Hotels

I have always enjoyed hotels. When I was a kid, my father worked for an A/C repair business that kept him traveling all over Arkansas. His trips were paid for by the company, and during the summers, he often took the load of us with him. The dog was shaved so she didn't shed all over the car.

We went to towns like Magnolia and Morgan, Forrest City and Eureka, places with little to offer outside an all-you-can-eat-buffet and a kidney-shaped swimming pool. Our hair turned blond during those summers, then green. My face, freckles expanding, looked pelted with dirty spit balls, doubtlessly reared in the surly mouth of my older brother. In the pool, we kicked and screamed, I held aloft by bright yellow arm floaties. When I was old enough to swim under water, it was with open eyes.

So here I am, 20 years later, 25 years later, still loving hotels. Still jumping back and forth between the two king-sized beds, still acting like a rape victim in the indoor pool, still darting down the halls, counting the doors, and still staring with fascination at the light fixtures in the halls. Only now I get to masturbate and drink off the top shelf . I mean, I COULD if I wanted to.

And I'm still looking at all the old people and hoping that won't be me someday - so sad, plump, and coiffed. Elastic-waist pantsuits with floral jackets; hair the color of fishing line.

In 1996, I took a summer job as a hotel maid at the Best Western in Lee's Summit. The pay rate was $5.15/hour without health insurance. You've notice that hotels have a check out time of 11am and a check in time of 3pm? This gives the maids four hours to get the rooms ready for the next guest - and that's all they get paid for. Sometimes we didn't have enough rooms to fill up the four hours. So, we'd sit in front of the TV and watch a soap opera, or look in the closets and see what kind of people they were.

Sometimes the guest wouldn't hear us knocking, so we'd go in anyway - as instructed - and lo and behold there was somebody asleep naked, or somebody just coming out of the shower and screaming at us, or somebody kneeling and praying, or somebody kneeling and not praying and that was weird. I never walked in on people having sex, but I heard the stories.

One of the older maids, Bess, left a bag of shit on Shelley's cart. This had something to do with Juanos, the maintenance man, driving Shelley home from work one day.

Shelley was the first atheist I ever met, but she went on to an evangelist college in Arkansas to study computers because her parents said they'd pay for the whole thing.

Anyway, that's what I talk about when I talk about hotels.

Now, Motels are something else all together. Motels are poetry.

Obama's a Muslim and Hilary's a Bitch

DAYTON, Ohio - Republican John McCain introduced first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate Friday, a stunning selection of a little-known conservative newcomer who relishes fighting the establishment.

The point of having a woman in the oval office is for her to be a bitch. Seriously, bitches know how to throw their weight around, are tough on policies and get things done. Hilary Clinton was a bitch, which means she was strong, steadfast, and if her amazing comebacks against Obama didn’t convince the world that she was cut out to be President, nothing will.

I haven’t been keeping up with this race like I should be, usually I’m all over it. But I can’t really stay silent much longer and I really just have to say what I’m thinking.

Firstly, the only reason Obama beat Hilary NARROWLY was because of the “youth vote.” In other words, 18 year olds put him in power! I’m 21, I was only just 18, and let me tell you, 18 year olds don’t know JACK about ANYTHING! Most of them are still living with their parents or going to college, they don’t pay taxes to the same degree that the rest of society does, social security is a foreign language, and they’re running around chanting “World Peace” just because their friends are, either that or they don’t understand the issues. They’re kids, kids are stupid. I’m a kid so I know.

So here comes Obama saying we’ll be out of Iraq by 2011, why the hell would we want that? More people are going to die when we leave, but at least they won’t be our people right? Who cares about Iraqi people, they don’t matter to liberals. “War” is a dirty word for kids, what are they going to say when we start sending troops into Darfur as part of the UN? That’s a war that is literally none of our business, in a country that has nothing against the US, and here are the liberals going “Save the Children.” Morons!

Not that I’m not for going into Darfur, it’s just that we’re going to get shot at a lot more over there than we are in Iraq, a country that DID infact have ties to Al Qaida and shipped all their Weapons of Mass Destruction to Syria (did anyone ever think of that one, NO!). And now here we come electing a Presidential candidate named BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA.

What the heck? I’m not being racist but seriously a country that won’t let Muslims board airplanes anymore is electing him? He DID go to school in a Madresa and yes we can cite his record all the way back to when he was 8 because a lot of morals I learned when I was 9 and 10 shaped who I am as a person today. I’m not saying he’s consorting with foreign terrorists whom he probably has no way of contacting even if he wanted to, I’m just saying that him being indeed a MUSLIM will put him in a vulnerable position to be taken advantage of, which would undermine all of our safety. But National Security isn’t an issue for liberals, World Peace is. We don’t even know where Obama’s father is and yet here we are touting his praise.

The people wanted Hilary, the Super Delegates wanted Obama, so guess who we got! What does that say about politics in this country? The same thing happened with Al Gore, does the government think We the People are stupid or incapable of choosing for ourselves? In some issues, maybe since the majority of the population is composed of high school dropouts, but the other half is highly educated, this feels unfair.

So now instead of picking Hilary as a running mate which would have sealed his Presidential Victory, he picks this guy Biden for his “foreign policy” stance not to appeal to Hilary supporters, but to kiss ass to conservatives!

This race is crazy. McCain comes out of left field selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate! I found out this morning and I near fell over. Who the hell is she? I mean I know she’s a woman and all which no one was expecting from the chauvinist Republicans, but she’s a senator from Alaska, from a town with a population of 6500 whose biggest concern is if there will be enough snow for the Iditarod Dog Sled Race. Hilary was a “Progressive,” but this girl is appealing to hockey-moms and Evangelicals! Are we trying to go backwards? At least Obama is touting change.

