Ornery Woman

Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival- Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement

2009-11-13T13:10:00.004-05:00

Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement is a wonderful film that is part of the Love Against the Odds series. It is the love story of two women, now in their 80's, talking about their relationship through the years which began in the 1960's. Definitely something to catch - and think about.

It is being shown today at The American Museum of Natural History, as part of the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, that runs through the 15th.

All you need is love, man.

New Blues Songs: Economy's Got Me By The Balls

2009-08-31T17:20:00.006-04:00

Lunch today at work - very strange...this economic crisis has everyone by the short hairs. I honestly don't know why I still have my job. I mean, I guess I'm good at it; but what they say about advertising - the cutthroat, backstabbing, mean-spirited attitudes?

It's true.

I suppose one could use this time to write blues songs. Head to the crossroads (uh, where, between Park and 28th?) and grab a guitar, throw your head back, and yodel to whomever will listen that you can't afford the rent? That you allowed your boss to get away with that suggestive comment about your ass fitting snugly into your pants because you really had nobody else to hear it and don't want to make waves, not in this recession?

I keep hearing that the recession is over, it's over, rents are going down, we're okay. Wow - really? Nobody told me. Nobody told R. at my job, so that maybe he can stop being such a little cunt and trying to constantly get credit for my ideas when we work on a project. He's talented enough, he doesn't have to make me look like an idiot. I wish he and Lauren would work together - it would be lovely.

Picture if you will: flaming bitch and a flaming queen fighting to the death over who gets what copy over which image and who will be the one to get credit for it - if it goes well, if my inch-within-a-lawsuit boss finds it usable. Which he will; they are both good. I insinuated they were assholes, but not that they aren't good at what they do.

I have a friend who is an opera singer. I took singing lessons when I was young...I used to want to sing. I also took ice-skating, and even clarinet. I've always been good at what I did, never worried about it. I make good money, never worried about it. Dated and if it didn't work out, well...I'd get over it and never really worried about it.

Now, I'm worried about it. God, if I have to move back upstate...I don't know what I'd do. I'd find a way, but...it's strange that we claw and scratch to be who we think we are, who we think is the penultimate of what is "correct" to be; good at your job, making a good living, or at least good enough to live in New York, which is saying a lot.

I walked past this woman today, homeless; it's summer now going into fall, so the weather is at least decent, and she looks like she's eating. But how quickly does one have to fall to get to where...say I am (which isn't that high up off the ground) to where she finds herself? And when people say "well, they probably have an addiction problem," I think to myself - well, FUCK, wouldn't YOU, if you didn't have a job? But I guess that's a chicken or the egg kind of thing...and there is a difference between that chicken and that egg...but either way, she is living on a cardboard box at night, alone, and people look the other way when she asks for help.

I pray things get better.

Cutting Out Cancerous People

2009-08-24T11:24:00.004-04:00

Well, I made the choice to cut someone from my life a few days ago...and it was difficult. I mean him no ill will. And most of my exes (including, surprisingly, both of my ex-husbands) I am still in contact with on at least a cordial level. Some are my best buddies.

However, he seemed to delight in constantly emailing me on FB to discuss his new conquests...or to tell me that for "some reason, and he didn't possibly know why" that he was thinking of my pictures...and insinuating that I should come up and visit him for a romp in the sack. Then, in the same cyber-breath, he would say something degrading or passive-aggressively rude - like he did when we were together; one of the reasons why I just fell out of whatever it was that I felt for him.

He is a man who says horrid things about people - the young lady he was dating within a week of our breaking up, he was putting her down to me...calling her nothing more than a dog and insulting her because of her being Muslim. I was horrified; I couldn't understand if he was so annoyed with her being more of a doormat (because he hated that I was so busy and wouldn't put up with his being so rude) - then WHY was he wasting her time? His time? I tried to actually play relationship therapist to a man that has proclaimed emphatically that he is a sociopath, with glee. He promptly began to cheat on her - telling me this, I suppose to make me jealous? I was simply relieved he had other disctractions - but I did tell him that he was making a mistake, because he left his ex-wife because she was cheating on HIM...so what makes him different now? He called his second lady "a disgusting alcoholic." Wow.

Even after we broke up, he would send me copy for a website that he is creating, and I would proof-read it and try to make him sound as smart as he is; he is, to my knowledge, somewhat in the Aspergers spectrum, and is incredibly intelligent. However, he is still a guido from Bensonhurst, with the grammar, mannerisms, and racist tendencies of many Italian men from that area. Sorry, boys - hate to burst your bubble, but there is a reason why the rest of NYC thinks you all are out of your fucking minds. He is an ex-cop who is brilliant with computers, and after making a critical error in the Police environment, he moved over to corporate professional hacking/etc - and started to make 6-figure salaries. With that comes the taste for expensive things; collecting art simply because you can, etc.

You know that old saying, you can take the Hick out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the Hick? Same thing goes for a guy from an armpit of Brooklyn who suddenly came into a bunch of money. Top that off with an inability to communicate, take advice, or simply have a give and take outside of the bedroom (eh...scratch that - sex was always painful with him and he really didn't care as long as he enjoyed himself) and you have yourself someone who may always have a date because he is very handsome and now that he's on the way to divorce and the money he had set aside that his wife couldn't find out about is okay to flaunt, there will be women who are interested in that.

During the brief time we were together, there were very good and very bad times. I will always appreciate the good very much...and I learned a helluva lot from the bad. I recently was looking on his page on FB (before I deleted him from my friends; the little things on the side that say "%$#& has new pics up" with shots of his new ladies was just too much for me to deal with), and in that album there is a picture of me - one that I use for my headshot. He is a fantastic photographer, and should really try to make money from it...he's THAT talented. Well, under the comments of my picture I noticed some people's comments that made me realize that he's been talking shit about me...and what gets my goat is that I have been nothing but nice and supportive to him since our breakup. This happened early after when I noticed something someone had said and it was obviously about me...but he lied and said "No...that was about someone else."

When I am nice to someone - I expect them to be nice back. Especially when the text me constantly, email me for advice (or just to have someone listen) or for grammatical feedback for their site since they have the grammar of a 5th grader. When we were dating, although he was always buying furniture and stuff and saying he had money (and then saying he didn't, though he admitted to a hidden money fund that his wife couldn't know about at the time), I tried to pay my way often; I bought him $300 worth of presents for his Birthday because he gave me an expensive necklace...I tried, best I could, to not make him think I gave a shit about his money, that I just liked him. And I did.

But when I found out how cold, mean, and quite literally mentally unstable he really was, I realized that perhaps I had made a mistake in my judgement...however, he was dissatisfied with my art being a focus in my life, and so broke up with me in an email.

Real class.

However, I was thrilled; of course my ego was a bit bruised, but I realized that it was saving us both a bunch of heartache. But that still doesnt' mean that I enjoyed him flaunting his women of the week in my face; I would never do that to someone. There is a part of me that still has feelings for him; and a part of him that delights in hurting me - a large part, one that I keep dear to my heart to remind me that our breaking up was a wonderful thing.

So, like a cancerous tumor that has to be cut out - I did just that. I deleted him from my networking sites and blocked him from my gmail. I doubt he's even noticed it - or cares, really; but at least I don't have to deal with him again for a while. Hopefully, he'll move on to better things. It's a pity; I really wanted to be his friend, but his misogynistic tendencies proved too great for him to really be able to treat me like a human being, and not like a used rubber that you yank off your dick before you flush it.

So...for RT - Here's a little tune from Lauryn Hill - Lost Ones - that is probably the most appropriate song for how I feel - and where we find ourselves now.

Maybe, someday, if he wants to play nice, then we can talk again. But for the first time in ages, I have cut someone out of my life who meant me nothing but harm - and I know I did the right thing.

I'm Teaching Acting At Hunter College This Fall

2009-07-21T17:13:00.003-04:00

To begin with, if you haven't already gotten on the bandwagon, I teach acting for Martin Acting Studios and currently have a class on Saturdays from 2-5pm.

However, I recently scored a new gig at Hunter College, right here in lil' ol' NYC, and I will be teaching two courses one right after the other: Beginning to Intermediate Acting, and then Intermediate to Advanced, with Hunter College's Continuing Education program.

For those of you interested in acting and not sure about taking it in a setting outside of an college or institution setting, I really recommend this. The first course is a month long, from September to October; then the second course starts. The emphasis of the second course is in monologues and scenes...but I only accept students that have previous experience in acting otherwise they will not be up to speed with the rest of the group.

If you follow the link, you can then pick "Arts" and then "Personal Enrichment (don't ask me why they didn't just say acting, I don't know!)" and then the very first one is my class: "Beginning to Intermediate Acting". Further on down is the "Intermediate to Advanced" class.

So, register now! It would be great to get some wonderful students in class!

Sexually Speaking, You Are On Zee Air!

2009-07-01T11:27:00.007-04:00

Man, I used to listen to Dr. Ruth when I could...her little voice would crack me up and I was always so amazed at how this little old lady could sit back and talk about sex like it was a cake recipe and all you needed to do was add the butter. I don't know what made me think of her this morning (because I know my online friends on this blog are mostly just waking up except for maybe Kat, since she's out here now) except for the problem that I'm having...I have no sex drive. None. At all. All desire to be with anyone went out the window. My mother attributes it to the fact that I am always busy at the library; I have taken to staying there even when I am not on duty. I don't want to go home. I think I must be depressed, since being alone watching TV or reading makes me feel like a social misfit as of late.

I went to two different clubs this past month, one of them at least three or four times, where some of my old lovers frequent for drinks, and I often have to remind friends that I don't ski anymore...funny how they have the ability to remember if you owe them money or if you said you would get them tickets backstage to a certain performer, but you tell them that you don't do drugs anymore (or, at least, the hard ones) and they act as if its a revelation.

Last night:

Cory scoots into the booth with me and a few people we know, her tank top low and the Queen of Hearts tattoo on her shoulder looking ghostly and trippy in the lighting of the bar. I can smell bourbon on her breath and peppermint gum as she crams in closer to me, allowing room for at least five more people into the booth which is really meant for only four. I feel her hand between my thighs, and I look at her with a question, to which she only smiles and turns her head to talk to our friend Zack. Her ears are pierced in several places and she is 12 years younger than me. Her hand, and what it starts to do, would normally be enough to get me excited and eager to pull her with me out of the bar and back to my apartment...but I feel nothing tonight. I have a beer and gently run my hand across her back and rub her shoulder, in a spot I know she often has pain. I feel bad, if she is intending for us to hook up later, but I just want to hang out tonight with everyone so I don't have to be alone.

But I want to go home alone. I won't be into it if we leave together, and although I'd be happy to please her, my mind will be on a vacation. I want company, not sex, and she only wants sex. So...therein lies our problem.

After a while, she removes her hand playfully, and gets up to put quarters in the jukebox. Somebody has been playing Michael Jackson for over an hour, and she announces she will add to the Motown groove. We all say cheers to Pride, cheers to Michael Jackson, cheers to Farrah...She grabs my hand and drags me to the player, and asks what she should play. I give a few suggestions, and kiss her forehead, and tell her I am going home, pleading an early day today. She looks a bit hurt, and I tell her that I have not been well lately...but run my hand over her ass and let her know that she is lovely. She is, but sex is too much effort for me right now.

Then, I leave.

I try yoga, my body betraying me in ways that I had not foreseen; how does one truly foresee getting older? We all think we're 25 when we're approaching 50. I cry, quietly, wondering why my body is devoid of feeling when my heart is not, why I turned down a lovely woman yet again (and two lovely men during the month) when I could have had them, and sob. Then, after a while, I smile at the thought that I only had one beer at the bar. At least I am in control of some things now in my life.

What a Sad Day: RIP Farrah and Michael

2009-06-26T01:06:00.000-04:00

Growing up born in the 70's, Farrah Fawcett made my youth so much fun thinking that I might get to be cool like her; like a Charlie's Angel.

