c'est magnifique

I usually don't give a rat's ass about most celebrities or their babies. But Angelina named one of her twins, Vivienne Marcheline, which I think is a fantastic name and one I absolutely adore. It sounds all French and flowy and I'm imagining her growing up to look like Catherine Deneuve circa 1967.

That is all.

awesomeness

Thy name is The Golden Girls.

7 Things You Probably Don't Know About The Golden Girls.

I'd like to add #8, please:
- Joss Whedon's father, Tom Wheden, was a co-executive producer on the show. That genius apple didn't fall far from that genius tree, now did it?

the one without a witty title line

Okay, so I don't look like my 2nd favorite Cusack in Sixteen Candles...



...but I do wear a bite guard when I sleep. After waking up so many times with a headache and being woken up by a boyfriend to be told, "holy fuck, I think you're gonna grind your teeth right out of your mouth," I figured it was time for a trip to the ol' dentist. It's clear and unnoticeable unless I fall asleep like the lady on my bus who sits there with her mouth gaping open and drooling all over herself. Which I don't. Or if I try and say something like, "Sally sells sea shells down by the sea shore." And really, how often does that come up in bedtime conversation? It helps prevent me from gnawing the hell out of my teeth but even though I don't wake up every morning with a headache, I do still wake up with one sometimes.

And when one wakes up with a wicked headache, it's probably not the greatest of ideas to stop into Caribou Coffee to get a caffeine-full cup of tasty espresso goodness. Caffeeine has never really had a huge effect on me and I've generally been able to drink it whenever I wanted and not wind up either all jittery or just wanting to crash. But these days, it's fucking with my body. Hell, coffee in general is starting to fuck with my body and I do not enjoy.

If this is what approaching 30 looks like, 30 can scurry off and go suck a fat one.

Reason #42,102,293 why winter is my favorite season

Far fewer centipedes.

I've never been overly fond of creepy crawly things but I've never been particularly freaked out by many of them either. See a spider? I'll probably cringe a bit and then proceed to kill it, flush it, and be on my merry way.

But I can soooooooo do without the effing centipedes I keep killing in my bedroom because each time I see one, I scream that "eww, gross, there's a big bug and it could kill me!" scream and shudder. They remind me of that icky-looking crawly thing that popped out of Buffy's "Bad Eggs" and attached itself to the backs of Sunnyside's inhabitants. Serious heebie jeebies.

When I went to bed last night, I killed one my wall near the ceiling. I couldn't sleep so instead, I flipped through my iPod for far too long, and by the time I got up to pee one last time before deciding I'd force myself to sleep, when I flicked on the light, sure enough, there was another one on the same wall, only a few feet away from where I squashed the first little bastard.

They're fucking gross. And they have far too many legs. And they move much quicker than something should for that size. My building is pretty decent but it's also an older building and there are plenty of cracks along my windowsills and a few small ones on my walls. And I'm sure the fact that this armpit of a city regularly has dew points in the summer often categorized by meteorologists as "tropical" doesn't help either.

Must eradicate the centipedes!

oh, delightful douchebaggery...

Wherever do I start?

Opponents of abstinence-based education reject shame as a value. When it comes to teen sex, their strategy is to immediately declare defeat and insist that kids are going to have sex no matter what.
I reject shame as a value simply because it's pointless. Anyone get picked on as a kid? Called a sissy boy? Called a fattie? Called a dirtball because Mommy or Daddy didn't have a job and couldn't buy you the latest clothes the kids were wearing? Did it feel good? No. It's cruel. And it speaks volumes about the person dishing out the shame and not a thing about the person receiving it. I also am an opponent of abstinence-based education, not only because I believe kids are gonna have sex no matter what but I don't believe instilling fear into kids is the right way to about suggesting to them it may not be in their best interest to be having sex at a young age. Sure, we should be sure to explain what kind of emotions can often come along with sex but we shouldn't be telling them it's the absolute worst thing you can do in life. Human sexuality isn't a war that someone is either winning or losing. It's sexuality. Nobody's going to "conquer" it and nobody should be fighting to do so. Sex feels good. And it's meant to feel good. And what happens when these girls grow up? They're being shamed sex as teenagers and when they hit adulthood, they'll be expected to be wanton sex goddesses capable of blowing their partner's mind. Riddle me that one.