And what kind of “Change” are We the People really looking for? This past decade has been a rocky one, with a lot of racial and classist issues being thrown around. Right from the get-go in 2001, a war broke out that had us targeting Muslims, so Muslims were oppressed. Then we got into a war with no front lines where women were killing and dying in combat, which they STILL aren’t technically allowed to do thanks to Evangelical voters, so a big public outcry gave Senator Duncan Hunter the steam he needed to pass legislation pulling women off the battlefield. Women were targeted. Then Hurrican Katrina hit New Orleans, and aid workers couldn’t stay there too long because the city was completely taken over by the most vicious gangs in the Nation. New Orleans being overwhelmingly black-majority, people saw all the violence. Black people were targeted. No one has ever cared about Mormons and I still don’t care about Mormons, so when Mit Romney comes along, who do you think they’re going to vote for?

Everyone has been stepped on in this past decade. Absolutely everyone has felt repressed in this past 10 years in some way, shape, or form. No one should ever vote for someone because they are black, or just because they are a woman or a Muslim, but with the memories of ridicule and oppression sill fresh in our minds, it’s really hard not to. I think the idea is that someone who looks like them or was raised like them and has been where they have been will know what it is like for them and help make it easier. But in actuality, anyone, regardless of their race or gender, who sits in the Oval Office should be making it easier for EVERYONE in the country, no one demographic should be priority over another (that’s the definition of equality). But the American people also need to step up and work their hardest and give it everything they have, that’s the definition of Capitalism.

So this race is going to be a reflection of all We the People have been through in the past 10 years. Nothing is wrong with citing race or gender this time because we’ve all been stepped on. But what is wrong is citing ONLY race and gender. If that is how we are going to be doing it this election, then this is how I’m going to be doing it…

The only black man I am ever going to vote in for President is Colin Powell, and the woman I want to see as John McCain’s VP or as President herself is Condoleeza Rice. I refuse and I want We the People to refuse to pick the lesser of two evils YET AGAIN like we did between Al Gore and George W. Bush. As a first time voter, I’m going to exercise MY right to vote for whoever I want to like my forefathers fought and died for me to be able to.

I’m going to write Hilary in.

Long Weekends Are Longer When You're Sad

I am surrounded by things that are either his, or things we did together, or things that remind me of him.

And I reach out to people that I met through him during the last year, and I hope that they have not decided to stop talking to me. He wants me to be an integral part of the theatre company now. He says that we are still friends, and there is no reason why the others can't be.

One of them, one of my favorites, who I would gladly consider a dear friend even though I never see him; whose company I enjoyed so much for he reminded me of my friends back in Mississippi mixed with the urban intelligence (we've lived in similar parts of the country) of the big cities of being bi-coastal, and whose take on acting I respect very, very much said to me: "Please don't ever break up with him. I want us to always be friends, and if you break up, we can't anymore."

My therapist says that the loss of this relationship is the loss of not just Brad, but the potential loss of all the friends I made over the past year, of a company that has taken me in from the cold when my other one fell apart.

I try to be strong (Brad is so strong, he is! You have to be strong like me!)...and I'm just sad. Very sad.

And then...I get a little angry. I have moments of anger. And I have to embrace those. I can still try to be a part of the company and I want to be friends with these people who I have come to care about, and I guess I will; but I am not a robot and can't compartmentalize my feelings (as Brad as done).

Through tears and anger and sadness, I look at a songbook...and I laugh...for it reminds me of my ex-husband as well (the songbook itself) and I think of what song or verse would I sing right now, as I sit in my apartment, surrounded by the remnants of what Brad left behind (which includes me, even though it was just a matter of who wanted to say 'we're broken up' first out loud) and I have to hand it to Bob Dylan: he really knows his stuff.

So long honey, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
Goodbye's too good a word, babe
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't saying you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right.

There. That just about says it...for now.

Who's the doctor here anyhow?

Today's doctor visit felt a little like the Twilight Zone, but considering how insurance rules and policies can affect what our doctors can and cannot do, my visit today may become more of a norm than an exception, strange as it was.

Reassuring my doc was a strange position to be in, just as telling him about the anti-depressant he had me on that I chose to wean off of due to it doing two things--jack and shit--was strange. I think a lot of doctors these days, even ones who have been in practice as long as mine, are confused with dealing with the new style of practice insurance companies force on them.

For instance, trying to adjust my pain meds so they last longer into the night (to keep me from having the roughest of the mornings I have)--he found his hands tied trying to do something that made perfect sense to me but I had to say no to due to my insurance's rules and policies. It used to be if you wanted a patient to have 2 pills of a medication at night, you just wrote the damned prescription and the patient did as told (you hoped). Not anymore--if it puts the medication above quantity limits the patient is paying everything above the quantity limit, which sometimes isn't possible. We wound up doubling the dosage of the pain med and I'll hold one as late at night as possible to see if that helps. It's not what we wanted to do but it works within my insurance's rules, so we'll see what happens.


(For $122 freaking dollars it better be what we're expecting to happen)


It puts the patient in a new role as well--I had to tell my doctor not only that the new anti-depressant didn't work but did the legwork to find out what went wrong. As it turns out Pristiq, the anti-dep he tried me on, isn't the new revolutionary drug my doctor and probably thousands of others were told it was. It's actually what Effexor turns into in the human body--and it's a shameless patent-saver since the XR version of Effexor's patent runs out in 2010. Since all that brand-name money is about to go poof, the company (Wyeth, in this case) had to scurry to come up with another revenue stream to replace the Effexor XR gold mine, and its answer is Pristiq. It's also why the stuff didn't work for me--Effexor had been tried on me when it first came out and did about the same thing Pristiq did--nada, except fry my short-term memory so much that I couldn't remember the name of the new drug (which is a side effect of both Pristiq and Effexor XR).