Then, in the 80's, Thriller was the most awesome album, I played it over and over; every time I made a mixed tape off the radio, it always had something from either Michael Jackson or The Police on it.

Today was such a surreal day as I got ready for my Pride party for my theatre company and worked on reviews and various tasks for my theatre life. In the midst of it, came news reports of first one death...and then, as I was about to talk out the door to The Cubbyhole, came news about Michael Jackson.

At the club, people were sad, but the joy of the man's music turned what could have been a maudlin time into a celebration of Michael. Tunes from his whole life were played all night long, and the entire club would sing along. Gone were the talks of his problems with the law and alleged scandals and eccentric behavior. We just remembered him as the great musician he was.

Many of us were saddened that his death almost stole Fawcett's thunder away...but we knew she was going, it was just a matter of time. Nobody saw Jackson passing like this.

There are people that I remember when they died - and where I was when it happened. When Sam Kinnison died, I was sitting on a couch in my apartment in college in Oxford, MS, and was in the midst of trying to bum a smoke off of somebody, when the news hit and we were stunned. When Allen Ginsberg and Jerry Garcia and Jimmy Stewart and Miles Davis passed away...moments in time came to a brief halt...going in slow motion.

I'll remember today for the two passings, but also for the celebration of Pride and my theatre company; and I'll also look back on this day because all of it touched me.

Celebrate PRIDE With MTWorks at the Cubby Hole Tonight!!!

2009-06-25T16:33:00.002-04:00

Howdy, Folks!

One of my theatre companies is celebrating pride while earning a few bucks for our next show. If you feel so inclined, come on down to the Cubby Hole bar on W. 12th Street in NYC, and enjoy drinks specials with our guest bartender (and co-star of the Louise Flory's Look After You) Adi; all your tips to her will go towards our theatre company.

The MTWorks blog has a cute article mentioning me and the jello shots I'm making for tonight's shindig. A jello shot for $1! I'm up to my arms in blue, red, orange and green colors...jah, definitely Pride!

Little more info:
Coors Silver Bullet and Pabst Blue Ribbon cans $3.00 // Root beer Float: Vodka, Root Beer liqueur, and soda $3.00 // Sloe Gin Fizz: sloe gin, lemon mix, soda $2.00 // Tom Collins: gin, lemon mix, and soda $3.00 // Whiskey Sour: whiskey and lemon mix $3.00 // Rum Lime Ricky: rum, soda, lemon mix, and lime juice $3.00

Date:
TONIGHT! Thursday, June 25, 2009
Time: 6:30pm - 10:00pm
Location: The CubbyHole
Street: 281 W 12th St. (corner of West 4th St)
NYC

Hope to see you there!

D-Listed: Hilarious - Jackman and Craig Do It On Bdwy

2009-05-29T22:48:00.002-04:00

Okay, this link from DListed made me laugh my ass off when my pal Antonio posted it on Facebook...

Apparently Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig will be staring in a play on Broadway soon...and guess how many horny women and men between the ages of 11 and 101 are going to buy tickets?

Bunches.

Whomever casted this was genius.

http://dlisted.com/node/32248

MTWorks: The Oath - Now Through May 10th

2009-05-01T15:51:00.004-04:00

Hello, Everyone!
Sorry to have been MIA, but I have been in another play lately - The Oath, produced by MTWorks, directed by Cristina Alicea.

I'm working with some wonderful actors: Anthony Crep, Sarah Chaney, Louise Flory, Maureen O'Boyle, and Robin Madel...oh, yeah, and me, Dianna Martin.

Jacqueline Goldfingers' The Oath is a Southern Gothic tragedy set in the midst of the Great Depression. A wandering preacher is ensnared in the political and social games of a rural Southern town ruled with a macabre sense of justice by two rival families.

What it's really focused on, which is why it's so relevant to Ornery Woman, is how difficult it was for women during The Great Depression. Women could not be preachers or reverends back then (and the attitudes have changed very little since then, as we heard from our talk back speaker Michelle Nickens on Sunday) and two daughters of an ailing reverend are struggling to find a MAN to replace him...but at what cost? It's a play full of the lies that have to be told in order to actually get by and live.

It's a great show, and I'm so happy to be a part of it. If you are in NYC, please go to www.MTWorks.org and get your ticket and come see the show! Only $18 to see the show...and if you read BUST magazine or their website, look up The Oath on their blog and see what kind of discount you can get! 'Cause the BUST chicks know a good play when they hear about one!

Please leave them a comment and let them know you came by to say howdy - and I hope you come to see the show!

Alive

2009-04-23T02:42:00.002-04:00

...but not very well.

'Tis why I've been a quiet contributor. Arthritis took a major slug at me the last day of the anime convention I'm involved with--hands that barely closed around a coffee cup, along with the usual suspects I deal with made the day truly funny in some ways. F'rinstance, the time I was picking up a packet of Japanese candy to give to a volunteer who'd won same, and tried to cuss under my breath as I gave up on that pack (since I'd dropped it half a dozen times already) and used both hands to give the teen another one before her biological clock ran out--yeah, it was actually funny even then.

I'm still dealing with it and several other things negatively impacting my medical care, so once I have things back on an even keel we'll discuss what should happen to asshole construction workers who pull a window out of your bedroom wall (two feet from your bed, and yes, you sleep nude--haha, motherfucker! I bet THAT sight meant you didn't WANT any for a week, let alone try to get any! Have I ever mentioned that I'm not tiny? Well, I'm not. I'm SO not.).

I'm leaning toward Ex-Lax brownies, but I make mine with Ghiradelli ground chocolate and cocoa, highly expensive shit for a shitty practical joke, so maybe I'll have to go with something to do with swapping out his live drill batteries for the dead ones, since the charger's in our apartment.

Oooh, I like that one! Not enough for a Useless Woman lesson, but it should be fun watching him wonder why his batteries don't stay charged...

Hasta laters, chicas y chicos--I'll return when I can quit complaining and start entertaining again.

Hiss Boo

2009-03-25T09:13:00.005-04:00

Disclaimer: If I happen to be married to you and you are reading THIS blog, you do so at your own risk. We talked about this, Dood. It may or may not be about you-you're taking your chances!

I can't believe how much energy I expend ACTIVELY hating you.

In a way, it is a blessing, because it helps the time go by faster, and anything that speeds up that process is a good thing right now. But I can see that this is going to be a problem in the future if I don't come up with a way to deal with you.

Deal with you. HA. Oh, how I've dealt with you in my head, you miserable, whiny little princess. Or, as a good friend once said, "Mr. Man, you are SUCH a woman." I fantasize about pissing on your toothbrush. In my dreams you are drowning and are reaching out to me and I act like I think you are waving and I wave right back at you and smile grimly and watch the look of horror on your face as you realize I am not grasping your hand and pulling you out, I am turning my back and walking away. You are a waste of valuable oxygen as far as I'm concerned.

You are such a fucking priss. Every time I see you my skin crawls. When you talk to me, it is like someone is standing next to my ear rubbing two pieces of styrofoam together, and JESUS H CHRIST you will fucking WORRY a damn point to DEATH. We REALIZE they don't do things this way where you come from. Which, by the way? Why do you feel the need, every time you mention that place, to emphasize which particular part of that state you come from? It reminds me of those pretentious people who say they are from "upstate New York" as though they were distancing themselves from anyone from a 'lesser' part of the state. But-that is beside the point. If things were so great there, why are you here?

It is a tangible thing, this loathing I feel for you. It has a thick, gritty texture, and it tastes like dirt and metal. It doesn't just annoy, it makes my heart twist because I am not used to feeling like this about another human being. I don't like the part of me you seem to bring out.

Couldn't you just go away?

Theatre Reviewer Opinions: Everyone Has One

2009-02-26T14:36:00.006-05:00

So, with two shows left to go for my run in American Rapture at 42nd street's Beckett Theatre, I can say it has been, overall, a wonderful experience. I've been with a great theatre company, directed by a wonderful and brilliant director, I've gotten to work with a fabulous script by one of this century's most gifted playwrights, and I've been allowed to share the stage with a collection of incredibly talented and amazing actors. It's been a pleasure.

I've also been blessed with several wonderful reviews, including one in Backstage, which singled my acting out as pretty darn good. "The two actors who appear only in the Saroyan play, about a man in jail for possible rape, are exceptional. Stewart Walker as the prisoner conveys an experience and yearning far beyond the confines of his cell, and Dianna Martin is simply heartbreaking as the jail's powerless cook, who is as lonely and longing as her prisoner and keeps him company."
There were several others that said lovely things and I'm thankful to each and every one of those reviewers who thought my work good enough to comment on and say something nice about...at least all the hard work I did didn't go to waste.

Then, of course, there are people who don't like what my co-star and I did. Our play - the style and the acting that would effectively carry it, are not to some people's tastes. So a few reviewers simply mentioned everyone BUT us in their lovely reviews of the show. Okay...I guess I'd rather be not mentioned than to be singled out as something they hated. Everyone has an opinion.

But one reviewer did mention how much he disliked Hello Out There (the play that my co-star and I were in in the evening of short plays, a play that was written by William Saroyan) - and the actors work so much, that he barely left time to talk about how much he loved the rest of the show - a point he was trying to make but could not do so because he was too busy enjoying being a catty bastard. In fact...I wouldn't mind so much, except that he also put down my looks; my actual physical appearance. "...She’s, well, plain. Dumpy. Homely? Yes." Uh, WTF? The attacks on my physical features notwithstanding, the (I would say writer, but...) also gives away the ending completely in the review (spoiling it for anyone who hasn't read/seen it) and says basically that our performances and my fat ass made the the rest of the plays of the evening look bad. He spent so much time talking about that...that he didn't have hardly any time to really focus on the beauty of the rest of the show, which he agreed was wonderful. Hell, if you don't like what we did but you like the rest of the show, move the fuck on and talk about THEIR good work.

I ask you - what is the point of that? In all honesty, it almost seemed like someone was going for the jugular...it was unnecessary. I've read reviews from this site before and thought that some of the writers were often writing more to hear themselves talk, expounding on diatribes filled with multi-syllable words and conclusions drawn about theatre from an intellectual...and nasty nasty standpoint instead of one based in what was truly grounded in the acting. It's a good thing that the "writer" of the piece doesn't have a bio; I'd go send my Min Pin Chico to crap on his doorstep...with a picture of my "plain, dumpy, homely" ass next to it extending a middle finger.

The only good thing about his review was that he gave good kudos to my fellow cast-mates, whom I think did a wonderful job - especially that Laura got a splendid mention, which I think has been overlooked too often. I also think that he did a disservice to my co-star, Stewart; for fuck's sake, if you don't like fat actresses, then say it; don't take it out on Stewie; he did a great job.

But I have to remember: our director made a good point - about the irony that so many reviewers came to the same show and everyone walked out with a different point of view. And so...to be up on stage, one has to be able to take the good with the bad and not put too much stock in either. Difficult to do, indeed.

Adventures in Modern Eating: Had Enough Of Your Plate?

2009-02-15T20:19:00.008-05:00

“ Are you hungry? ”

“ No. I am tired of eating. It is so high maintenance and costs too much. I am tired of it. I cannot take it anymore! It is too much responsibility!

I want to take a break. Can I not get someone else to do it for me? I just want a vacation. Day in . . . Night out . . . Will it never end? Can I not delegate it?

I just need to hibernate like a bear, or live off fat humps like a camel. There is so much peer pressure—just because everyone else eats, does not mean that I must! I would rather find people who do not have enough to eat and go back to my roots.

There is just too much from which to choose—having to select all the “right” foods to eat, or else risk making myself sick, or too light, or too heavy. So much stress and pressure. Can it not be simple?

All this ingesting and excreting!
I just want to starve and die already!

And do not even get me started on the responsibilities of having to breathe in and out all of the time!!!

