Bigot

Fuck you, Rene Portland.

Same shit, different year

Well, another 365 days down.

Welcome to a new round in which Father Time will kick your ass.

Inquiring minds....

What does the "A" stand for in the phrase "Fuckin' A"?

And while we're at it, what does the "H." stand for in "Jesus H. Christ"?

Just wondering.

The AutoNObile

You know what pisses me off? Car trouble. For fuck's sake, this saga has been going on for six months now... me, car trouble... auto shop "fixes" it... me, car trouble again... auto shop "fixes" it... and now, today, car goes back to the shop.

There aren't a lot of car shops to choose from around here and one of them is totally off limits because we've already tried them and they screwed us (they screwed a family friend of ours too). The auto shop we've been using for the past six months is rated the best in our county, and they have warrantees on the work so this will be the third time we bring it back.

There I was, approaching the entrance/exit to my apartment complex about to turn onto the main road when all of a sudden I couldn't steer (well, I could but it was hard as hell). I managed to back up into the apartment complex's driveway before being hit by the main road's oncoming traffic and muscled the car over to the side of the entrance way so I wouldn't be in the way of entering and exiting cars.

It's the belt (you can see it hanging underneath the car). Belts were replaced the last time the car was in the shop but as we recall they were used belts.

So, back to the shop the car goes and now I have to get a rental (again). I have things to do, goddamnit! I fuckin' hate the inconvenience. Not to mention it's Friday, and it'll be a holiday, and I'm leaving town on the 5th for two weeks so I'm trying to prepare for that (I need to get some new shoes, some clothes, some travel supplies). I have a meeting at work on the 3rd. I wanted to hang out with a friend today (who doesn't drive so she can't swing by and pick me up). I have shit to do, fuckin' fuckity fuck. GRRRRRR. I like my car but I'm tried of these problems.

Don't even get me started on computer trouble. I can get physically violent toward inanimate objects when that happens.

I'm nice, you asshole!

I'd like to set the record straight on something that's bothered me for a long time. Not all vegetarians or vegans are snobby, preachy, self-righteous jerks.

I've been a vegetarian for nine years and a vegan for seven. A personal choice that had to do with health and my own ethics. I do not believe that my ethics should be everyone's ethics. I know people like meat, and quite frankly, it just doesn't bother me that people eat meat. Eat every warm-bodied thing you can find, it's no skin off my nose.

I leave people alone about food. I never try to convert people. I never make comments about what people eat. I don't boycott fast food restaurants. I don't announce that I'm vegan every chance I get. I don't make people feel bad. I don't wear t-shirts and tout bumper stickers. Nothing, nada, zip. People don't even know I'm a vegan unless we happen to eat out together.

It amazes me that vegans get a reputation for being asses when I've had my fair share of meat-eaters jump all over me for no reason. Who's the asshole now? I'm the first to admit there seem to be a lot of animal activists and militant vegans who hassle meat-eaters and they're giving normal people like me a bad name. Many assume that I have the same bad attitude as other vegans and the minute they find out I am one they put me down.

Those who get snippy with me about how dumb veganism is always go one of three routes: 1) the "it's the way nature is" route while droning on about the food chain; 2) the "God intended for people to eat meat" route while quoting the Bible; and 3) "it's not healthy to be vegan" route drabbling on about calcium and protien as if they're the only factors in human health.

The nature argument just doesn't suffice since there are many, many animals who don't eat other animals (even some of the strongest mammals on earth like elephants and silverback gorillas eat only plant-based foods). Nature's complex.

The God argument doesn't work for me because I was raised without religion and don't pay it any mind. Even if I were to pay it mind, there are religions and sects that demand or encourage vegetarianism. So whose side is God on?

Lastly, the nutrition argument. Ahhh, my favorite. I find it fascinating that at this time in U.S. history when people are fatter and nutritiously unhealthier than they've even been, some want to single me out as the person to give a health lecture to.

I'm not eating 95% of the foods that make people unhealthy. I'm not the broad who's going to have a heart attack from clogged arteries. I'm not the dude who has high cholesterol or diabetes. I'm not the one who weighs 500 pounds smothering in my own blubber. And people want to get on me about calcium and protein! Give me a break.

