when I lose something, I'm on my own.

When someone ELSE loses something, it somehow becomes my problem?

"Where is my jock strap?"

Which makes me want to say "Gee hon...last time I wore it..."

Ok...I need the younger folks to explain "friend zoning" to me.

 

I'm not clear on the meaning...and think it might mean something other than what I expected.

Is that when someone tries to keep someone a friend who is obviously interested in an intimate relationship?

Is it "I don't like you like that?"

 

A little info from both guys and gals would be appreciated.

My daughter has ...well...a unique sense of humor.

Last week she finished a short student film, and entered it in a competition at her college.  It actually MADE IT into the Highlight REEL! It will be available after midnight on Youtube.

 

I never do this...but I would like to request that EVERYBODY post the link on their page. Desi has a shot to take the short to Hollywood. if it gets X number of views...(and no, I don't know what X is...just that it is a crap ton.)

 

So what do you say folks? Anyone want to help me send my daughter's short film go viral?

 

And of course...if you sent it in email to your friends...you get the picture!

I should mention that it's sort of rude, and crude...and VERY funny...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/krugman-cannibalize-the-future.html?_r=1

 

Paul Krugman went after Christie in this piece, not out of dislike, or peevishness, but because sadly our "rock star" Governor embraces the "25 words or less" school of fiscal thought. If you can't explain something in 25 words or less, he doesn't want to hear it...ever. The problem with this is that planning for the future (the same thing Christie CLAIMS to want to protect) can't be summed up in a tweet.

"We can't afford it!"

Really? So if the roads and bridges are falling apart, the state can't afford to repair them.

UNTIL one actually does---THEN we find the money---usually three times as much as it would have cost to fix it  before...but presto chango...money is FOUND!

 

I've heard people talk about "hocking our kid's futures." Ok...I'll bite. Do you really think your kids won't need roads? The whole "virtual goods" thing only goes so far. At some point, our kids will need commerce of REAL products...stuff like food? So our kids NEED us to maintain things...til they reach our age.  Our children can't afford to have their educations cut...to save money for "their" future. Without a basic education, they will HAVE no future.  Sort of like the whole road thing...they will need those too. So...roads and education.

It would be nice if their world was reasonably safe...so we really need to stop building prisons. Expensive things---prisons.  But I would sooner we stop building them, than privatized them. Privatizing is simply an way to turn taxes into corporate profit. The company is running to make  money---(and there is nothing wrong with that)...but we've also seen companies slash their work force to nothing...to increase their profit margin. I get a little queasy when I think about how a prison might be run, by a company with a profit motive. They are talking about chain gangs---prison labor. Isn't that the same shit we were down on China about? Didn't we decide it was barbaric? Sort of slave labor?

 

"We shouldn't have to pay for prisoners!"

 

And there should be world peace...your point? You can lock them up to enforce the legal codes---or not. If you don't, you have to  free the prisoners. If you do? You have to pay for the costs. Justice ain't cheap.

 

We've decided "no new taxes" means we will not spend a penny more on "weird stuff". Renewable resources...water...clean air...energy. All that stuff is just a waste of our money...even if our kids are going to need such things to survive. So we cut it form budgets---"for the good of our children"...and pretend that it 's fiscally wise. People oppose the EPA---forgetting that they are stuck with the job of cleaning up dangerous messes...usually made by industry. We hear about how the EPA is ruining business...despite the record profits of Wall Street...even now. We forget that every Superfund site was cleaned with taxpayers money. And that you can't leave PCB's, and dioxin in the environment without a horrific cost...to human life. 

 

"We can't afford it!"  But we can't afford NOT to clean up the messes. People die. Kids in particular, tend to die from contamination related cancer. Look at the Marine families from Camp Le Jeune---and the number of people who acquired cancer as a result of solvent contamination over DECADES...from the water supply in base housing.  The women who lived there bathed in that water. They cooked in it..drank it...some while they were pregnant. Get the picture?

There is wise stewardship, and then there is being a damned ostrich...so long as I don't LOOK at the problem, it won't hurt me. Our children can't afford stupidity on our part. They can't afford the tax cuts that burden the middle class, and offer a free ride to industry, which reduced jobs, and outsourced them...to improve their immediate position. Your kids? Their future? Pfffffffffft.  Like they care a damn.

So we need to start thinking ahead.

We need to start planning for the stuff our children will need, rather than ignoring the needs because we don't WANT to pay attention. Our parent's generation understood that a society "pays it forward"...so that you have the resources you need. Limiting our view to this year's budget guarantees that our children WILL NOT HAVE WHAT THEY NEED...and that should be interesting...and essential...to us all.

 

 

It's gotten WORSE....

 

http://jezebel.com/5900928/your-vagina-isnt-just-too-big-too-floppy-and-too-hairyits-also-too-brown

 

Are women not allowed to LEAVE anything alone?

 

 

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/04/12/the-daily-show-reveals-republican-hypocrisy-over-womens-reproductive-rights-must-see-video/

 

The same people who want "personhood", and violation of women using unnecessary and painful tests are actually saying that ANY legislation that might control what a MAN does with his body is unconstitutional.

 

Every time I think they have done their worst, those crazy mothers come up with something even more twisted.

 

Who is electing these stupid bastards?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxPj3GAYYZ0&feature=related

 

 

This song was released about a month before Desi was born.

The circumstances of the writing, the loss of Clapton's son, at a time when I was pregnant myself, spoke to me.

I wept the first time I heard it...and have ever since.

Maybe the best song about love ever...but that's just my opinion...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kimberly-cates-escamilla/war-on-women_b_1415391.html

 

 

I know no one is "on the fence" when it comes to Choice.