Sure, it seems non-ethical and companies shouldn't do that, but as long as it's FDA-approved and legal they're allowed. What isn't ethical and shouldn't be legal, in my opinion, is that doctors shouldn't be told piles of crap like "Oh, it's a new and revolutionary drug that's actually two drugs (information I was given by my doctor when I was handed the samples) and oh it's up for approval to feed to menopausal women for control of hot flashes and other symptoms without using hormones, so we'll let you know when you can start shoving it at menopausal women too!"

What drug reps are allowed to tell about a medication should be as well-tested and regulated as the med itself, but that won't take an act of Congress or the FDA.

It'll take an act of God.

Let us pray.

Oh Baby!

Goodness, I can't believe I'm writing this one. It seems, after my rant almost 2 years ago about all the "when are you going to have children" questions, I should be eating my words. Yes, you guessed it: I'm pregnant!

Now being pregnant leads me to something I never expected: women, of all ages, who already have children, feel the need to tell me what I should and shouldn't do.

"Don't go near cats, you could catch something from them."

"Always eat TUMS. They're high in calcium and you'll need it."

"Don't reach for things. The baby might dislocate from your uterus." (I heard this one as I was putting my hair in a pony tail).

"Don't run. It's unsafe for you and the baby" Note: I work out daily and my doctor gave me the ok to continue as long as I felt ok to do so.

"What? You're not in maternity clothing yet? Are you ok?" sigh. yes, i'm fine. I'm 4.5 months along and haven't gained an ounce. This one made me ask my doctor and she said this was completely normal and that everything looks perfectly fine. I'm eating every 2 -2.5 hours, which means I'm losing weight while gaining baby. Now, if I could just keep this up after the baby is born, I'll be in great shape.

But I have to say that something that is already driving me nuts is the inevitable need for people to rub my stomach. I'm not a Buddah!!!

I'm in the second trimester and the questions keep coming:
"Weren't you miserable during the first trimester?" No, not really. The exhaustion killed me and I only struggled with nausea (no vomiting). I feel really lucky.
"Don't you hate the backpain?" Um, what? I haven't gotten there yet.
"Have you chosen names yet?" nope. We'll get there. I figure that on the way to the delivery room, we'll spit out names and one will stick.

We decided not to find out what we're having since we figured that this would be an amazing gift, no matter what it is. I thought my sister was going to have a cow when I said we woudn't find out. "WHAT?? how I will I shop for the kid?" Easy. Check my registry for the neutral stuff we've chosen.

So now when I'm asked "Do you know what you're having?" My answer is simple: "Yes, a baby."

So It's Official: We're Broken Up...And I'm Single Again

We finally broke up last night. It's official. I'm single again. Time to break out the vibrators from the closet (actually, they were always close at hand).

Q: Was it mutual?
A: Yes.

Q: How do you feel?
A: We both feel like baked shit. We love each other dearly but it just can't work. I almost wish he was just an asshole. Then I could REALLY rant on here. BOY could I ever. Because I do have a few things to say...but...

This is the longest relationship I've had since my divorce, since I separated from my husband, actually, which is now longer than our actual marriage was (or as long - Tim would have to help me do the math here). It was deteriorating for a long time...the expiration date was starting to show on the label of the bottle, but neither one of us wanted to see it.

I'm torn somewhere between wanting to go and just run around and party and try to forget the pain...and just crawl off and lick my wounds. I think he feels the same.

My usual motto is "to get over a man, the best way is to just get under (or on top of, or in front of) another!" And then I laugh...and then inevitably boink an ex just so I can get the image of the person I'm thinking of out of my head. Who hasn't done that? Show of hands?

I think I'm going to not date for a while. I have no desire to...how can you when you still love someone, but you have to break up for reasons that aren't because someone is mean, etc, but because you have different life paths? I dunno. I'm in my 30's now, and although my sex drive may be even stronger, my way to deal is different.

I mean me, Ms. UberSex, has no desire to do anything. If Johnny Depp and Daniel Craig both walked in here, I'd be like "yeah, whatever."
(okay, I would SO not be - I'd take them on in heartbeat - but that's it! I swear!)

Seriously, though...if my parents weren't aging and I wasn't starting to make more friends and connections in the theatre world here in NYC, I'd move to Arizona right now. Maybe that's where I have to go. Maybe all the guys who want kids and like cats are in Arizona. I'm always good at making friends. I might stand out as "interesting and unique" or something.

I wish I was 25 again and none of this mattered. I wish that I had never wasted all the time I did with all the men that I have that have led me back to nothing...to being alone - again. But I suppose that in those journeys I learned something. Everything has a reason, right?

Even a stupid cruise that you pay $400 for just so you can break up with the guy you go on it with three months later? How fucking retarded is that? He's pissed at me because I bought all this artwork on the boat, but hey - at least I have something that LASTED AFTER THE TRIP.

Sorry...I wasn't going to get snarky.

I will say this: he was one of the best men in my life ever. Bottom line. It's too bad...but I can't do anything to help him find his way, and he can't help me with mine. I just hope we can stay friends. We're trying to. *I love him very much and I hope he has a wonderful life.

