that low self-esteem. I call it them being whores.
2) Skinny Girls monopolize the treadmill for no apparent reason. This is why I gained weight in New York. Every time I went to the gym at my hotel, the W Times Square, where Skinny Girls go to breed, there was some skinny ass girl running like a jackass on the treadmill.
3) Skinny Girls are stupid. See reason #2 above. YOU ARE SKINNY. GET OFF THE TREADMILL AND LET ME AND MY BUDDHA BELLY ON.
4) Skinny Girls are smug. Just look at them looking at you. That’s a smug smile on their face. There’s a way to combat that smug look. Lay a polysyllable on them. Then you can look smug while they look confused.
5) Skinny Girls love to talk about how much men hit on them. I overheard one skinny girl on the treadmill say to another skinny girl on the elliptical machine, “So I was walking down the street last night and this guy said he could just eat me.” That’s not a compliment, dumbass, it’s verbal rape.
6) Men who like Skinny Girls actually are homosexuals. Skinny girls have the body of boys, except for those who have their breasts enhanced. But they have boy hips, which means men who are attracted to Skinny Girls are attracted to boys. This proves my long hypothesized theory that all men are gay. Thank you, Skinny Girls, for proving that.
7) The population of Skinny Girls has increased, which means the end of the world is near. There’s only one thing to do: eat up and enjoy the remaining moments of life.
Now excuse me while I go devour a bowl of ice cream in one swallow.
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