You are either for it, or against it, and no one will change you mind.

But when i read this, my heart broke for the author.

I read about the syndrome her baby had...and it seemed too awful to imagine.

 

It also made me understand more profoundly that when a woman, or a family is faced with such an awful decision, I HAVE NO RIGHT TO JUDGE THEM---and add to their pain and loss...and neither should our government. Most of the "fetal personhood" laws would have forced her to go through the entire pregnancy...just to watch her baby die in 5-10 days. I call that barbaric.

 

 

 I have a dear friend who is a man.

 We don't agree on many things...but I can still respect his moments of wisdom.

 

Several years back, I lost another friend, and I was heart broken---and utterly devastated. Aside from the grief, it BOTHERED me...how much the loss struck me. I realized that I had loved him dearly, and it seemed wrong. He was a "friend". I was not supposed to be that hurt by the loss. So when speaking to my wise friend, I had one of those clarion moments, when the coin drops.

He said:  "We spend a lot of time "qualifying" love...we give it nice neat little labels, to avoid "confusion"...but love is love. "

 

At first, I chew on that one. Yes, BUT...and after a while, I realized he was correct. I've lost family, friends, and the people I call "chosen family"...not blood relatives---but people who are absolutely essential to our happiness. Each loss was painful...and I came to understand that I would not hurt near as much, had love not been involved.It may sound strange, but that was a liberating moment. We fool ourselves into thinking there are greater, or lesser "loves". That's incorrect. We may sort them into strata---and give more weight to one than another...but the heart is not a calculator. It only knows that loss means "minus"...and it cares not at all what name we slapped on an emotion.

 

Love is love.

 

 

 

 

I made a comment last night about "foot binding", and @bonmots suggested it might make an interesting blog.

 

The context was my frustration with the Beauty Culture, and the insane advice they give women.

 

To be attractive currently, a woman is expected to:

 

1 . Be deliciously slim---yet have a nice rack. Thin women usually don't have large breasts. If you are thin, you WILL have implants. Curves are only acceptable if you have had them added cosmetically.

2.  She has to have white perfect teeth.

3.  She has to have glossy hair---and if her native color is not "hot" enough, she is expected to use chemicals to change it. If her hair is straight, she must curl it. If it is curly, she must straighten it.

4.  She is expected to remove hair from her legs, her armpits, and her pubic area, even if that entails expense, pain, and puts her at risk for infections. (Pubic hair has a purpose.) She can shave, use harsh chemicals, hot wax, or even electrical needles to achieve that "hairless" look.

5. If her eyes are not "pretty enough", she should wear contact lens, in exotic shades to make her more alluring.

6. Her lips must be the right shape and size...so we need to PUMP THEM UP, with collagen, or fat...which can be suctioned from her midsection.

7. If her eye lashes are not full enough, she can take a drug to grow nicer ones...that can permanently change the color of her eyes.

8. She must be especially alluring naked...so she can get plastic surgery on her vaginal lips, to make sure they are a pleasing size...not to big, not to small.

9.Her anus must be pink...but now they can bleach those, so you won't be embarrassed.

10. Her eyebrows also need to be shaped and plucked...but hey...that stops hurting after a few dozen tries.

 

I started this with the expression "foot binding."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding

http://www.myseveralworlds.com/2007/07/11/suffering-for-beauty-graphic-photos-of-chinese-footbinding/

 

The custom was practiced in China for about 1000 years. It was considered essential, particularly for women of the UPPER classes. Bound feet were considered so desirable, that it was virtually impossible to make a marriage without them. They called them "golden lilies". A perfect bound foot was not supposed to exceed three inches in length. Not only was the process long, and painful, but the result of it was life long pain, and deformity as well.

 

We don't bind women's feet anymore. It's considered barbaric. BUT...see 1-10.  Those are not matters of hygiene...they are UN-natural processes to make women MORE APPEALING...which is the part I find confusing.  We do worship shoes---particularly high heeled shoes. But only for women. Men wear flats, flip flops, even crocks. They have sneakers, running shoes, boat shoes---but men have not worn heels of note since the court of Louis, the Sun King. To be attractive, a man has to bathe regularly. It helps if he wears clean clothes...but women don't EXPECT the same array of "beauty treatments" of them. They don't shave their body parts usually. While some Do go for cosmetic surgery, the number is a mere fraction of the total. Yes, men can work out---but women do that too...as well a 1-10.

 

I am 51.

I've dyed my hair on occasion, permed it.  I stopped doing that when my hair started falling out in handfuls. (I was 20 at the time)

I've shaved my body parts. But I have very thin skin, so it almost always cuts, no matter how careful I was.

I've used chemicals to burn the hair off my skin---until i developed horrible reactions to them that give me second degree burns, and made it impossible for me to walk for days.

I never went for cosmetic surgery...I admit it.

I wore high heels til I was 21...and had sprained my left ankle 12 times, and my right one 14 times since I was 14...and broken the right one.

At some point, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4HLHuS3hkw  this became my theme song. (Haven't Got Time For the Pain)  

 

So now I have a daughter who is 20...and thinks all this shit is simply INSANE. I did not tell her not to shave her legs...she just thinks it's stupid. We have family members and friends who think she is utterly RADICAL...simply because she doesn't see the point of shaving. She can't wear high heels because of gait issues---but she doesn't WANT to. And without make up, she is simply beautiful.

 

 

 

So...am I supposed to hold her down, and pluck her eyebrows? Put Nair in her body wash? Glue heels onto her flats? No...I won't. But I can't figure out how to explain the insane world of beauty to her...beyond saying we should be grateful that women don't have to have three inch feet anymore...and that's the TRUTH.