*note: the author is on a lot of xanax, wine, and "calming agents" right now, enough to put down a horse, actually, so, if this was say: whiskey and coke, or even just half a bottle of Grand Marnier, this would be a very different blog altogether tonight. I suppose that because either HE or one of his friends MIGHT read this (nobody reads my fucking blogs anymore, so who really cares, right?) I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings (hell, mine are okay, right? I'm just sitting here getting wasted, no problem). If I really didn't care, I might go on one of my infamous "post breakup rants" where I've literally handed over a verbal colostomy bag to the asshole in question.

But I mean what I say...he's good people. Like I posted earlier, some folks just don't work out, no matter how much they love each other.

blah blah blah

I'm sorry, but my first post here is going to be filled with bitching. And it's about my ex-husband, and I know that's really cliche, and tired, but...I'm hoping you'll understand.

The backstory is that I had a really, REALLY bad first marriage, filled with a whole lot of emotional abuse, but the divorce has been final for ten years now. We had two daughters who are 13 and 14, I have full custody, and every summer they travel back to visit their dad, and they just got back from this summer's visit yesterday. Okay, good? Good.

Anyway, the girls spent the past two months babysitting their two younger sisters, which is FINE, except for the fact that: they couldn't go outside, they couldn't use the stove, they couldn't use the computer, and not only was this from Monday thru Friday when their dad and step-mom were at work, they acted as free daycare on Saturday as well, so the adults could spend the day GOLFING. And the icing on the cake? Their dad, who only sees them for eight weeks of a year, left for a hunting trip two days before they came home. That's crap.

I realize there is two sides to every story, and that my daughters, being MY daughters, are prone to exaggeration, but in this case, I fully believe them. They've been emailing me for the past month telling me how bored they were (they left the house to go to town FOUR TIMES over two months) and how they just simply were not having a good time. Not an awful time, just not a summer vacation.

There's other stuff, too, like...I don't get child support. It's sort of my fault, because after seven years of not getting it, or getting less than what the court said I should get, I was tired of having to politely ask for the late check, or nicely telling them their check had bounced, and being accused of using the girls for money, and I told him I didn't want anything from him, ever, and to not pay me anymore. I KNOW, it's for the kids, but godDAMN.

The only good thing about this is that the girls told me they realized how good they have it here, and that they really don't care to go back. I have spent the past ten years saying nothing but good things to them about their dad, knowing that eventually, his true colors would show and they would see...and it's starting to pay off.

Anyway. I'm not usually so...hatey in my own blog, and I am sort of ashamed that I'm using this one to air such a personal vent, but I have no choice. The girl's stepmom regularly reads my blog. I may dislike them intensely, but I don't want to shove it in their face, you know? As a result, if nobody minds, I might occasionally rant a bit about that situation, and, for giggles, maybe I'll tell you about some of the really fun things that happened during my first marriage. Emotional/mental/psychological abuse is no joke--maybe talking about it will help someone? I don't know. Of course, I'll also be posting other, less awkward things as well! Fun things! Opinions! Anecdotes!

Hi, by the way. I'm pretty stoked that I'm part of this site. Thanks for reading.

~ammogirl

The BUST Magazine 15-Year Party Was AWESOME

BUST magazine had its 15-Year anniversary party two nights ago, and it was SO much fun. I went with Tonja, and we got to mingle with staff members, eat awesome cupcakes, and see sexy acrobat dancers.

They were giving away, with the price of the tickets that we bought (that ended up being sold out; I got about four emails from friends who I had told to come and waited too late to get their ticket and were unable to get in) a subscription to BUST (which is awesome) and the first 200 or so people got a goodie bag full of all kinds of yum yum...well, the bag itself was a super cool zipper bag, and probably a handmade item by a member of BUST's Boobtique. I was just happy about that. But inside were everything from free cds, to cute earbuds covers for your iPod headphones, a superchick coloring book, body oils...coupons for 25% of Dr. Martens...and an assortment of thingies...and a VIBRATOR. I was really happy about that.

BIG GRIN



Dr. Marten had a photo booth set up so we could take pics whenever we wanted, and we could just go to the BUST website and download our pics. Oh, and did I mention that Amy Sedaris was headlining as the MC, and there were so many wonderful acts it would make your head spin?

Thank you, BUST, for a great time. I went to the Union Pool party last year with Rosie, and although that was fun, this was just even more so. You all do it with such style - and I know that there are only a few of you doing the whole thing, so how you actually spin Gold like that is incredible.

BTW...the band Royal Pink, some of whose members are ladies who work for/with BUST magazine, is a great fun chick band who played last year at the BUST party and who my roommate, Burlesque performer Dizzy Swank, has asked to play at his birthday party/burlesque show this coming weekend. It should be a rockin' weekend!!!

Why I am not a Liberal---My Response

-----------This is my response to this article-------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why I am not a liberal
By Dennis Praeger
Article Launched: 08/13/2008 09:50:54 AM PDT

The following is a list of beliefs that I hold. Nearly every one of them was a liberal position until the late 1960s.

Not one of them is now.

Such a list is vitally important in order to clarify exactly what positions divide left from right, blue from red, liberal from conservative.

I believe in American exceptionalism, meaning that (a) America has done more than any international organization or institution, and more than any other country, to improve this world; and (b) that American values (specifically, the unique American blending of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values) form the finest value system any society has ever devised and lived by.

I believe that the bigger government gets and the more powerful the state becomes, the greater the threat to individual liberty and the greater the likelihood that evil will ensue. In the 20th century, the powerful state, not religion, was the greatest purveyor of evil in the world.