Inhale . . . Exhale . . . Inhale . . . Exhale . . . Inhale . . . Exhale . . .

It is utterly EXHAUSTING!

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

So ask me again later. ”

Oberon Theatre Ensemble: Much Ado About Nothing and American Rapture

2009-02-04T11:59:00.002-05:00

Well, I've gone and done it again: I'm in a play on 42nd street that opens Feb. 14th, American Rapture, and runs in rep with Oberon's other play, Much Ado About Nothing.

If you're in NYC, I suggest you come on out and see them - or, at least see me in American Rapture (it's an evening of short plays, and the one I am in is William Saroyan's Hello Out There).

Hope to see you at the theatre! I'm very stoked to be in an Off-Broadway show.

OBERON THEATRE ENSEMBLE‘S WINTER REP 2009
12th Anniversary Season: Shakespeare, Saroyan & Dinelaris

OBERON THEATRE ENSEMBLE is pleased to announce Winter Rep 2009, celebrating the company’s 12th Anniversary Repertory Season. The company will be presenting William Shakespeare’s Much About Nothing in conjunction with the series called, American Rapture, which includes Hello Out There by William Saroyan and world premiere plays by Alex Dinelaris (nominated Lucile Lortel/Drama Desks).

Brad Fryman, Oberon Theatre Ensemble Artistic Director, believes, "Although written over 400 years ago, the primal, the Machiavellian, the sultry and the romantic desires captured by The Bard, prevail in modern society. The two plays present contrasting looks at similar themes. In Much Ado, we see two true romantics on the road to marriage and another couple quite opposed to marriage who finally fight their way into each other's arms. In American Rapture the characters are also fighting to find their way, whether it's through relationships, self examination, or violence.”

Winter Rep 2009 will play a three-week engagement at The Beckett Theater at Theater Row (410 W 42nd St). Performances begin Thursday, February 12th, and continue through Sunday, March 1st. Tickets are $20.00 and $13.75 students/seniors. For reservations, please call 212-279-4200 or visit www.ticketcentral.com to purchase tickets online. Tickets may also be purchased in person at Theater Row’s box office, open daily from 12pm-8pm.

Much Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare
directed by Mark Karafin

Benedick and Beatrice have vowed to remain single and appear to enjoy their battle of wits too much to ever call a truce. Young lovers Hero and Claudio conspire to change their minds. A romantic comedy about winning the one you didn’t know you wanted most.

Thursday, Feb 12 at 8pm
Friday Feb 13 at 8pm
Monday, Feb 16 at 7pm
Tuesday, Feb 17 at 8pm
Wednesday, Feb 18 at 2pm
Saturday, Feb 21 at 8pm
Sunday, Feb 22 at 3pm
Wednesday, Feb 25 at 8pm
Thursday, Feb 26 at 8pm
Friday, Feb 27 at 8pm
Saturday, Feb 28 at 2pm

American Rapture
Hello Out There by William Saroyan and world-premiere plays by Alex Dinelaris
directed by Alex Dinelaris

An evening of short plays, some humorous, some tragic, explore the unique mixture of loneliness and hope, which make up the American Experience. Playwright/director Alex Dinelaris, who was nominated for a Lucille Lortel (Best Musical) and two Drama Desk Awards (Book & Lyrics) for his work on the off-Broadway hit, ZANNA DON’T!, weaves his way through modern relationships, religious hypocrisy, love, loss and the endless cycle of violence that threatens to swallow our society whole. The evening culminates with William Saroyan’s Hello Out There, the powerful tale of two outcasts who find love at the most unlikely of times, in the most unlikely of places.

Saturday, Feb 14 at 8pm
Sunday, Feb 15 at 3pm
Wednesday, Feb 18 at 8pm
Thursday, Feb 19 at 8pm
Friday, Feb 20 at 8pm
Saturday, Feb 21 at 2pm
Monday, Feb 23 at 7pm
Tuesday, Feb 24 at 8pm
Wednesday, Feb 25 at 2pm
Saturday, Feb 28 at 8pm
Sunday, Mar 1 at 3pm

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Visit www.oberontheatre.org for more information.

Please check out The Fab Marquee as well as Kampfire Films PR for information as well.

Krazy Kats: A Friday 'Hello Out There'

2009-01-30T11:16:00.005-05:00

Yes, I'm a confirmed Krazy Kat Lady.

And yes...the little bastards, along with my dog Chico, run my life.

But I thought this was so appropriate...especially since today I put my kitten in her place. She thinks she runs the house, but she doesn't (although she has successfully destroyed my blinds and is now trying to ruin other parts of the house).

Photo by Dale Harris

I'm turning *cough* years old on Sunday...another birthday. One would think I'm old enough to handle the little furballs...but they always find a way to my heart...and my pocketbook.

TGIF, folks - have a great weekend.

xo
Billychic

Sad Face

2009-01-21T00:57:00.002-05:00

I try not to get too confessional and weepy on the internets. I strive to keep my little corner of the web as entertaining and drama-free as possible.

However.

I recently read this article, and for this first time I feel ready to go public with something I try to down-play as much as possible: my depression.

Get ready for some deep shit, you guys.

It began after I graduated from college. My years at Shenandoah were some of the happiest of my life. College was where I found a "group" for the first time. It was where I learned about and submerged myself into music and theatre. It was on the campus newspaper that I discovered my talent and love of writing and humor. We all tend to "find ourselves" in college, and my case was no different. I was content.

Then I graduated, and that was that.

Suddenly, my closest friends were scattered all over the country. Days that were normally full of classes now needed filling. After two years in my own apartment, I was once again sharing a bedroom and living under parental rule (this wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as I'll get to later). I didn't make a plan for the future. Outside of a month overseas I had nothing solid to look forward to.

Partly, this was my own fault. When deciding as a teenager to dedicate my life to the one thing that made me blissfully happy, there were a lot of things I didn't take into consideration. Mainly, the fact that my life- which at that point had a rhythm and order of school and summers- would never have structure again. I had no idea how important that was to me, or how I would deal without it.

After I returned from England, I used that left-over energy to get myself cast in my first show out of school. I was in theatre again. I was in my element. I made friends. I felt like things could be better, normal. There was life after college. However, every show has to end, and as closing night approached I began to panic at the prospect of facing the empty days again. Was I strong enough to do this forever?

It was at this point that my parents realized something was wrong. We talked. I confessed how miserable I was, and how I didn't understand why. All that happened to me was graduation, and that happens to everyone. Why was it harder for me?

Immediately, my parents got me to the doctor, got me on anti-depressants, and into therapy. The next couple of years my parents were heroically patient as I fumbled with prescriptions, day-jobs, frustrations, and set-backs. Eventually, with the help of the medication and through working with my therapist, I became healthy enough to move to New York, while my parents continue to be a rock of support and love from home.

I'll end my story there, even though the story never truly ends. I'm still in therapy. There are still set-backs and struggles and the shadow of a threat that my worst days may yet return. That is the nature of depression, though. It's not a disease that you "cure". It is something you may have to deal with your entire life.

I once again need to express my profound love and gratitude to my parents. In my stubbornness, I never would have admitted on my own that I needed help. Without them I know that depression would have killed me someday.

That felt good to get out.

The reason I felt the compelled to air my own dirty laundry, was because today I became painfully aware about the misconceptions that still surround depression.

The article I linked to is about a theory proposed by let's say scientists. To wit:

"According to scientists, depression is good for us. They suggest that medicating depression as if it is a disease stops us embracing our miserable side and removes the motivation to change our lives for the better."

Fascinating. Go on.

"Being sad can leave victims stronger, better able to cope with life's challenges, and can lead to great achievements."

That's true! I achieved a lot during my own depression, like sleeping 16 hours a day and losing ten pounds from simply not eating!

"Studies suggest sadness could have a protection function. For example, an ape that doesn't obviously slink off after it loses status may be seen as continuing to challenge the dominant ape - and that could be fatal."

Oh, now that's just silly. If an ape doesn't pout after losing to a stronger ape, that doesn't mean he wasn't appropriately emo. The ape could have just been really stupid. Darwinism, people! It works!

"Professor Jerome Wakefield, of New York University, said: 'I think one of the functions of intense negative emotions is to stop our normal functioning - to make us focus on something else for a while.'"

And that's when my brain exploded.

What's wrong with this article is that regular human sorrow is being generalized as depression, and that's a dangerous misinterpretation.

There is nothing unhealthy about sadness. Sadness is natural and inevitable. Without sadness, there would be no happiness. Sadness is a part of life.

Depression is not sadness.

Clinical depression is a physical condition. It is a numbness. It's the inability to feel happy, sad, angry, anything. It is not healthy and it doesn't have to be accepted by anyone as "natural".

Unfortunately, there is no medical "test" to diagnose depression, much like ADD, it's redheaded step-cousin (which I also dealt with at one point Hi, ADD! I miss you! Hey! Look at what the cat's doing!). It's easy to declare someone as depressed because it all depends on the sufferer's words and behavior. It's a tricky little devil, and hence all the fuzziness and grey areas surrounding it.

That doesn't make it any less real.

I put my story out there in hopes that someone with unshakable opinions on depression as "weakness" will read this and think about it in a different way. I hope it will open up a few dialogues about depression, diagnosis, and treatment. Above all, I hope someone who is depressed themselves will read this and get the help they need and deserve.

Thank you for your indulgence. Now, back to my regularly scheduled nonsense.

Are You a Good Wife or Girlfriend?

2009-01-16T12:15:00.009-05:00

This is priceless.
From Housekeeping Monthly's May 1955 issue: "The Good Wife's Guide"
and of course...don't forget...
A good wife always knows her place!

(click the image below to see it larger and follow along)

How about these as replacement bullets? Item by item:

Forget About Dinner - let him bring in take-out or make his own damn meal. You just spent a day working yourself or with the kids...suggest pizza, chinese, or thai. If he balks, take the kids out to a restaurant (or go alone), and leave him at home.
Prepare to Be Comfortable - since he's probably not even going to notice you as he makes a beeline for the bar for a cocktail after surviving yet another day not getting canned in the New Economy, feel free to wear sweatpants, your hair up in a ponytail, and a rock t-shirt and bare feet. If he wants you to look pretty - tell him to buy you some new clothes.
Be a Little More Gay - go bang a woman instead. You'll get a lot more on your returns.
Don't Worry About the Clutter - just hide everything in the closet. Preferably his.
Dusty? Don't Worry! - get one of the cats or dogs to run their tail back and forth through the dust...it will be moved around enough so that everyone sneezes but you can actually see through to what's underneath!
Make the Place Comfortable - and then I recommend buying a JackRabbit vibrator...because catering to YOUR comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
Turn Up the Stereo - crank up whatever tunes you want to hear; encourage the animals and kids to make noise! It's gonna be a fuckin' party!!!
Be Happy to See Him - if he deserves it.
Greet Him Accordingly - if he's a darling, then be his sugar mama. If he's an ass, tell him he can kiss yours, and head out with your friends to the nearest pub.
Listen To Him - and get him listen to you. If you both have issues about your day, you can share them together. If he thinks that his problems are the only important ones, remind him that he's going to have an even bigger problem if he keeps acting like that.
Don't Be a Doormat - if he comes home late all the time, goes to places without you (including dinner) on a regular basis, and basically just thinks of you as the doorgirl/coat check chick, then find yourself someone else who does love you and leave his ass. Be sure to try to talk to him first; if that doesn't work, then be sure to not be home when he DOES get home...make him wonder for a change.
Your Goal - to be the best person you can be for yourself...and if he's a winner, he'll be able to enjoy and reap the benefits of that and celebrate that with you.
Don't Greet Him Bitching - he's probably had a rough day, too. However, once he's home, feel free to share your life and the issues you may have, and encourage him to tell you about his day. If there is a crisis, that supercedes anything and blurt it out when he gets there.
Have A Game Plan If He Stays Out All Night - including a baseball bat to bust upside his head.
Greet Him With A Cocktail - and then ask if he wants one too.
Have a Pillow Fight - it could lead to some really good sex.
Concerned? You Have Every Right to Ask Questions - any relationship that isn't a two-way street verbally is destined for the dumpster. You need to listen to him...and he needs to listen to you.
A Good Wife/Girlfriend Alway Knows - period.