Take the nutrition lecture over to the 300-pound guy scarfing down the deep-fried-quadruple-steak-and-bacon-with-three-kinds-of-cheeses burger and two sides of jumbo fries plus a vat of ice cream for dessert. How many meat-eating people do you know who get the perfect amount of every vitamin, mineral, fat, protein, and everything else the human body needs every day anyway, huh? That's what I thought. No one's nutritionally perfect, including me, and that's precisely why I leave people alone about it.

Just so you know, there's at least one vegan out there (me) who doesn't give a rat's ass what you kill and eat, and am totally apathetic to your hunting, fishing, taxonomy, fur-coat wearing, bestiality, and whatever else. You walk your road, I'll walk mine.

Learnin' Time: Since calcium and protein seem to be what most non-vegans are obsessed with I thought I'd post a few facts just for your reading enjoyment.

Excellent non-dairy sources of calciumsoy or rice milk, cooked collard greens, blackstrap molasses, tofu, calcium-fortified orange juice, cooked kale, tahini, almonds and almond butter, okra, sesame seeds, turnip greens, soybeans, figs, tempeh, broccoli, bok choy, soy yogurt, and more

Excellent non-animal sources of proteinAlmost all foods except for alcohol, sugar, and fats are good sources of protein. Vegan sources include potatoes, whole wheat bread, rice, broccoli, spinach, almonds, peas, chickpeas, peanut butter, tofu, soy milk, lentils, kale, and more.

Okay, I feel better after having ranted.

Down with Diurnal!

I've got to lick this nocturnal thing. My sleeping schedule's so fucked since we're on winter break. Happens every time I'm on any kind of break. Been this way since I was born. For the past couple weeks I've been going to sleep around 7:00AM every day and waking up around 4:00PM. I hardly ever see daylight on these short, rainy winter days.

Today I got screwed. I woke up around 4:30PM yesterday. I had to be somewhere at 10:00AM this morning. That means I couldn't go to sleep at 7:00AM this morning and sleep until 4:00PM as usual. So, I just didn't bother to sleep at all so I could make the 10 o'clock appointment and now I'm so... fuckin'... exhausted.

Goddamned diurnal culture. Give a nocturnal gal a break.

(Okay, kiddies. It's nap time. For real.)

>:|

Somebody give me some friggin' feedback, for cryin' out loud! Tell your friends. Alert the presses. ¡Acción!

The Myth of Kong

I’m totally grossed out by the King Kong story. This’ll sound like a feminist tirade even though I don’t identify myself as a feminist (much to my best friend’s dismay).

I’m a bit irked by Hollywood’s insistence that
1) women are open to falling in love with non-humans, and
2) abducted women are likely to fall in love with their captors

You may argue that Ann Darrow (the character Naomi Watts portrays in Peter Jackson’s 2005 version of the film) doesn’t fall in love with the giant ape, but I think one could make a good case that she at least loves him if she's not in love with him. (Yuck.)

True, Darrow doesn’t ever make an admission of love and she, obviously, doesn’t attempt anything sexual, but come on, the way she looks into Kong’s eyes and coos over him is suspect, and icky. The pair has been sexualized in popular culture (as you can see from the image posted above that I found on web).

Now for some generalizations -- and I’m just thinking aloud here so run with me. Since men are writing stories like King Kong is seems to me these authors are working out a male fantasy: that a woman can fall under the charms of even the ugliest, meanest, most inconsiderate -- and, yes, even non-human -- “guys.” I think men like this idea; it certainly works out in their favor.

Here we get into the old cultural anthropological debate about the functions of marriage. In exchange for providing financial and physical protection for a wife and children, a husband gets sexual access and a helpmate in his wife. The wife, in exchange for being a sex partner and helpmate gets protection and some financial security. This is the gist of the unspoken marriage contract in western societies.

Despite what literature and Hollywood tell us, however, the vast majority of us women are not swept off our feet by anyone who or anything that protects us. Shocking as this may be, we (mentally healthy) women aren’t wooed by being abducted, held against our wills, and made to live in frightening and unstable circumstances, no matter how much protection a guy or ape provides for us or how sweet he can sometimes be.