------The powerful state would not have used religion as a tool if it were not already such a large tool to use-------

I believe that the levels of taxation advocated by liberals render those taxes a veiled form of theft. "Give me more than half of your honestly earned money or you will be arrested" is legalized thievery.

-------I don't agree with taxing people who don't make tons of money, but many ridiculously rich individuals earn a salary that is inconsistent with the work they actually do. Stocks and bonds should be taxed instead of Firefighters salaries.
---------

I believe that government funding of those who can help themselves (e.g., the able-bodied who collect welfare) or who can be helped by non-governmental institutions (such as private charities, family, and friends) hurts them and hurts society.

--------have you ever been a homeless teenager? A job is hard to come by in a country that is quickly requiring Spanish skills for work at McDonnalds.
----------

I believe that the United States of America, from its inception, has been based on the Judeo-Christian value system, not secular Enlightenment values alone, and therefore the secularization of American society will lead to the collapse of America as a great country.

----------The United States of America, from its inception, has been based on freedom, not religion, and not on any "religious value system." I went to a Catholic school and never once did I come across a list in any religious book that said "here is the list of Judeo-Christian Principals..." It's something we made up in the 50's during the war.
-------------

I believe that some murderers should be put death; that allowing all murderers to live does not elevate the value of human life, but mocks it, and that keeping all murderers alive trivializes the evil of murder.

----------Agreed, but we need to get a better appeals and justice system going, lots of innocent people have been put to death because of crappy government appeals systems---------------

I believe that the American military has done more to preserve and foster goodness and liberty on Earth than all the artists and professors in America put together.

------------I personally think the New Zealand Army has done a lot more peace keeping work that the American military seeing as they work exclusively with the UN and America has vowed never to.
-----------------

I believe that lowering standards to admit minorities mocks the real achievements of members of those minorities.

--------------There aren't any lowered standards, just higher-priorities. Businesses have quotas of how many hispanics, blacks, women etc they have to have on staff or else they get penalized. If a half-black half-hispanic girl in a wheelchair applies for a government job, chances are she's going to get it over an able bodied white boy because there's already a ton of able-bodied white boys working for them.

This system was actually necessary back in the 50's because you couldn't get hired at a factory if you were black no matter what you did, now the system is completely obsolete but the Unions still get paid, so get mad at the Unions, not the companies.
--------------------

I believe that when schools give teenagers condoms, it is understood by most teenagers as tacit approval of their engaging in sexual intercourse.

------------------You're so stupid. Teenagers at their sexual peaks are going to have sex anyway because YOU, the parent, aren't there talking to them about it. So we need to at least make sure they don't get pregnant or get an STD while they're out being neglected teenagers. Education is the key, not taboo.
Moron----------------

I believe that the assertions that man-made carbon emissions will lead to a global warming that will in turn bring on worldwide disaster are a function of hysteria, just as was the widespread liberal belief that heterosexual AIDS will ravage America.

------------------You weren't at the Zaca Fire that burned 300,000 acres in less than three weeks, smashing every major superfire record of the last 3 decades. Fires are getting bigger, weather is getting hotter, and more firefighters are dying. Go fight on the line with me for a week and then tell me if you still don't believe in Global Warming, because you're not going to find a single firefighter who doesn't.
------------------

I believe that marriage must remain what has been in every recorded civilization - between the two sexes.

--------------Except for the Greeks, the Romans, and every major civilization that gave birth to Democracy.
And yes, between the two sexes, there are only two sexes so they can have sex with whoever they want apparently, I agree, marriage should not be between three sexes--------------

I believe that the trial lawyers associations and teachers unions, the greatest donors to the Democratic Party, have done great harm to American life - far more than, let us say, oil companies and pharmaceutical companies, the targets of liberal opprobrium.

--------------Well if Oil Companies stopped buying up all the electric, Hydrolic, and alternative energy cars and destroying them to stay in business, maybe we'd actually cure our oil addiction, but that would put them out of business wouldn't it? Also, if pharmaceutical companies would stop lobbying for the law that "only a drug can cure a disease," we might be able to use some of this ground breaking research with natural cures they're doing in other countries and we might actually have a cure for AIDS now if the AIDS cocktails weren't a multibillion dollar a year industry.
-------------------

I believe that nuclear power, clean coal, and drilling in a tiny and remote frozen part of Alaska and offshore - along with exploration of other energy alternatives such as wind and solar power - are immediately necessary.

---------------Are you putting another hole in the ground of a frozen remote part of Alaska that just so happens to be Polar Bear and the endangered Elephant Seal breeding ground? I don't care if you're drilling inch by inch holes in the permafrost, you're doing enough damage to the environment as it is to fuel America's gluttonous energy demand. America has 3% of the world's population and yet we use 25% of the world's energy.
Quit putting holes in the ground and go watch that movie they showed in high school about killing baby seals or something-------------

I believe that school vouchers are more effective than increased spending on public schools in enabling many poorer Americans to give their children better educations.

------------------No, they enable white parents to get their kids out of public schools and just "let the poor Mexican and black kids have them" further re-enacting segregation in schools. Washington City was given $13000 more per kid than Schools in Oregon and schools in Washington still had the same problems. It's not the amount of money you spend on the child, but the effort you put into impacting that child's life, and unfortunately, most teachers do not become teachers because they want to make a difference in a child's life, those who can't do...------------------

I believe that America, which accepts and assimilates foreigners better than any other country in the world, is the least racist, least xenophobic country in the world.

----------------Oh yeah, now it's a law that Home Depot has to have facilities for the illegal day workers that stand out in front of it, you need to ditch your national pride and start thinking about how we can better this country educationally, economically, and maybe get some more border patrol officers on the line and quit arresting them when they open fire on illegals who are shooting at them---------------------

I believe the leftist takeover of the liberal arts departments in nearly every American university has been an intellectual and moral calamity.