A New Year of No Devotions

2009-01-02T01:04:00.001-05:00

We were at Arthur's last night, an ancient Dixieland pub just south of Village Cigars on Christopher Street. Taut balloons hung in bunches, some in plastic bags to open and drop when the New Year rang in. A blues band thumped, the blind guitarist growling (the white bassist took our eyes with his broad back and terrible hair).

M the barback in a black shawl, black pixie hair, matching eyes tired, moves as an old wench. She is drenched in oil and resigned about the fact.

I keep thinking about Mickey Rourke (the bassist reminds me). That damn movie, The Wrestler, it got to me. And later I go on Youtube and he's on a British talk show talking about his seven Chihuahuas and the kisses one gives when he blows on her ear.

My roommate and the girl in the zebra shirt are against the wall. They have glitter on their faces, so do I. We make up dances based on cooking skills: "The Pepper Shaker," "The Pizza Cutter," "The Dough Roller," etc. I drink four Sidecars, a glass of Grand Marnier, and an icy length of Patron Gold. There is joy and laughter as there must be, as people insist on, as is doled out on special occasions committed to drinking. I am happy because I am not sad, because there is no point - to worry about dying, to hear the rockets in Gaza, the snipers in Mumbai, the dying in Darfur, the screaming in the Congo, Rick Warren at the inauguration, Mickey Rourke kissing his dogs, everybody in my office playing cards in the conference room - no one asked me. I can't think about these things because I am not alone, because there are people here who will give me cigarettes and be amused by my tongue which comes out under a pair of crossed eyes, because there is Joe with his hand on my thigh and his worried look and his endless cash and his dedication and love and me thinking about Mickey Rourke and his vanquished face, stretched and pinned behind the ears, but not in a way you'd think was intentional, in a way you'd think was lonely, like he went to see a comedy all by himself in the middle of the afternoon.

Goddamn that movie, it's eating at me (his hearing aid on the night stand, like mine).

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Happy New Year. My roommate and I bump butts. Joe and I kiss and hug and kiss and hug again. There are text messages but not hookahs. There are bathroom breaks but no hook-ups. There are no "devotions to God," not like my Mom's New Years (she went to a wedding). "We gave our devotions to God, and then we drank," she wrote in her Myspace blog.

The boys and girls split. We are at a diner, we are in a cab, I'm asleep, I'm not, I'm sliding my credit card and see the cabbie has a mustache and holds a look I recognize as concern but might just be hurry. Doors are opened, shoes slide on ice. I look back before shutting the door to make sure nothing is left behind and in the empty stretch of leather sits a pool of piss-colored light, seat buckles limp in the crux like small, dead animals. Happy New Year, we say to the driver, Happy Fucking 2009.

We are in the hall, my cat stares. There are showers and chocolate. I fall asleep with my laptop on my belly. The morning, my roommate tells me she dreams the cat attack her and she kicked him out in a flood. She feels guilty and I make fun of her. I tell her it's a classic inner-demon battle dreams and make coffee. My roommate and Zebra leave and I crawl into bed with my laptop. I google "Mickey Rourke."

Useless Bitches Part 2: Relocating Hammers

2008-12-29T14:52:00.004-05:00

I think we've all been here.

We have the day off--and so does the rest of the continent. We decide we're going to do something mellow, like, oh, how about--KNITTING? Yeah, we're gonna spend the afternoon knitting and reading all the blogs we're behind because we actually had shit to do during the holiday season and couldn't find a Useless Bitch who was either capable or willing to do it. But that's all over now and all we want is peace on---

BANG! BAM! BAM! (INSERT SWEARING MALE HERE) BAMBAMBAM!

What does a Useless Bitch do? Goes out there and says, "Uh, um, when are you going to be done doing a job that's actually a union job and you could do on a non-day off?" Now picture her being ignored--the guys know who the Useless Bitches are and what they'll do if you bother to answer them--nothing, not a damned thing.

Now, we useful bitches? We're dangerous in this position. Here's what WE do:

Lesson 2: Relocating Hammers and Other Forms of Revenge

Requirements: One knitting/crochet/scrapbook project in dire need of being finished, but isn't getting done because some asshole is outside doing something like, oh, putting in WINDOWS in the northern USA in DECEMBER? Yeah, that'll do.

Why yes, it's happening at my house right now--how'd you guess? I might have to drop the window here and there because even tho I'm in my own room there's one window left to replace in here and even though I got a great electric throw blanket, it'd be just like these guys to decide to work in my room and scatter shit all over my knitting.

Other requirements: A six-pack of beer, preferably one belonging to the noise makers, but not necessary due to alternate revenge.

A paraffin spa, preferably one where the wax is rose-scented or peach-scented. Although mine's scented with several essential oils for use when my hands are sore, I think it would work.

Your phone number, in what looks like his handwriting.

Your best friend's phone number, ditto.

One of his tools, preferably a hammer--they're not cheap, you know. You know this because some asshole used his best patronizing tone to tell you so because you needed it to drive a nail into something in the house but (Dog forbid) didn't put it away again. A Sawsall is even better--but could catch fire due to the paraffin, so perhaps sticking to non-electric tools is best.

PROCEDURE:

Begin by wondering aloud why ONE guy can put a window in within an hour's time but when he gets a "buddy" over to "help with the heavy part" the work slows down by about triple the time it was getting done before. Muse that if a lady were in charge that work would be done already and he could be having a beer from the fridge, one of that six-pack of really good shit you picked up a couple of days ago.

Leave them to stew on that statement while you plug in the paraffin spa and call your best friend and tell her that "It's on like Donkey Kong" and you need a hand with this bitch of a man that's over here.

While you're waiting for her, give yourself a paraffin dip--trust me, you're not using that wax again once you use it for this lesson. When your friend gets here, give her a treatment while you explain the procedure. While she hardens, swipe a tool while you muse once again that the inside of the house is nearly the same temperature as the outside thanks to half the windows being gone and the tarps not taped on right. Tape down the tarps yourself while you search for a good tool to dip--yep, into the wax.

Give the tool to your friend after you take off her wax and tell her to dip it enough times to really get full of it in places where it'll be tough to get it out. This is where you grab that six-pack and head for the truck.

Guys like these always have a truck, and only let their women drive it when their cars are down, mostly because they're just too proud of their trucks to trust anyone with them.

So--that's why you've got the truck as a target. If there's no truck it means the truck's in the shop getting useless mods done, and this is actually her car, so they'll be in even worse shit when all is said and done. Shake one beer, then open the top, letting it spray all over the back seat. Meanwhile tell your friend to plant the tool under the passenger seat, then go back and fake a man's handwriting with your phone numbers on some half-assed torn-up piece of his paper in the car. Getting one of his deposit slips to do this on is a bonus win.

When she's got the phone numbers ready, drop them in the back seat--one under the back window, the other somewhere else that looks like it's been dropped too but exposed anyhow. Leave the rest of the six-pack in the back seat--if you're truly pissed about the way you've been patronized and ridiculed by the macho he-men who did work on your house on the most ridiculous day of the year, you'll add to the fun by calling the cops about that truck/car that was weaving past your house "just now".

If you think of more things to add to this lesson, put them in the comments, but I'll leave it at this for now. When the men are "done", write the check to the wrong company and sign your husband/SO's name to it, even if it's your account and house. Sure, it makes you look like a Useless Bitch but you don't want them catching on too soon. When they ask about the beer, ask, "What beer?" with the most innocent smile as you and your friend sip wine from teacups.

If you've pulled this off, they'll be in the paper in the morning. If you've done an exceptional job, they'll be on the TV news. And if you did a perfectly stellar job? They'll be in the obituaries.

Not that you'd wish that on anyone, but who knows what another non-Useless Bitch will do when she's found out he got stopped by the cops because of the beer in the backseat (while he's supposed to be working, remember) of HER car, so when she looks she finds the phone numbers along with the rest of the six-pack.

I recommend mercy here--you really don't actually want him dead, do you? After all, a guy like that isn't worth the jail time. So tell his wife he was an asshole at your house so you fixed his backseat and called the cops to get him in the shit. Whether she's Useless or not won't matter--if she's Useless she'll make him pay for those women's phone numbers because she didn't believe you; if she's non-Useless she'll take the credit cards out for the day and make him literally PAY for what she found.

Either way? Mission accomplished and end of Lesson 2.

I'm betting the noisy nuisances are going to do the front door next week, so there just might be a new lesson very soon.

Happy Holidays to All and Happy New Year From the Gals at Ornery Woman!

2008-12-28T11:00:00.000-05:00

In favored tradition, I would like to share one of my favorite clips for the holidays and the coming New Year:

Southpark's The Spirit of Christmas

Please note: there is serious profanity and religious slurs for all kinds of people. It's SOUTHPARK, people, so don't say I didn't warn you if you click are shocked at Cartman calling Kyle a "pigfucker", and Jesus trying to kill Santa Claus.

If the vid below doesn't come up, just click the link above.

Happy Holidays to all. And thank you for reading and sharing our lives, tortures, and aspirations that we share on here. Let's hope 2009 is even better.

Love,
Billychic

The Biggest Tool In History

2008-12-17T08:41:00.001-05:00

This is hilarious. Good morning...to all the women who've unfortunately met someone like this...

OMG - he sounds like my ex boyfriend from college, Daniel Timins.

http://view.break.com/527579 - Watch more free videos

Plea to the Furies

2008-12-12T22:20:00.003-05:00

Disclaimer: If I happen to be married to you and you are reading THIS blog, you do so at your own risk. We talked about this, Dood. It may or may not be about you-you're taking your chances!

Dear God, Goddess, fates, furies, higher power or consciousness, Great Baboo, Gizmo, or just plain Bob, please hear my prayers. I have to believe that something out there hears my plea or I will lose my mind.

How ironic that it came out like that, oh mighty Whoever or Whatever You are. For I am here, for a change, on my own behalf.

We talk, You and I, regularly, and I thank you for all the blessings in my life, for I know they have not been earned, but are freely given. I know that grace is like grits, that it too comes free with a belief in You, so I am going to take it on faith that You are listening. I usually come to You either in Thanksgiving or to ask you to intercede in someone's life who is suffering or in some great need, but tonight, I am being selfish.

I know that our family has won some cosmic joke of an Alzheimer's lottery, and I am doing my part to keep from hitting its next big jackpot. But if I do succumb, Oh Great Is, please, I beg of You:

Please allow me to lose those pieces of myself which You choose to take away so stealthily with dignity. When I get confused, please allow me to see that this is Your way of taking away my worries, not some plot of others to get something by me. Please allow this to become a time of peace for me, not a time of bitterness and paranoia. Do not let me become the woman who has to make sure everyone else follows the rules because it makes me feel more in control of a world that I barely recognize. Do not let me assume that every person I meet is trying to take advantage of me because I am frightened because I can't remember their names. Let me focus on the wonder and happiness of meeting them, over and over, because some small part of my brain knows how important they were or are to me. Let me draw pictures full of childlike images and love stuffed animals and if I'm to lose my present, please allow me to revisit my past. And please-slip in a memory or a story to draw a laugh from an old friend or a new one. Do not let my fear infect those around me so that they stay away, like avoiding me will keep it from happening to them. Let me be a blessing, an example of how to lose oneself without losing one's essence. If You are to allow the me to leak out a little at a time, at least leave the funny, and the joy, and the love. I wouldn't ask if I wasn't supposed to be a reflection of You.

Betty Page - RIP

2008-12-12T09:38:00.005-05:00

Bettie Page, one of the most beautiful and sexy icons of the 20th century, who also mainstreamed the BDSM movement to some degree - has died.