I know Kong’s story is all just fiction, but it definitely reflects some of our culture’s gender assumptions.

Sexuality

Since there’s all this talk swirling around sexuality right now, perhaps sparked by the release of Brokeback Mountain this month, I’ll jump into the conversation.

I’m a rare and well-kept secret in female sexuality. I’m a heterosexual woman who gets off seeing straight men indulge in homosexual activity (in my fantasies, in person, movies, porn, or porn stories). Yes, you read that right (you may want to read it again, slowly).

This is a very specific sexual interest not to be confused with being a fag hag. I don’t have a thing for gay men. I certainly don’t have anything against gay men, but with regard to my sexual interests they just don’t factor in.

I’m talking about being turned on by straight guys who engage in some homosexual pleasure. I know you’ll understand if I put it to you this way: you know how countless numbers of straight guys (especially young ones) like seeing two hot, straight women get it on? Same thing with me except reverse the sexes.

As with me, guys don’t want to see actual lesbians per se (and they certainly don’t want to see old, butch lesbians get together just like I don’t want to see flamboyant, feminine gay men get together) -- they like to see feminine heterosexual women engaging in lesbian acts the same way I like to see masculine heterosexual men engage in gay acts. For me, there’s just nothing hotter.

Coincidentally, my best friend (female) likes the same thing so I know I’m not the only girl out there who gets off on this. And while I admit it’s pretty rare (because most women seem to be just as disgusted by men have sex with each other as straight men are) there are a small number of us women out there who get all hot and bothered thinking about it (or, better yet, seeing it).

Unfortunately, we’re not a vocal minority because while acceptance of experimental lesbianism in concept and practice has skyrocketed and, I would argue, become nearly commonplace among young people (as evidenced by everything from mainstream movies, music videos, and, of course, porn), the opposite is surely not true. There will probably never be a day when I see casual gay encounters between straight guys accepted as a normal human sexual activity. :(

There certainly isn’t widespread acceptance for -- or even acknowledgment of -- women being aroused by seeing two men together. Will there ever be? Probably not. There probably just aren't enough women out there like me and my best friend to force this issue into our culture's sexual panorama, but I’m not going to gripe about it too much. It’s not possible or important that all people accept my specific sexual indulgences but I would like to raise awareness because, like I said, this sexual fetish does exist yet if I mention it to someone he or she looks at me like I kill babies with chainsaws. I mean, come on. Is it really that bad? And if you answered yes to that question then you’d damn well better have a problem with straight guys who like lesbian sex too. Fair is fair. Fuck double standards.

P.S.: If you think I'm urging people see Brokeback Mountain and read the short story because of my sexual fetish thingy, you're wrong! The story's not even very sexual and it's truly an amazing work of literature and fantastic cinema. No agenda on my part, honestly. Although I did love seeing straight heartthrobs Ledger and Gyllenhaal kiss. (Hey, I'm only human.)

The Beauty of Protest

After posting the antiwar Eddie picture below I figured I could share some of my own antiwar shenanigans with you.

While I finished up my bachelor's degree at U. of Washington in Seattle I got involved in antiwar activities. As fun as it was I'd trade in all the fun for some actual impact. Know what pissed me off? Thousands of us, literally thousands, just in Seattle alone, out every few weeks protesting for one reason or another (the war, the Patriot Act, the detainment of people of Arab descent, the WTO, poverty, you name it) and then Dubya announced that he doesn't pay any attention to protesters.

I don't know why that surprised to me. It make sense that he wouldn't consider national or even global protests, but for some reason I was really pissed off by that statement. I'm willing to call his bluff, though, and wager that he he does actually pay attention (what president doesn't keep an eye on public reactions?) and that he said he doesn't only to discourage us. What a bastard.

Anyway, kids, here's a link to some of the fun I had.

Protesting in Seattle.

Eddie Vedder

Always been a Pearl Jam fan despite the music. Might sound harsh but it's true. As much as I promote them and relate to a lot of their music, I realize there's a hell of a lot of their music I don't like (in that "what the fuck is this weird shit?" way). Regardless, I have nearly all of their albums (including the weirdo side projects and crazy B sides), and I still like them, particularly Ed Ved, after all these years.