------------------Liberals are suspicious of the government, they're all conspiracy theorists, all of them, they just can't get past the "what if" and that's what gets their students thinking, its what gets them active.
Just about every major change in this country has been brought about by student activism, so I don't know if the Liberalism of Universities is a good idea or not, but at least at it's worst its better than the Ultra conservativism of Iranian Universities who have student groups going around enforcing the laws that women be veiled and not speak or sit with men unless spoken to----------------------

I believe that America's children were positively affected by hearing a non-denominational prayer each morning in school, and adversely affected by the removal of all prayer from school.

---------------so what you want to tell the atheist kids to just sit down and shut up because even though this country is about "majority rule, minority rights," that only applied to Christians because the founding fathers were Christians? Oh, I guess we don't count then.
---------------------

I believe that bilingual education does not work, that for the sake of immigrant children and for the sake of the larger society, immersion in the language of the country, meaning English in America, is mandatory.

--------------There's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, unfortunately America does it the wrong way, while every other country in the world, best example being Romania, has their children speaking 4 languages by the time they're out of school-------------------

I believe that English should be declared the national language, and that ballots should not be printed in any language other than English.

---------------You're bitter, be happy. I'll agree that the funniest bumper sticker I ever saw said "Soy El Army.
"--------------

Finally, I believe that there are millions of Americans who share most of these beliefs who still call themselves "liberal" or "progressive" and who therefore vote Democrat. They do so because they still identify liberalism with pre-1970 liberalism or because they are emotionally attached to the word "liberal.

------------I like how Hilary Clinton stated "I'm not a liberal, I'm a progressive." We need to move forward in this country, not get stuck behind in our comfort zone because times change whether we like it or not, so we have to constantly change with them. You're "values" are going to keep us in one place too long, and the world is going to leave us behind. You need to replace your morals of national pride, Judeo-Christian principals, and family values with Education, Social Enrichment, and Tolerance.
------------------

I share that emotion. But one should vote based on values, not emotions.

--------------Amen------------

Dennis Prager hosts a nationally syndicated radio talk show based in Los Angeles (KRLA-870 AM, 9 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday).

Break-Ups: Using Hancock to Help Me Deal With It

NOTE: THIS ENTRY MENTIONS THE MOVIE HANCOCK AND CONTAINS SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT OR DON'T KNOW THE SURPRISE ENDING, DON'T READ ON.

So, it looks like my boyfriend and I are breaking up. Not like it's coming as a shock; the handwriting was on the wall several months ago, really, and since we are now only coming upon our one-year anniversary, I guess that it all means that perhaps it just wasn't meant to be, eh?

However, I'm having a much tougher time with it than I had thought I would. I callously said to friends a few months ago that by...August, actually, we'd probably break up, because we would no longer have three things keeping us together: tickets to a cruise, tickets to see Joe Cocker and Steve Miller, and - most importantly - the fact that he was directing me in a play for his theatre company and he couldn't break up with the actress during the run or before the run, right? It would fuck up the show.

Well, it seems that my premonition was correct. Or was it simply a self-fulfilling prophecy? I used to accuse him of doing that: he talked about the end of our relationship on our first few dates - and I told him to stop or there would be no more dates. Then I ended up doing the same thing after we were already six months into the relationship. So now, it's August, we went on the cruise, we saw the show, and we did the play with success. Now, all we have left is a couple who loves each other very much but who has difficulty just being together. During the cruise and even during some moments after it, before it got stressful with the play, we had some really lovely moments together. I had started thinking maybe, just maybe, this might work out!!! And then, that hope died "like a blade of grass", coining a phrase that Anthony Hopkins says in the movie The World's Fastest Indian. The grass grew in spring, thrived in summer, it was beautiful while it lasted, but faded away in the end of fall.



Some friends of mine, a couple that have been together a while, and knew that I had been really happy about my boyfriend when the times where good - hell, that I was glad to have someone as wonderful as he had the potential to be in my life - asked me if I had seen the new movie Hancock, with Will Smith. I had seen it, and I really enjoyed it - my boyfriend and I went; although I was really bummed out at the end when I realized it was more of a love story about two people who couldn't be happy together than an action movie -- only because I was sitting next to the man that I loved but knew that in a month or so we would no longer be together. I had originally gone to get away from reality and just relax. Hell, the Chainsaw Massacre would have been relaxing.

But I digress.



So I told my friends, I said that yes, I had seen it and really loved it - despite what reviewers had said. The husband of the couple said this to me (and I'll paraphrase Rob's talk to me): that the movie showed you how two people who really loved each other so much...could still not be right for each other. At all. And no matter what you try to do, no matter how much that love consumes you - you can't be together because you don't bring out the best in each other, or you unintentionally hurt each other, or...well - you simply aren't meant to be together. And no amount of love you have for one another will every change that. And eventually, you'll just hurt each other...keep one another from their dreams/desires...or drive them mad. Or, as in the case of Hancock, get into such huge fights that you cause earth-shattering destruction.



So what does this mean for our hero, kids? Am I going to become a crime-fighting, booze-guzzling, wreck who can't get along with others? Some might say I'm halfway there (minus the crime-fighting), but that's another story...

No. I'm just really, really sad. This is the longest relationship I've had since my divorce...I almost feel like I'm getting divorced again. It hurts very much, but all of us have an inner strength that we try to find - and when we find it, we can move mountains. Hancock did. Why can't I?