Right alongside Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich (who we all know was gay, but only later on), Lana Turner - Page was just as important of a sexual icon, but she also embodied the alternative sexual lifestyle, to the point that her visage has remained a constant source of joy - and cash flow - for people who wish to embody not just the raw and lovely sexuality and fun she shared in her photos, but also the brazen underground culture of the BDSM movement that was going on at that time - and has become more mainstream today. I even own my own Bettie Page necklace/bracelet set (given as a gift by Roisin) and several other merchandise that makes me happy to display her proudly as one of my own icons.

I daresay if it were not for people like Bettie Page, the BDSM movement and even some of the fashion that is loosely associated with it would not be what it is today.

She, like Marylin, was a natural, someone who loved the camera and the camera loved her. And regarding her extra step into nudity? According to the referenced article, Bettie said, ""God approves of nudity. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds."

RIP, Bettie. You will live on like Marilyn - but not like Marilyn, because you are your own beautiful - and intensely different person...and icon.

Okay, So I Met A Guy Last Night

2008-12-08T10:18:00.003-05:00

...who is an amazing photographer and filmmaker. He worked with my father 8 years ago. He is 2 years older than me. He has lived in China for the past 8 years and just got back to America two weeks ago for the first time.

And for the first time in four months - I kissed a guy. It was not a huge, passionate make-out session - it was a single little kiss. And suddenly, I realized, that I am not dead inside anymore. Whether or not he and I just remain platonic - after spending 10 hours until 5am talking and drinking and having a kiss - but he's a wandering man who goes where his work is, so he won't be around for long, I don't think - it doesn't matter.

I'm not dead inside anymore. I can feel passion again (dude was so hot I can't even begin to say it; and I don't think he really, truly knows how beautiful he is...in a haunting way)...I can feel giggly again, like a little girl. I was flirting. I was having thoughts - I wanted to rip his clothes off, and I just wanted to talk. It was so weird.

But yes - I will repeat it again, for I can't believe it: I'm not dead inside anymore.

He was teaching me Mandarin last night while we listened to The Miami Vice Fucking Soundtrack and laughed and talked and read a scene from my play that I will be doing together.

I may not ever sleep with him - and that will be fine (although what a waste - Oh, the Places We Could Go!)...I would love to be his friend.

But he opened up my mind, body, and heart again. I have a crush. One who isn't married or just fucked up and makes me feel unattractive. I think S. is into Asian women...so I may not be his type. I have so many types it could fill an atlas of the human geosystem. That doesn't matter...

Oh Jesus it feels good to be alive! I don't care if the world stops tomorrow - as long as I know now that I can feel those things again. Even if they never lead to anything more than friends with him...I know that I feel beautiful again.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

I know why he's sad, now

2008-12-05T15:53:00.003-05:00

Meet Pixel

Pixel went to her forever home with my brother just after Thanksgiving. So far, she'd been doing well, and today was her first vet appointment. They found a little problem.

Very little, since HE's only 2 months old.

Yes, HE. We thought Pixel was a girl all along, til the vet, um, pointed something out. Fortunately my brother is already in pet love so he wouldn't consider asking us to take him back--he's keeping the cat, definitely. The text answer after I asked?

"Mineeeeeeeee!"

So, enjoy the cat face and picture petting shredded silk, and you'll have the image of the Furry Prince.

Spud the Kitty Trying to ...er...fit...in box

2008-12-05T12:31:00.002-05:00

Photo: Dale Harris

Okay. This has officially gotten me out of my bad mood.
My roommate took this pic of my cat Spud...and, well, it reminds me of myself. LOL

I love my pets.

Today...When you walk out in the world...Please Be Kind.

2008-12-05T07:57:00.003-05:00

I bump into assholes every day. Unfortunately, some of them are my friends, too. I ask that people make an effort make today and the following week "I'm Not Going To Be An Asshole" week...and then try extending that into a month...and whatadya know? Next thing you know, you aren't being an asshole.

I only say this because I'm an inch away from kicking like 20 people out of my life, and after that, slaughtering other fuckers I meet in in the subway, the street, in the line at Zabars (especially there - they smell Shicksa on me) and I really am very close to being homicidal.

Me,on a good day.

There are people who don't talk to me because their friend and I are no longer going out...although everyone else does who is that guy's friend. There are people who think I'm an unprofessional actress because I couldn't memorize my lines for the last show...uh, lemme see: the director is my boyfriend and our relationship is crumbling around me. That had "fucked" written all over it from the beginning. Oh, and there are people who get mad when I can't hang out, but forget that I have like three medical issues that prevent me from even being able to get to work...much less go and party late on a week night.

So...be nice. Be kind. Don't be an asshole. Or I'll have to kick your ass - and if I can't do it, I know people who can.

I just got cast in two plays and will be directing a reading...was just in a movie this last week...and stuff that is GOOD is happening to me. I don't need dingleberry fartknockers bringing me down. Can I get an Amen?

Good Morning!

Too close for comfort

2008-11-30T23:29:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: If I happen to be married to you and you are reading THIS blog, you do so at your own risk. We talked about this, Dood. It may or may not be about you-you're taking your chances!

Once upon a time, oh...? About five years ago? I found out that my baby boy was not such a baby anymore.

The family computer in the living room was not working one night, so I decided to go check my email in Boychild's room while he was at a basketball game. I went turned on his light and looked at his screen and sighed. He had so many downloaded programs on his computer that automatically started whenever it was booted up that it took ten minutes to close them all. If you didn't, though, the computer wouldn't run worth a chit, so I resigned myself to the land of clicking x's and sat down at his desk. Every time I x'd out of something, there was another layer underneath. Exasperating.

So I'm sitting there clicking things closed, when all of a sudden the layer underneath revealed my little boy. ALL of my little boy, in all his glory, in the exact same thing he was wearing when he came into this world. Nothing but a hard on. And OHMYGAWD he was farking NOT my little anything anymore. Nice image to be burned into my brain for the REST. OF. MY. LIFE.

Now, I'm not the kind of mom who would ever go snooping, but when something like this hits you between the eyes like a two by four any reasonably intelligent person is going to do at least a little more investigating, so I continued to close things out until I was down to a blank screen. I opened AOHell and signed in as Boy (his password was stored) and went to look in his pictures. Again. OMG. Then I looked in his sent mail, and sure enough, he is not just admiring his own goodies, he was SHARING them. There is only so much I can take, so I didn't dig any further. Suffice it to say I was FREAKING THE HELL OUT.

Now, Boy has some long standing problems due to a traumatic birth, the least of which is a sometimes childlike naivete. When confronted with what I had found, he said that "All of the kids I know are doing it." I took away his webcam and computer privileges, and we had a talk about pornography and child pornography and how he had no flipping clue as to who those pictures were being looked at by. I asked him if he thought a girl would think he was a nice boy if he sent her pictures like that, and that one stopped him in his tracks. He looked at me with stricken eyes and said "You don't think I'm a nice boy anymore?" I shit you not when I say that there is no way this child could have been playing me. The upshot of the evening was that he promised it would not happen again.

Fast forward a couple of years and Boy is a young adult. We are close, this young man and I, and he knows he can talk to me about pretty much anything. The Unit was on the boat, and one night as we are about to eat dinner, the Boy says "I want to be circumcised." Um. Nice dinner conversation? I looked at him blankly and said "What?" and he repeated himself "I want to be circumcised." I thought back 18 years to the long months he was in the hospital neonatal unit and the conversation on this very subject I had back then. If memory serves, I told the doctors "Not just no, but hell no you're not circumcising him. He's been through enough." Heh. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that crap, right? I asked the Boy what brought on this desire to trim up the young baloney pony, and if he was aware of what that particular procedure involved. He replied that he was still a virgin because his girlfriend was squicking out on how ye old Johnson looked, and that yes, he knew what was involved. Yeah, right.

I enjoyed reminding him of that conversation a few weeks later as he lay moaning on the couch grousing at me that his twig and giggleberries were killing him. Killing him? Killing ME is more like it. Of course the damn thing has to fooking AIR DRY and be tended every several hours with antibiotic cream etc. And since he only has the use of ONE hand (very obviously only one is NEEDED for some things, but evidently not THIS) guess who got to do said tending? May I just say that I know that boy's wanker better than I ever EVER wanted to?

Fast forward another couple of years to the almost present. I started my blog in September as a text based document, but slowly but surely have been learning (by trial and error since I know no 'puter geeks in real life) how to add little elements into my posts such as links and pictures. As the birds can sometimes be distracting when I'm trying to write, I have taken to occasionally going over to the house to write instead of doing it (heh. I said doing it. Just sayin'.) here at the houseboat. Two weeks ago, I ended up doing just that-preparing my post for the day over at the house on the Boy's (now a full fledged adult) badass computer. As I am flipping back and forth between servers and typing in web addresses, these browsers are pulling up all kinds of porn sites in their histories. I didn't really notice it at first, as Iwas actually working at the time. When I mailed myself a picture from my IPhone and then tried to find it, however, I was in for a rude awakening. For there in the Pictures folder are more damn pictures-LOTS more damn pictures-of Mr. Happy! WTF?

I let him know very SUBTLY, that I had found them. I was giving about to give away my old phone and needed to update it, but told him I'd have to do it "At the houseboat, because I don't want to send a stranger pictures of your dick." Heh. You'd have thought I hit him with a taser. His head whipped around like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist and he said "What?" I said "You heard me. I can't update my old phone on your computer because all of your dick pictures are on it." He looked mortified and muttered something about "I can take them off."

Am I alone here? What can I do to convince this kid he needs to keep his pecker in his pants? I can't babysit him. Legally, he is an adult. I'm at my wits end, and I just don't know what to do. He wants to be an actor-maybe his calling IS porn-do I want to stifle his MUSE? *snort* I'm sorry. I know this is not funny, but if I don't laugh about it, I am going to lose my damn mind. Any suggestions?

Mumbai--Answering the call?

2008-11-29T17:09:00.005-05:00

Was the slaughter in Mumbai an answer to the call for Jihad from my post, "The election's over--now the Jihad starts?"

It seems an obvious "Hell yes!" to me, something I find more saddening than the murders themselves.

The US isn't the only place one finds sheeple, it seems. Extreme Muslims will kill because the wrong national leader isn't Muslim enough. I think we're fortunate that we have few extreme Christians that will kill for their beliefs.

Let me clarify: It is NOT right for ANYONE to kill for their faith--be they Christian, Muslim, or of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I'm just grateful that few Christians feel the need to kill over their faith given the large number of Christians in the US. If more Christians were extreme enough to kill for dogma, it could get mighty bloody around here.

You see, I live in a mix of Lutherans, Catholics and Methodists, with a smattering of Episcopalians and members of Assembly of God. I know of few Jewish folk in my area, so few that there is no synagogue closer than about 2 hours' drive from me. There are more Amish in my area than Buddhists.

Given this sort of religious distribution, even my very small valley town could be a slaughterhouse--if there were an abortion clinic closer than the three hours' drive that it is, Mumbai would have the potential to be repeated here.

Does this make the extreme Christians who think it's a call from God to murder a doctor who performs abortions better than the engineers of the disaster in Mumbai? Absolutely not. I could make a case for those Christians being worse, but I'm not the judge nor the jury here.

Nope.

I'm just another horrified human, looking about her world and wondering what the hell comes next as she lights a white candle for the spirits of those who lost their lives in Mumbai and those who soon could follow.

So--who are you?

The election's over--now the Jihad starts?

2008-11-19T18:02:00.003-05:00

The link in the headline for this post leads to an article entitled, "Qaeda scorns Obama with racial slur and urges attacks.

What, getting Obama elected wasn't hard enough? Now we have to make with dealing with a fucking JIHAD because we have a President who is not Muslim ENOUGH to suit Al Queda and other Muslim extremists?