When the same girl shows up at the school clinic for five pregnancy tests in one month, shouldn't’t somebody be mocking her for it?
Seriously? So, the next time Peter Pedophile gets arrested for fondling little Timmy, how about we just point and laugh? That'll keep him from doing it again, right? It's like the death penalty. No murderer sits at home thinking, "wow, I could fry for this, I guess I'll just stay in and watch American Idol." How about someone actually sits down with that girl who showed up at the clinic for pregnancy tests and talks to her about sex and the consequences and gives her the resources she needs to make sure she's not in for a 6th test. If she's been in 5 times, it's pretty clear that she's fucking. Repeatedly. Teach her what she needs to know in order to take care of herself. And while we're doing that, how about we have the same discussion with the boy who may have knocked the girl up? Because last time I checked, it takes at least two people to have sex and both ought to be held accountable.

But I’ll take one Beverly Farms, belly-rubbing dance routine over a dozen sex-ed bureaucrats any day. It’s probably more effective, and definitely more fun to watch.
It's more entertaining to you because you're a fucking tool who thinks watching people mock others actually accomplishes something other than demonstrating the mocker's douchebagginess.

Dearest Writer of This Article: Grade school is over. Welcome to adulthood. Join us, won't you?

Trust

Recently, someone not all that close to me pissed me off by betraying a fairly insignificant confidence but still...a confidence. It wasn't the piece of information I care about at all but the thing that pissed me off was the simple fact that she acted like a friend one minute and a gossipy high school girl the second. Translation: no matter how small, it's a betrayal of trust. And no matter how small, when that happens, I tend to get super pissed.

Trust is a funny thing. Something that doesn't come very easily to me, in a lot of ways, mainly because I tend to equate it with vulnerability. Break the trust and the vulnerability spills out all over the place, which makes me terribly uncomfortable. I consider myself a pretty open person and I'm generally willing to offer up any information, provided someone asks me for it. But I also believe it's not so much the information I give you that offers up my vulnerability but the "why"s and the "how"s behind that information. I can tell you, "hey, I'm this way" but unless you know WHY I'm that way, I don't really think I've told you much.

I can deal with it when I'm the one responsible for the spillage (I'm re-watching Buffy, so beware extra "y"s and "age"s with my words) but even then, I'd rather deal with it with as few people as possible being aware of it. And when someone else takes it upon themselves to do that for me, it pisses me off. Seriously pisses me off. An anger-and-rage-"you must do something to curb this or you're gonna lose your fucking shit" kind of seriousness. I've managed to figure out the things that help me do that (exercise, a modest and entirely non-raging-alcoholic amount of wine, writing, and occasionally, talking to someone I think would be able to help). But the anger is still there until I do one of those things to work through it. And when it's there, it's there in a way that usually screams, "seriously, calm the fuck down, why is it that big of a deal?" And for me, that tends to often spill over into situations that involve tiny little insignificant things. I've broken plenty computer...mice? mouses? because my computer froze and I thought banging the mouse on my desk would fix things. It doesn't. And it doesn't make me feel better.

While thinking about this recent incident, I thought the other night about the very first time someone betrayed my trust. At the time, it was dealt with in a fairly quick and simple way. A way that seemed appropriate at the time and one I've always felt, for the most part, comfortable with. But I think over time, maybe that feeling has lessened? I'm not really sure. But I think maybe it's that big of a deal because the very first time it was a big deal, I just shrugged it off.

When I trust someone and they piss all over that, I think I get so overwhelmingly angry because I never got overwhelmingly angry the very first time I remember it happening. Correction. I never got overwhelmingly angry the very first time other than internally. I never took that anger and showed the person who betrayed my trust that it was there and that they were the cause of it.

The weird thing is that I don't really feel angry about it anymore. I don't necessarily feel like getting angry and that "taking it out on" the person who was responsible for it would accomplish a single thing. I sometimes think maybe it would help to simply say, "hey, remember when you did that? I didn't really tell you at the time but I wanted to stab you with sharp objects over and over again. There, now you know. Carry on." I think maybe physically telling the person that they pissed me off, even if I no longer feel that way, will help me not jump immediately to anger when it happens again.

I don't know. But I may just try it.

P.S. Not many people read this space and even fewer make comments. But if you're planning on commenting and you have a pretty good hunch as to what I'm talking about in the latter half of this post, I'd appreciate uber vagueness on your part as well. Merci.

there goes another one

Seriously. Soon, I'm gonna have to start hoping I'm in a LOST-esque plane crash that leaves me with nothing but the earth and my own ingenuity with which to survive.

Since I can't think of a single corporation in the world that values anything about me other than the money in my purse, that's the only way I ever really feel like I can give them a big, fat "fuck right the fuck off, big evil company!"

So dearest Amazon, my letter should be arriving shortly. But even before that...and long after that...my money no longer will be.