Beijing Olympics Day 1- Michael Phelps is One Up

Hello everyone, I’ll be your resident journalist for all coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics because none of us could afford the flight to China (my little brother told all his friends we were going, so now we have to disappear for 2 weeks somewhere).

The People’s Republic of China has promised the world “the greatest Olympics ever,” and right off the bat, the Opening Ceremony did not disappoint. With a firework show spanning practically half the city of Beijing to make a spectacular debut of the Birds Nest Stadium, it made the 4^th of July look like a practice run. And this stadium! Tons of steel rods shaped like an extravagant, towering bird’s nest symbolize the theme of China’s Olympics. “Go Green!” The Opening Ceremony showcased 2008 Thai Chi Martial Artists performing around Children to show that by harmonizing with our environment, we can avoid placing the burden of our ways on the next generation.

Here’s a link to Youtube video of the Opening Ceremony, I’d hurry because it won’t be up for long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1nmR8Ndj7g

In other news, the Men’s Gymnastics team is off to a good start, with Raj Bhavsar being a last minute addition to the team after the Hamm brother’s bowed out of this Olympics. Team USA maintained average scores of 15.4, short of the magic 15.6 that was predicted they would have to maintain in order to beat world Gymnastics powers Russia and China, we are still in it to win it.

But the Primetime event of the evening that I took off work to see, Swimming Superstar Michael Phelps clenched his first gold medal in the 400 Individual Medley on his way to winning an unheard of 8 Gold Medals in one Olympics! That would knock off current record holder Mark Spitz’s consecutive 7 Gold Medal’s in one Olympics and pretty much make Michael Phelps the greatest Olympian of all time. Rival’s hoped to close the gap on Phelps in the breast stroke section of the 400IM, Phelps’ weakest stroke, and for a moment I was tripping out because Laszlo Cseh of Hungary nearly caught him. But as the freestyle leg of the race got underway, Phelps’ showcased his beautiful flip-turns and put an astonishing full body lengths distance between himself and Cseh, not only winning Gold but smashing another world record that he himself set in 2004 in Athens. He’s going to do it. He. Could. Go. All. The. Way!

Dana Torres, the famous 41 year old mom who is making all these little college kids taste foam, swam the 4x100meter relay and finished second place to win a silver medal. The Anchor of the US Relay team pretty much got screwed by her teammates before her who just didn’t put out or set up the race for Dana. By the time it was Dana’s turn to dive, the Netherlands was already two body lengths ahead of her, and she still managed to make up 2 places despite the time lost, swimming the second fastest relay split of the morning. Personally, I’d take my teammates out back and put some kick back in their stroke and make them cry, but she’ll be swimming in the 100Freestyle later this week, and we expect great things from her from that.

Oh we are so going to war with China though! Nothing said “low-blow” more though than when China cut the American National Anthem short in the medal ceremony. President Bush was in attendance for the event when Michael Phelps was receiving his medal. Everyone kind of looked at each other funny when they started the Anthem a course off, but Michael Phelps busted out a hilarious grin when they completely cut the music in the middle! President Bush stood up and started clapping and waving, probably trying to avoid a war with China, and Phelps just laughed it off. He’s going to get to hear it seven more times during these games anyway, but man imagine if it were a first time Olympian who’d trained their entire life for that moment! I would refuse to leave the podium until they played my Anthem again and did it right! Leave it to China to cut the Anthem right before “for the Land of the Free.” Freaking Commies!

That’s it for tonight’s Olympic Snapshot, I’ve got 14 more days coming. You guys will know who won gold in Table Tennis and Trampoline by the time these Games are over.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics are being broadcasted in Primetime on NBC channel 4. For official coverage, go to www.nbcolympics.com where you can see streaming live video of most of the events.

Oh and for the video's on NBC's website, when it asks you what cable company you subscribe to, just lie and say you do and pick a random one and they won't check, but they won't let you watch streaming live if you click Local Broadcasting. Punks.

Morgan Freeman: Get Well, Get Well, GET WELL!!!!

The news is hot off the press, but I'm not waiting to hear from anyplace else: you need to get yourself better and do it quickly, young man! You are one of the only actors left on the planet that has a truthfulness to his acting and can bring an audience into the palm of his hand. Your work speaks for itself and is such a rarity among the celebrity bullshit artists that we are surrounded by at all times.

We love you very, very much.

And this bitch loves you an awful lot. I'm sure I speak for most of the ladies here at Ornery Woman when I say that you are awesome.

So, Mr. Morgan Freeman: get well before I have to come down there and talk your ear off...and nobody wants that. Especially the nurses who I'll have to karate chop to get past just to get into your room...and then there's trying to squeeze into a nurse's uniform (I probably have one around here somewhere, but that's from some other kind of thing altogether)!

Love,
Bitchy Actress

Twilight...Who's Breaking Dawn Now?

Vampires and Werewolves walking among Humans and fighting amongst one another…didn’t I already see this movie? I thought nothing could beat Underworld and I’m skeptical if anything modern could come close to Van Helsing, but even those two have nothing on Bram Stokers Dracula. It just ain’t gonna happen.

Twilight is a series of books by Stephenie Meyer about a high school romance between a closet-vampire and a girl-next-door. The emotionally-charged writing style and repressed sexual undertones are making this book literally leap off the shelf like, well, a vampire. But far from the Buffy/Angel duo that Y2K kids grew up with and loved, this odd couple isn’t out slaying monsters or saving the world, they’re just trying to go on a date without accidentally killing each other.