Well, you know, that's tough shit as far as I'm concerned. America has a President that WE are certain that WE like--we don't have a legal firefight over who actually WON this election--Obama took it in a landslide--so America has nothing to bitch about.

The rest of the free world doesn't seem to be bitching either. Foreign stock markets and other indicators of confidence in the American dollar seem to be slowly, oh so slowly, improving, and the world press seems to be quietly in favor of who we elected.

I should have known that some asshole wouldn't like who we wound up with, but who'd have guessed why? It was tough enough getting a Black president; who would have guessed that others of his race would be bitching BECAUSE we elected him? Bitching because he's not enough of the Muslim his FATHER was? Yes, that's archaic and nothing here is intended to be racist, except for wondering why Muslims are calling for attacks on the US because our similarly-raced President is pissing them off?

I'm going to just have to resign myself to feeling that you can't please everyone; some people would just bitch if they were hung with a new rope! Here's what should matter:

Americans are at peace with the results of the election and the resultant President.

That's it. The only people who should fucking COUNT on whether or not Barack Obama is a fit man to rule America or not is US! That's why we call our Government a Democracy. That's why we vote every four years for our President.

And that, is all that matters--Jihadists can piss off! It's NOT THEIR COUNTRY. It is OURS--this is the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, not the U. S. of any other place. If Muslims don't like their rulers, go do whatever you do (is it kill them, or am I way out of line) and get new rulers so you have something that is actually your business to concentrate on.

Our election is OUR business only--everyone else is cordially invited to fuck off and I'm outta here now--I have a convention this weekend and I still have a wig to style and need to get packed.

"Power to the People" has been demonstrated in the USA--if other countries want it, do what we did--staged a revolution and GOT it! Sitting in your own country and bitching about what is happening in MINE is out of line--my country isn't your business and neither is the convention I'm headng to--so go find your own politics and your own fun and leave Americans to deal with their own.

Bye!

30 days...of...oh, never mind.

2008-11-14T14:41:00.004-05:00

So. Over at my regular blog, I'm doing NaBloPoMo, or 30 days of posting in November. It's fun, but hard, because I sometimes have nothing I want to say, yeah?

But the idea of committing to something for 30 days was intriguing to me, and I started thinking about what other things I could do daily in November. Diet? Nah. Exercise? hmm...no. Drink wine/eat chocolate? That's a given. And then I thought, "Heyyyy. What about SEX?"

I found my husband and posed the question: "We are having sex every day for 30 days. Starting tonight." He said, "That's not really a question" and I said, "When do I ever ask you anything anyway? Tonight. BE THERE."

So that night we went about our business i.e. we did it, and we said, "Wow, this will be fun! Go us!"

The next night we did it, and we said, "Nightly sex...woo."

The third night I fell asleep before John came to bed. He did not wake me up.

And then we just gave up. We've been together 9 years and yeah, I love my man and think he's the bomb and he totally does it for me and everything but god DAMN that was exhausting. After TWO NIGHTS!! I read a study of this couple who actually completed a...oh my god, if I remember correctly it was a ONE HUNDRED NIGHT challenge, and they said that although it was fun, sex definitely lost it's luster.

There's only so many ways a normal person can contort, you know?

Useless Bitches Part 1: Bathrooms

2008-11-13T02:01:00.007-05:00

Actually I don't consider 99% of women useless (or bitches). I consider a woman useless when she refuses to help herself, using a common household problem to make someone else jump up and act as her personal servant because she's just too good to do her own work around her own damned house, the particular woman I'm thinking of having gotten her house in the divorce. My opinion is if she got it, maintenance is her problem and she can quit calling on her ex-husband for household services.

This has been a bone of contention with my boyfriend the PS, a recently divorced (and very lucky--I did say he'd divorced her) and very nice man. His ex-wife called our house at all hours of the day and night, asking him to drive half an hour and more to their former marital estate to do/fix/clean up/restart/jump start/other thing she's got two hands and enough common sense to either fucking do herself or have her girlfriend do it for her (so it's not like she's all alone in this cold cold world--she left him for someone else). She's perfectly capable of doing these things herself, so she enters the Useless Bitch category.

Finally raising Hell about it all and threatening to leave put a (partial) stop to the calls, reserving them for the worst of disasters, ones where a friend would naturally help. (I don't think you pay maintenance to friends, but he disagrees, so every once in awhile we still have this particular fight.) Maybe I'm just a pain in the ass, but I just don't think someone who's taken you to court so she can be free of you, yet expects you to pay maintenance plus other sorts of fees that float into one's life, can still be your friend, having done these things to you, but that's my own personal opinion and another post.

Tonight's situation in my own home brought this to mind. You see, my toilet's plugged.

I don't know what the fuck Mom did but it's plugged. So, she and I are doing what we women of sturdy (even though both of us are disabled) Scandahoovian stock do: We're unplugging the fucker ourselves, something that apparently other women of Scandahoovian stock (who used to be married to my boyfriend) aren't capable of, even tho their doctors aren't trying to get them to have bilateral hip replacements or pain-controlling implants (remind me to blog about that ~~asshole~~ doctor sometime) and they happen to be in perfect health.

I was actually on the phone with the PS when my mom told me she'd plugged the pot--it never occurred to me to ask him to come help us. He's half an hour from here and works 3-11. While he doesn't have to be in early in the morning, he still needs sleep. Besides, it's just a plugged toilet--we can do it ourselves and if we can't, well, the landlord gets the job from there since he owns the place and we rent from him. So I told him I had to get off the phone, then began working on the toilet.

I'm writing this in between bouts with the plunger--two of three medical conditions that I have require that I only spend 15-30 minutes on my feet at a time, so I plunge and flush and plunge and flush awhile, then sit a bit, then repeat. Mom's taking shots at it as well--she's less able to stand but puts in the time she's able to in between the work I do. I'm sure we'll eventually get this fucker unplugged because we're not, you know, Useless Bitches.

In fact, while I've been plunging, I've been thinking. Thinking that it can't be possible to be a Useless Bitch all your life. Here I am, clearing my own fucking plugged toilet while I'm not in the world's best shape, so it has to be possible to teach Useless Bitches to do things like this, thereby turning them into Useful People (If they choose to be Bitches after that, there's nothing I can do about it and will have to leave them to their Bitchiness until they choose to un-Bitch themselves someday).

And so begins Lesson One: Plugged Toilets

Preface: Unless something radical has been done to a toilet, like, for instance, your son has jammed a handful of Matchbox cars down the toilet or your daughter put her Menstrual Barbie's first sanitary napkin down the drain, it's easy to unplug your plugged toilet.

Equipment:

1 dose of Mother's Little Helper medication (such as Xanax, Valium, etc) (optional, and just kidding) to keep you from offing the offspring responsible for the plug. Note: If the guy in your life did it, make his ass get to work unplugging it--he's just as capable as you are, unless he's a Useless Bitch too, in which case I'll have to write another lesson while you unplug your potty. Send me a note and I'll get to work.

EDIT: If you prefer, a bottle of wine or other adult beverage can be substituted for the Mother's Little Helper. It's being added because I don't drink so I don't think about adding it to the lessons. I'll try to remember in the future.

1 Toilet, plugged (and the reason for this ~~party~~ lesson)

1 Plunger--If you don't already have one of these it's time for a trip to the hardware store/Wal*Mart of your choice to get one, because you're truly screwed without one.

Procedure:

1. Stick plunger into toilet, up against the bowl outlet(the thing that the hole in the bottom of the bowl leads to) in the bottom of the bowl.

2. Push on the plunger, forcing the rubbery part to push air and/or water through the hole in the bottom of the bowl. The idea is to push a bunch of the water or air inside the plunger through the hole to make it clear out the junk that's plugging the toilet. Keep doing this several times, until either the water in the bowl suddenly rushes out the hole in the bottom of the bowl or you wind up low on water because it's slowly leaked out the hole but has left the toilet still plugged.

3. Flush the toilet, making sure that it doesn't overflow--most have a no-overflow sort of thingy (I'm a Useful Bitch, not a plumber--I don't know what the damned thing is called, I just know it keeps the toilet from overflowing.)these days, but very old ones may need their water shut off to keep from overflowing. The valve that would do that is underneath the toilet's tank--just turn it til the water shuts off. When you need the water again, turn the valve the other way and get water again.

4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until suddenly the water rushes out of the toilet bowl, then does it again when you flush the pot again.

5. Rinse the plunger and return it to its place next to the toilet brush, clean up any water that got out onto the floor or onto the seat (ew, ick water--trust me, you want that cleaned up!), wash your hands, and call it a done deal.

There! You did it! You did something your damned self, and have taken your first step into Usefulness! Congratulations.

I'll probably be posting Lesson 2 the next time we have trouble around the house or the PS's useless fucking ex calls again.

Until then,
Be Useful Unto Yourself and Those Around You,
Pandora

How it went down

2008-11-12T14:13:00.007-05:00

Disclaimer: If I happen to be married to you and you are reading THIS blog, you do so at your own risk. We talked about this, Dood. It may or may not be about you-you're taking your chances!

I sent a text message to my new friend to see if she wanted to go to a hockey game the other night. She responded with "Sure."

The half a fifth of Jagermeister she got into the car with should have been my first clue. The slurring should have been my second. I guess the third would have been when she pulled out a doob. I only take one or two hits at a time, and I didn't want to smell like a big fat joint, so I asked her not to light it and instead, pulled out my little one hit pipe. Her eyes got real big and she said hungrily "You got METH?" I looked at her like she'd started babbling in tongues. "Meth?" I said. "Are you on CRACK?" She looked at me kinda funny. I tried to blow it off.

I started talking about picking up the Egg from school and explained to her that he has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, but that he is a hockey WHIZ. She started talking in a rambling sort of way about her ex-husband, who used to be our team's orthopaedic doctor, and how he would make deals with the team that if they won, she would flash them all her tits. She talked about road trips they had taken to Albuquerque and Anchorage and and and, and each and every trip she spoke of involved her making out with someone, or getting fucked up with this team member or that, or all of them together. I figured, "Okay, she's getting it out of her system before Alex gets in the car." Meanwhile, she's steady sucking on that bottle.

We pick Alex up, I make introductions, and she leans back to say hi and offers him a swig out of her bottle, which he politely refuses. He asked me if I had any of his medication as he was feeling seizure-y, so I asked her to pull the baggie they were in out of the glove box. She pulled it out and was all "OH WOW...WHAT ARE THESE? THESE LOOK LIKE LORTABS. ARE THESE LORTABS? THEY LOOK JUST LIKE LORTABS." I grabbed the bag from her and handed it to Alex, who looked at me, looked at her and shook his head. He took his pills with a sip of water, and when she said "Do you want me to put them back in the glovebox?" he just shook his head and rolled his eyes at me. I shrugged. What could I say at this point?

We go to eat at King Buffet and she is just plain drunk by this time, and slinging profanity from one end of the restaurant to the other. I'm in a hurry to get out of there, because this is one of our favorite family restaurants, and there are kids in there, for God's sake. She, on the other hand, was having a grand old time, and ate like she was starving, keeping up a running commentary about all her travels with the Seawolves again. In graphic detail. Oh, and did she mention that she knows _____ and _____ and _____ PERSONALLY? Anyone that was mentioned, she knew personally. And oh, did she tell us that she had been on road trips with the team to Albuquerque and Anchorage and and and? I finally guided her out by the 2nd ice cream cone and poured her into the car, where she promptly picked up her bottle and took a refreshing swig. I think I threw up a little in my mouth.

We got to the coliseum early, so she pulled out her IPod and proceded to show Alex a bunch of pictures from her former marriage of her and her ex-husband visiting the Playboy mansion. Alex finally looked up from all the titty shots and asked "When did you take all these? When did you go on these trips with the Seawolves?" I hadn't thought to ask-I figured this had all been pretty recent, the way she was talking. She tried to figure it out but I think math was beyond her at that point. Turns out though, that this was all back in 1999.