What do I like about him? His politics, his voice, his angst, his reclusiveness. A kindred for sure.

Orson

A few days ago I forgot to post the story of Orson the mouse.

One night a few months ago we took our cat Rudy out on a walk (he wears a leash) around the apartment complex and he stumbled upon one baby mouse in the parking lot. Then a second one. The mice were cold and chirping very quietly. We put Rudy back in the apartment, grabbed flashlights, and got a box lined with a scrap of cloth to put them in.

After we returned to scoop up the two mice up, we looked around for more. Underneath a car that had been sitting in the lot for months we could see another babe in our flashlight beams. Then another! And Another! Five baby mice in all, scattered not too far from each other, eyes unopen, cold to the touch, and so little they hadn't yet learned how to walk, they just shakily crawled around. I researched online and from their coloring and size I identified them as deer mice (adorable little guys).


We collected all five in the box and slowly warmed them in the apartment. They all smelled like motor oil and we guessed their mom made a nest up inside that abandoned car and the babies fell out. Don't know what happened to the mom but if she'd been around she wouldn't have let her kids chirp for her for too long, and they'd been out there for quite a while seeing as how they were cold and scattered pretty far from each other (considering their limited mobility).

We knew we needed to feed them something fatty so we mixed half and half with soy milk and did our best. Long story short, the mice all held on for a few weeks -- their eyes opened, their bodies started growing into proportion to their big heads -- but all four died except for Orson, he was our lone survivor.

We set Orson up with a nice home, wood shavings and the whole bit, but I guess it wasn't good enough for him because one morning we awoke and he wasn't there. He escaped and we never even saw a sign of him after that. Never heard a mouse in the wall. Never found anything chewed up or nibbled on. Never saw mouse droppings. We thought maybe one of our cats got to him but even cats leave signs of having killed and eaten something and the apartment was spic and span.

So, Orson went missing and that was the end of that. I miss him.


(He's got a bald spot on his head in the picture, which the mouse books said is normal for hand-raised mice. The fur grew back about a week later.)

Into the Future

So far I'm only looking forward to a few things in 2006:
1) a trip with my best friend in January
2) graduating with my master's degree in May
3) beginning a Ph.D. program in the fall (hopefully)

Other than those things I'm sure 2006 will offer the same joys and disappointments as the last 5 years of my life. I'm living in a loop, it seems. Nothing's really changed in about half a decade. I have a static existence, which is not always bad (there's something to be said for routine and predictability) but, of course, it can also be so boring.

Top joys of 2005
1) got into a master's degree program
2) took a cross country trip with my best friend
3) started building the new house, still in progress (we can finally move out of this apartment in February 2006, fates allowing)
4) was absent of any major health problems and catastrophes
5) earned a decent amount of money for the first time in a long time

Humbug

Well, it's Christmas. I gave presents, I got presents.

---

Postcard.
Stickers.

The Deserving

You know who doesn't get enough credit? Mark Ruffalo. A brilliant actor.

Knoxy

Last night I saw the film The Ringer starring the one and only Johnny Knoxville (I LOVE that guy). Took a little while for the movie to get some laughs, but by the end I thought it was pretty funny overall. I'd say rent it, though, rather than spending the ten bucks.

Isabella!

I finally gave in and bought a hamster; I named her Isabella. I saw her at the pet store the day before yesterday and was smitten. I went back yesterday and just had to get her. She's a dalmatian hamster, looks like a holstein cow (my favorite type of cow). Right now she's ruffling around in her snazzy new cage building a nest with wood shavings.





By the way, I have a beta fish named Beta and an aquatic African dwarf frog named Neil. They live together, although they don't seem to like each other too much. Regardless, they make a cute pair.

There they are together. (Beta's on the move.)





Beta.


Neil's very photogenic so I have many pictures of him.























Love the spots.


My favorite: the ballet poses. (He looks a bit warped below because of the bend in his tank, but I can assure you, he's not deformed.)



I also have two cats named Marley Bob and Rudy.

[Left] Marley. The box was his idea, the red berét was ours.

[Below] A close-up of Rudy.

Tweedle Dumb

"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." - Dubya

Faaantastic.