Meyer puts her own twist on the pop culture “good vampire.” This book is written by a girl for girls because her monsters do basically nothing that can be misconstrued as monstrous, and when her characters do talk about the “not proud of” stuff, they’re really not proud of it and put on their puppy dog eyes and we have no choice but to forgive them. The “good werewolf” is portrayed as the young guard dog who runs in a pack of would-be police dogs keeping the small town free of vampires, which gets kinda complicated seeing as there’s a family of vampires living on the other side of town. But everyone seems to get along somehow and we get lots of visuals of naked werewolves changing back to their hot-bodied human forms and vampires taking their shirts off to do various normal things. Meyer truly portrays vampires and werewolves as “sexy beasts.”

All in all, this is the best series I’ve read in a while because there are really some lousy series’ out there (*Cough*Eragon*Cough*Harry Potter*Cough*). HOWEVER…

Though the series is written in the first person perspective of a girl, the majority of the main characters are guys. It is a constant annoyance that Meyer obviously lacks any insight into the male mind because she ascribes a montage of blatantly female characteristics to her hyper-masculine male characters. For instance, a line of dialogue in book 3 goes something like:

Jake (werewolf): What’s it like having a Vampire for a boyfriend?

Bella: It’s great.

Jake: I mean, do you kiss him? Do his fangs get in the way?

Okay, whoa! Hold on a minute. Firstly, a guy would NEVER in a million years ask what it’s like to kiss another guy. Our guy friends don’t ask about what it’s like with our boyfriends, even if he’s a vampire, an alien or some creature from the black lagoon, they don’t wanna know.

Secondly, there is a scene where the werewolf kisses the vampire’s girlfriend. She get’s mad and calls her boyfriend. I’m on the edge of my seat thinking “Oh! Oh! There’s gonna be a fight! Oh!” and…

All that happens is they stand across from each other and dog each other and Vampy gives Wolfy a warning of what he’ll do to him next time. OMG! Firstly, in real life, if someone kisses a guy’s girlfriend, that’s an automatic fight! No negotiations! The scene would go that Vampy storms up to Wolfy and knocks-him-the-hell-out! Instead he kinda stood there like a little bitch and they throw catty insults back and forth at each other, while his girlfriend is crying in the car. She should have broken up with him right then and there. Would it have been different if he’d grabbed her boob or something? Man, stand up for your woman, little pussy!

The most ironic thing in this story though, it’s the guy who doesn’t want to have sex. Funny, usually it’s the guy pulling his hair out because the girl “wants to wait,” but I think Meyer got a little confused on who thinks about sex once every 15 seconds. SPEAKING OF WHICH…

The main characters had been playing hopscotch around the issue of sex so much through the first two books that readers were literally banging their heads against the walls waiting for the climactic steamy love scene, when it finally could be avoided no longer in book 3. The scene goes that Bella starts taking off Edward’s shirt (Me: yesss), then Edward gets up angry because he doesn’t want to (Me: noooo), she cries and asks him just to try (Me: yeah yeah yeah try), he says he could lose control and kill her (Me: uggh you gotta be kidding me), she says please and he holds very still while she slides his shirt off his smooth shoulders and marble skin (Me: Thank you this is almost as good as the 007 beach scene), he lays her down on the bed, crawls on top of her and says (Me: gimme some sugar daddy)…

“No.”

WTF!!!!! OMGOMGOMG WHAT THE SH*T! I threw the book across the room and broke up with him right then and there! We need a break in our relationship and I think I need to see other people. I’m sorry but I need someone more giving. You’ve been together for 2 freaking years and you’re both 18, just freaking go nuts already! Okay so maybe you are afraid of going psycho-vampire, biting your girlfriend and either killing her or turning her into one of the legion of the damned. I will seriously get you a ball gage and tie you to the bed, and trust me I’ll bet you’d like it if that’s what it takes.

So far Stephenie Meyer has totally undone a years worth of my post-relationship therapy (thanks to book 2 where he breaks up with her), made me feel like a sex-deprived teenager, and nabbed $20 bucks from my pocket even though I stood in front of the best seller section for an hour and repeated practically out loud “I’m not gonna get it, I’m not gonna buy it. No, it just ain’t gonna happen. I will leave the rest of the story hanging and not care about the ending. Nope, not doing it.” I caved and shelled out $21.50 with tax for the hardcover because the book hadn’t been out for a year yet and still wasn’t available in soft cover (damn me for not saving the receipt).

This series is playing with my emotions, so I got mad and broke up with it and it’s been 2 days since I picked it up again. I’m proud of myself. That’s being assertive, putting my foot down. Now I don’t care that the final book, Breaking Dawn, is coming out August 2 or that the movie is coming out Christmas. I WILL NOT reserve my copy and I WILL NOT buy advance movie screening tickets and I WILL NOT, I repeat, I WILL NOT come back crawling to the Twilight Series to find out who lived happily ever after because it certainly wasn’t me!

See whose growling now! Grrrrrrr.

The Bitch's Brew

I just wanted to direct your attention to this lovely blog site:
The Bitch's Brew.

I'm having a really, really shitty day at work today (actually, you know what, folks? It's been a rough few months) and when she popped by the other day and made a couple of comments on a few of our writers' posts, I had to go check her out.

I. Love. Her.

Plain and simple: God Bless Us Bitches, Every One.
Honestly...from her great writing, to her sense of humor...it was a joy.

xo
d

PS - Ms. Jezebel, if you happen to read this, I have no way to contact you, but would be honored if you'd shoot me an email and join our clan as a guest blogger -- a rant here and there whatever you'd like would be DELIGHTFUL. If not, then we shall admire you from afar...and look forward to when you come visit us again.