I bought our tickets in our regular section-we always sit where we used to have season tickets because we know everyone in that section. She was not happy with this decision, as she wanted to be close to where the team comes out onto the ice. I told her she was welcome to go hang out there (she wanted to go talk to the coach, who used to be a player back you know when) but that we were going to sit in our seats, and she could just join us after she had achieved her objective. She said okay, then wandered off in search of alcohol as she'd finished her bottle. We watched her as the team came out to practice as she leaned over the tunnel where they come out. The coach did eventually come out and talk to her for a short while, then disappeared. She staggered back up to our seats, the drink she was carrying spilling directly into Alex's shoe. She starts fumbling with her phone. I asked who she was calling, and she says "Walbs" (her nickname for the coach, who hasn't seen her in 9 years). She said he had given her his number while she was down there talking to him. Turns out, he gave her a wrong number. Go figure.

Well, this pisses her off and she starts wailing about "That bastard is acting like he doesn't even KNOW me! He wouldn't let me kiss his bald little head like Buddha for luck. He kept telling me he had a JOB to do!" Over and over. Everyone is staring at us, and I'm wanting to sink into the concrete. Eventually she realizes that she's out of booze, so she goes off in search of another drink. When she comes back reloaded, she goes back down to the team entrance and spent the remainder of the night down there trying to get him to come talk to her again. I let her stay down there until the team had returned to their locker room after the (losing) game, then told her we needed to leave as we had an hour drive ahead of us. Fortunately, it was a very quiet ride home, with the occasional mumbling of "That asshole acted like he didn't even KNOW me."

Next morning, bright and early, I get a text message asking if I have any money, presumably to loan her. Was I wrong to text back an emphatic "NO"? I just don't think I am ready for this. For one thing, evidently she is living in the past. For another, she is obviously more fucked up than I am prepared to deal with. I don't have the resources to dry someone out who is not asking for help. And from what I can see, girlfriend will eat/snort/injest in any way possible any mind/mood altering substance she can get her hands on. Now I'll be the first to admit that I like my beer when the Unit is home, and yes, I smoke a little herb, but I don't want to have to be worrying about somebody chowing down on my son's seizure meds or snorting up all my fucking Ajax, ya know what I mean? And although I offered to help her with a resume and to give her some suggestions as to where to apply for jobs, I'm now in the position where I don't want her using MY name as a reference, because I am not going to recommend someone for a job when I'm sure there are going to be problems passing a peepee test not to mention attendance issues and job performance. That would be MY good name she'd be besmirching. So, am I an asshole for reneging on my quest for a third wyfe?

hell yeah

2008-11-05T12:43:00.002-05:00

The really great thing about being a liberal democrat in the military is the debates you can get into. Today, for example, I heard that Obama wasn't qualified to be president because of his lack of experience. "But," I countered, "Bush had experience anddd...look where we are now." My friend (and he is my friend, differing political leanings aside) mentioned that Bush was only a governor. I said, "What sort of experience are you looking for then? You can only have presidential experience if you've been the president!" I'm still totally unclear about what he qualifies as experience.

Or...

The conversation a few guys were having about "The republicans are the only supporters of the military, just wait, you can say goodbye to our 3.9% raise." I looked at my one liberal co-worker, who shook his head slightly at me...we have a "keep your mouth shut" agreement when it comes to politics at work because debating with a bunch of staunchly conservative military men is a huge waste of time. Instead, I IM'd my friend and said, "Yeah, because god dammit, our raise is the most important issue right now. Our country is in debt, and Bush's administration raped our manning to fund more weapons systems technology and research from greedy, bloated corporations. We have back-to-back endless deployments, and shitty equipment. Our personnel are dying EVERY.DAMN.DAY. Civilians are jobless, retirements are lost, the economy is tanked...(blah blah blah, I could go on, but...you get the picture)"

After I thought about it for a bit I sent another message: "When do you think the comments about Obama wanting to overturn "don't ask, don't tell" start? Because who cares about the escalating male on female sexual assault problem...maybe they shouldn't let STRAIGHT people in the military."

Anyway. I get irritated a lot, when I don't have my 'not listening' filter on. Honestly. If our only repercussion in the military is losing our 3.9% raise over the next couple of years? In order to fix the mess the Bush administration landing us in? I...absolutely think it's worth it.

Absolutely. Thank you, America, for voting smart this time.

~ag

Yes We Can... and we did.

2008-11-05T10:10:00.003-05:00

Dear President-Elect Obama,

At the risk of being crucified in the same manner as your impeccable wife was for saying such things, this is one of the few moments in my life where I can feel truly proud of my country. I was born into the Vietnam War, on the heels of the Kennedy assassination. I came of age during Watergate and endured the Disco era. I bought into the Reaganomics that set the table for the very financial mess we are in today. Two Gulf Wars. Three terms under a Bush, watching corporate greed and corruption rot the core of American ingenuity. And just a few days ago I saw Mayor Bloomberg extend term limits in his own self interest in a manner that circumvented a public referendum and put democracy to shame. Is it no wonder that I have become disenfranchised?

What a joy it was to pull the lever (why is that New York still votes in this antiquated fashion?) for someone I actually believe in. To not view the election as a choice between the lesser of two evils, but to honestly feel that both candidates were the best possible choices each party could have presented at this time. I waited in line to vote for the first time in my life. I witnessed parents taking their children with them into the voting booth... sharing the experience and the ownership of the process. I saw people of color walking a little taller, with a greater sense of ownership in this country that has historically wronged them in the most heinous of ways. And I was moved. Tears came to my eyes when I pulled that lever.

Please, Mr. President-Elect, make good on your hopeful promise of an administration that is intelligent, diverse, levelheaded, bipartisan and focused on the long term. Help us to join hands with the rest of the world and eliminate the prejudices that are based in fear and ignorance. Nurture creativity, the arts, the sciences... feed the American ingenuity that has withered on the vine. Because we, the American People, are behind you and hunger for your integrity and bold leadership. Please tell me that finding unity will mean striking a new path rather than merely finding consensus and compromise within the old boundaries.

You have a moment not unlike the one President Bush had after 9/11. We are poised and ready to serve for the sake of the common good. Lead us down that difficult path. Don't succumb to the seduction of money and power. Remain true and steady and good. You are our one last hope, Obama-Wan Kenobi... don't fuck it up.

A small epiphany

2008-11-05T09:34:00.006-05:00

I spent yesterday evening with...hmm...let's just say with someone close to me (not a wyfe, or a bitch or a Purv). We had planned a trip to a local casino as she had a comp night coming in their adjoining hotel. We met early, gambled a little bit, ate a nice dinner, then returned to playing penny slots. I got to where I was up about a hundred dollars, and decided to take the money and run. I looked around for her, but couldn't find her so I went back to the hotel room by myself and turned on the election returns. Despite my winnings, I was a little bit glum as it was obvious my candidate was not going to get nearly enough electoral votes to win.

However, as I watched those crowds all over the country cheering, tears streaming down faces and cheshire cat grins abounding, it was hard not to catch a little of their joy. I got to thinking about just exactly what is it about this man, this new president, that means so much to so many people? Thousands and thousands, virtual oceans of people of all shapes, sizes, colors and sexes. What do they see that I missed?

My friend came in and I told her that the results were in and that Obama had won. She shook her head and said "I'm just scared. Not because he's black, mind you. But all that talk about him being a Muslim? What if he really is?" I just looked at her and thought, "Oh, here we go."

A few minutes later, as Obama started his acceptance speech, my friend kept interrupting my watching this history in the making. I thought my lack of response to her comments would make it obvious that I really wanted to listen to what he had to say, but evidently it took a while for it to sink in. Among her comments "He sure talks good for a black man. I mean, you can understand everything he says. He talks real clear." and "Well, I guess all the blacks are happy." and "Can you imagine the conversations at the Shingle Mill?". That last one definitely gave me pause. I can imagine the absolute shitstorm of the 'n' word that had to have been flying around in there last night. In any case, I tried to tune her out and concentrate on what he was saying and how he was saying it. I mean, THIS IS HISTORY, dammit! I want to hear it happen!

As I watched and listened, I couldn't help think back over all those emails I'd received about his pastor, his supposed connections with terrorists, the Muslim issue and also about the stupid racist ones I got mocking the potential new First Family and the watermelon under a box propped on a stick and so on and so on and so on. I must have received hundreds of different "I looked it up on Snopes" emails that turned out to have been photoshopped with the Snopes logo on them (because I do check). All I could think as I absorbed what he was saying and how he was saying it was "This man does not look like a baby eater to me." Have I even once really listened to anything he's said, or considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I should come out of my little comfort zone long enough to see exactly what it is that he has that has moved this many people to invest this much hope in just one man? Have I started to become what I am surrounded by? I always prided myself on living by the credo "the only thing constant is change" (thank you Hereclitus) but I'm beginning to wonder if that is the one thing about Obama that I feared the most, the reason I supported McCain. Change. Fear of the unknown.

I did not fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning. I had to be home early to care for my sick bird, so I got up around 6 to get ready for the long drive home. I thanked my friend for the fun we'd had the night before and for inviting me. We chatted for a few minutes before I left, and one of the last things she said to me before I left was "I just don't think he'll be a good president. Well, maybe he will be for the blacks." I was stymied for an answer. All I could think to keep my mouth shut was "You pick your friends, not your family." (Gawd-sometimes I am so subtle I just KEEL ME.) I hugged her neck and I left.

On the way home, as I traveled down our struggling to get back to beautiful coastal highway, I thought about that. I was raised by Yankees. My daddy was in the Seabees when I was growing up so I was exposed to many different people and cultures early on, and believe it or not, my mama taught me manners. Cursing was bad, but the impression I remember most was that the absolute worst, dirtiest word of them all was 'the n word'. It just was not used in our home. My children don't use it, and neither does my husband, at least in my presence. The only even vaguely racist thing I can remember my mother ever saying in my formative years was one day as we were pulling into a parking lot her saying "I'd better never see you doing that," and she pointed. I said "What?" She pointed to a car with a white woman getting out one side and a black man getting out of the other and she said "I'd better never see you get out of a car with a black man." I blew it off at the time because it was such a bizarre thing to hear coming from the mouth that had taught me that we were all equal in God's eyes. But it stuck with me, and every time I've lusted in my heart for a dark complexioned man (oh, yes, you'd better believe it!) I'd think "Better not let yer mama see you get out of a car with that one!"

So I got to wondering. Is racism something that sneaks up on you? Do you absorb it by osmosis or something? Am I really more of a racist than I thought I was? Has being down here for three quarters of my life just seeped in through my pores like so much poison to the soul? I know my immediate family does a lot more mocking of accents and racial stereotypes than they ever did when I was growing up. Is that racism, or an attempt at humor? And was that racial pride I saw on that man, that president's face last night? Maybe a little, if you are talking about color. But what I really saw on that man's face, that president's face, was reflected over and over and over again in that crowd. I saw it in mens' faces and womens' faces, on children and old people, black, white, asians...Hell, I even saw it in a couple of DOGS faces. What I saw wasn't just pride in how far blacks have come, I saw pride on that man's face, that president's face, in how far we, as humans, have come. All of us. Americans. And I think every person in that crowd felt that racial pride, that hope that maybe, just maybe we can finally quit focusing on what makes us different and start working on what makes us alike. Because therein lies our strength. Our melting pot. One race. Human.

So I don't know about you, but I know this about me. My candidate didn't win last night, but maybe I did a little. I won a tiny bit respect for myself for examining myself and my motives so closely, and I won a lot of respect for that dignified, classy presidential man. Commander in Chief of my son, our president, Barack Obama.

Feel Good About Voting: Babeland Is Giving Away Free Sex Toys If You VOTE.

2008-11-04T08:13:00.002-05:00

Babeland, which offers "sex toys for a passionate world", is giving away free sex toys - specifically "sleeves" for men and vibrators for women - if they present their "I Voted" sticker or ballot stub or even on your word of honor, apparently.