Church & State

"The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit, it is also opposed to all attempts of rational thinking." – H.L. Mencken

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself." -Sir Richard F. Burton

Yesterday [Tuesday, December 20th], a federal judge struck down a Pennsylvania public school district from teaching intelligent design in biology class. He said the concept was creationism in disguise. - Missouri's Daily Journal

WOO HOO!

Many liberals mistakenly believe that these controversies [regarding church and state] are largely a product of the post-1980 politicization of the Christian right. In fact, the elected anti-evolutionists on local and state school boards today are the heirs of eight decades of fundamentalist campaigning against Darwinism through back-door pressure on textbook publishers and school officials. Even efforts to cloak creationism with the words "science" and "scientific" - as in "creation science" - is an old tactic, reminiscent of the Soviet Union's boasting about "scientific communism." - Susan Jacoby, "Caught Between Church and State," New York Times OP-ED. Jacoby is author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism.

For those of you threatened by the separation of church and state, consider this statement by evolutionary biologist, writer, and scientific historian Stephen Jay Gould:

No scientific theory, including evolution, can pose any threat to religion--for these two great tools of human understanding operate in complementary (not contrary) fashion in their totally separate realms: science as an inquiry about the factual state of the natural world, religion as a search for spiritual meaning and ethical values.

Do You Support the Troops?

While channel surfing for something worthwhile tonight, I keep catching glimpses of news specials (local and national) reporting the personal stories of troops in Iraq. As I type, NBC is airing Tom Brokaw's special on returning troops and their sugarcoated stories intended to make me sympathetic to the life of a soldier.

I don't know what's sparking this sudden interest in troops -- perhaps the holidays, perhaps all the hullabaloo about Dubya's recent refusal to pull out of Iraq -- but it makes me sick. Almost as sick as the phrase "I support the troops but not the war."

Uh, come again?

How come liberals don't have the balls to say, "Hell no, I don't support the war nor the troops because they make war"? Scared of being called unpatriotic? Scared of right-wing warmongers? Scared of social rejection?

Perhaps those who support soldiers while claiming to reject the war only mean to say they support the troops as human beings and are concerned with their welfare and safety. Fine. I understand that. But then why not say you care about the troops rather than you support them. Supporting means you're propping them up and it's implicit that you understand what they're doing in the Middle East and that you don't lay blame on them because they're just doing their jobs. Supporting them means you support their work and efforts. Well, their work and efforts allow wars to happen.

I think Donovan summed up the hypocrisy in saying one supports the troops but not the war in his 1965 song "Universal Soldier":

He's five foot two
And he's six feet four
He fights with missiles
And with spears
He's all of thirty one
And he's only seventeen
He's been a soldier
For a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu
An atheist, a Jain
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
And he knows he shouldn't kill
And he knows he always will
Kill you for me, my friend
And me for you

And he's fighting for Canada
He's fighting for France
He's fighting for the U.S.A.
And he's fighting for the Russians
And he's fighting for Japan
And he thinks we'll put
An end to war this way

And he's fighting for democracy
He's fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
Who's to live and who's to die
And he never sees the writing on the wall

But without him, how would Hitler
kill the people at Dachau,
Caesar would've stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war
And without him
All this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier
And he really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from here and there
And you and me
And brothers can't you see
This is not the way
We put the end to war


In addition to highlighting the ridiculousness of every soldier believing he or she is on the "right" ideological side of a battle, the lyrics emphasize that the troops themselves are wars. Mechanisms working in harmony make a machine -- in this case, the troops are the mechanisms and the war is the machine.

We put an end to wars by endlessly fighting them? Come on, you so-called peacemakers and pacifists, use your brains.

The cost alone should deflate support.

Annie Proulx

Go see Brokeback Mountain, but before you do, read the short story by Annie Prouxl (pronounced "proo"). You won't regret it, and you'll be pleased at how true to the story the film is.

It's a love story, for sure, but it speaks more to me about opportunities gone by and of having to realize there are times, places, and circumstances which render us incapable of molding our own fates. Sad as it may be, we can't all change the world and so often our only options are to play the hands we've been dealt.

"[I]f you can't fix it you've got to stand it."