So go check out Babeland - if you're in NYC or Seattle. We've got three locations here in NYC I think.

Because voting feels good!

Indeed.

And of course if you're not into it, there are lots of retailers out there giving away free stuff...just for exercising your right to vote. We can in this country, so let's make use of our right.

Binge and Purge

2008-11-04T00:47:00.000-05:00

Throughout this entire election cycle, I've watched, horrified, at the same bizarre whirlwind of the Republican Party that has been witnessed by everyone -- from McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate, to the frenzy she stirred up by her racist, xenophobic, anti-woman, rhetoric, to the horrific reality that these people may be in office: A man who is such a doddering old fool and has been so clearly "handled" that he makes George Bush look like a maverick, and a woman who makes me look better qualified to be the leader of the free world.

I'll admit that I've enjoyed the endless array of humorous barbs aimed at the McPalin campaign, but the sad fact is, that they are funny because they are eerily true. However, in spite of the fact that even conservatives are speaking out against the McCain ticket, the Republicans remain contenders, nonetheless. Polls may put Obama in the lead, but there are some major election-related issues that could wreak havoc.

On this upcoming day, we have to put our rantings aside and worry about the one issue that could really derail this election: election fraud and voter roll purging. As I'm sure you well, remember, the 2000 election was decided, not by the people, but by the Supreme Court. This was not by issues having to do with the campaign but rather by issues having to do with the polls. The Republicans well know that if there is not a landslide in Obama's favor, they can stall the entire electoral process by claims that so-called irregularities in voter registration or voting processes caused their demise. We cannot allow this to happen.

Republicans have already started claiming registration problems in many states. All battlegrounds. The fact that they have started making charges means they are collecting evidence should they need to make some sort of widespread claim that ACORN (that "terrorist" social services community organization) and other groups conspired to fix this election by registering fake voters and other such ridiculousness. This is in spite of the fact that intelligent republicans are already claiming that the party has no proof of voter fraud.

The thing that makes me go "hmmm" about all of this, is the clear subterfuge -- voter fraud is code for the same kind of outright vote suppression laws that were used in many states to keep minorities and the poor from voting. Poll taxes, literacy tests, hidden polling places all were supposedly done away with when the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965.

But by then it was too late. Many felt unrepresented and disenfranchised already. Many still lived in places where they could not even find a polling place remotely close by. And, most importantly, most felt that their votes did not matter and that no one in government spoke for them. The challenges to voting rolls that the Republicans are proposing, ALL have to do with the people our society has marginalized. Even if they try to participate in the political process, they can't.

But, with this very election, voter registration among minorities and low-income Americans is as high as it has ever been. Surely this is in part because Obama is himself a minority. But I think the bigger issue is that his campaign was so organized that for the first time in perhaps their entire lives, the underrepresented found organizers at their doors, registering them to vote, offering to drive them to the polls, making them feel like their participation is valued.

Poll-watching is happening in droves for the first time (by both parties). Lawyers have been enlisted to carefully monitor polls everywhere to make sure our election is decided this evening, rather than months away after rolling around the court system.

So be mindful of this somber fact when you go vote today (and you WILL go vote today). Your vote MUST be banked because so many others may be purged. We cannot let another election be "stolen" by these kinds of shenanigans. Voting is one of the rights guaranteed to us. If this election fails due to voting issues, I will lose faith that voting even matters.

So go now...get off your computer and get your butt into that election booth.

And, to add a little bit of levity to an otherwise somber post, please enjoy THIS. (Then go vote; seriously. Go).

The "Deciders"

2008-11-02T10:56:00.005-05:00

Remember when George W. Bush, while defending Rumsfeld, said, "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best?" We all looked at him, horrified by his hubris but also uncomfortable in this (supposed) democracy that our president uses words that hearken back to dictators. Perhaps this foot stamping was due to the fact that he felt so powerless and "handled." But it concerned us.

Now, with the election nearing, we have a new group of deciders -- or should I say, "UN"-deciders. In some ways, undecided voters ARE like W in the fact that they must think they are more powerful than they really are. Today, the New York Times profiled some undecided voters and called them both "sheepish" and "proud." I don't get them. I am suspicious of anyone who is even marginally undecided in this race. If you are even slightly, SLIGHTLY sympathetic of the views that Obama puts forth, there is not one tiny little bit of you that can think that McCain could be a good idea.

So, it makes me think that undecided voters really have decided and just like the attention that the news media brings them. When they say that there is very little difference between the two candidates I get suspicious. When they claim that "one issue" is a sticking point, I become enraged. This is not a one-issue election.

David Sedaris, one my all-time favorite writers, has an essay on this issue in the most recent New Yorker. In it he states:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

So-called undecided voters infuriate me. Very few elections have been as high-stakes as this one. We are maligned by the world and have our allies mocking and dismissing us; our economy is the worst it has been since the Great Depression; we are in a senseless war where tens of thousands of people die every day. Come on people! Undecided? And because of what? Tax cuts? Abortion? What is wrong with you? Wake up and look at the dismal state of this nation. See the forest for the trees. That is, if you are really undecided at all.

When the McCain campaign dragged out "Joe the Plumber" who originally stated he was undecided, I looked at a man who was thrilled to be in the spotlight. He even seemed high from it, and likened himself to Britney Spears! Guess what? Surprise! He wasn't undecided and when given the chance to have more attention routed his way, he started campaigning for McCain.

I actually spit coffee out of my nose when I heard him say that electing Obama would mean the end of Israel. Israel! This guy? Has he even HEARD of Israel? I mean, come on Joe...at least say that the deciding factor was something believable. * Plus there was that time when he likened Obama to Sammy Davis Jr. on television, but whatever. I'm sure it's the Israel thing that got him to finally decide.

I think the real undecided voters are the ones who haven't ever reported that to the media -- or to anyone for that matter. They fit into 2 categories: First, we have those Bradley Effect folks who apparently say they are voting for Obama but then, once in the privacy of their voting booths, they just can't get their racist selves to vote for a black man. But I actually think this number is smaller than one would think.

The bigger group of undecideds are, what I optimistically call, the "Anti" Bradley Effect folks. These are mainstream republicans, old school guys who are actually pretty moderate. They identified their party as a a type of gentleman's club. Where you are a doctor or lawyer, you make a lot of money, you vote republican. But now? This republican ticket? With yahoos at rallies practically wearing white hoods? THAT is not how this republican intellegentsia wants its party portrayed to the rest of the country, let alone the world. As a result, they are fleeing -- some more obviously than others.

These are the Anti-Bradley Effect voters. The ones who claim to be voting republican but when they are behind that curtain and they think about the sad, ignorant, illiterate masses that embarrass them at McCain rallies they just will not be able to push that McCain/Palin lever. Whether they vote for Obama, I don't know. But I have a feeling they may just throw it away rather than choosing a republican party that no longer stands for its old principles.

I have a feeling -- a hope, yes, but also a very strong feeling that intelligent moderates are the quiet undecided voters. The sleepers. And maybe they'll do just that. When the alarm goes off on Tuesday morning, perhaps they will hit snooze and kind of forget about that "whole election day thing."

Here's the deal. The so-called undecided voters are attention seeking small people who are actually voting for McCain. The real undecided voters are intelligent. Let's leave it to the smart folks to decide.

*Oh, and PS: I found this guy when I was searching for Joe the Plumber.

Division of labor

2008-11-01T13:03:00.003-04:00

I do believe I've come to a decision as to how I'm going to divvy all this up. My blog is going to be where I discuss my life in general, and this is where I'm going to come to rant. About anything. Including the Unit, if I'm so inclined. I have asked him to respect my 'privacy' *snort* and to keep his nose out of this one, and he has been duly warned that if he chooses to go against my wishes and decides to read it anyway, he does so at his own peril. Venting it here will hopefully keep me from bottling things up and stewing as I tend to do when I am angry or frustrated about something.

For instance, I find it ludicrous that he will allow me to stick his love wand in my mouth and I have express permission to wipe ANYTHING on him that I want but he will not let me borrow his fucking fingernail clippers because that would be ICKY. I can talk about stuff like that here without fear of reprisal. Just thinking about it makes me want to go in there and moosh every one of his damned hats.

But it won't be just for bitching about him. It will also be where I can vent about things in general that make me want to pinch someone's head off and spit down their neck.

Like, who is designing clothes these days? I am a big old fashion DON'T. But there is a good reason for that. When I go shopping, I have a choice between looking like I'm twelve or looking like I'm some little old lady in those nice little GrrrAnimal for Grandma sets they sell in the department stores. I have a choice of looking like a Golden Girl or Hannah Montana. I am of the mind that there should be a cutoff-that past a certain age and number of children, one should not run around with low rise jeans and a midriff baring shirt, letting the stretch marks and muffin top fall where they may. So in order not to offend anyone's sensibilities, I now buy most of my clothes in the mens department and just walk around feeling all butch.

So. For the present, at least, that is how we are going to roll. We shall see if that is how it turns out, keeping in mind that (as I'm so fond of saying) the only thing constant is change.

Howdy Hi There

2008-10-29T10:15:00.003-04:00

I guess the best place to start is always with introductions, so let me get right to it.

I am Derfina, aka Jackie. I write a blog called Life in the River here. I am just tickled silly to have been invited to contribute to Ornery Women. I'm not sure just exactly what I will be adding to the pot, but I tend to use a lot of garlic when I cook, so hopefully it will be savory enough for you to want to come back for more. Hmm. Food metaphors this morning. Mayhaps I should nosh on something before I write instead of drinking coffee and getting stoned.

I live a charmed life. In retrospect, that is. Most of the time, myne is probably just as sticky and full of bumps and potholes as yours, but when I sit back and reflect on it, I am just the luckiest person I know, because it all seems to work out in the end, and when it's all over, the bumps and potholes and sticky messes seem much more funny than they felt when they were happening, and I'm all about fun.

I live in a tiny little houseboat in Podunk, Mississippi, where the summers are looong and sweaty and sweet. I live with my husband Johnny, who is referred to as the Innocent Bystander in my blog, but will probably be referred to by his original tag, the Unit, here. He is a captain of a jackup barge (self elevating work liftboat) and currently works in Nigeria, although he's also worked in Trinidad, Venezuela and here in the States in the Gulf of Mexico. He is also currently doing some research on a job possibility in India, but that is just now being bandied about so it is not on my radar at the moment.

The Unit is one of the main sources of funny in my life. He is the schmear on my bagel most of the time, and the rest of the time I just tune him out. We also have three birds, so tuning out is a good ability to have-three parrots in a tiny houseboat with no carpet can be...shrill. So I guess my filters were reversed. Instead of a mouth filter I got ear filters. I can turn my ears on and off at will. *snort*

The Unit is cool. He has little pet names for me. Besides derfina, there's noodle, wiggle (ugh), beavis and my personal favorite, pretty. (I'm not. No one's ever gnawed their arm off to get out of bed with me, but I'd go more with plain than pretty. But plain would not be a good pet name, now would it? Hey, plain. Nah. I like pretty.)

I have cute little pet names for him, too. Hoss, Dude, Asshole and Dickhead are a few of MY favorites. He'll answer to just about anything. He's groovy like that.

I have some friends who are recurring characters in my little blogging world. The Purv is one. She has been my friend since high school, and I am planning a post devoted specifically to her on my blog, but some things have to stew longer than others if you want them to come out just right, so that is still a work in progress. She is very understanding about the fact that when the Unit is home, our friendship goes into a kind of holding pattern, as we are a labor intensive couple-when he is off, he is off 24/7, so we are together just about every minute of every day. But as soon as he leaves, we pick right back up where we left off.

There are also myne wyves. First Wyfe prolly would have been my lyfemate had she or I been born with a dick. We don't get to see each other much anymore, because I made her run away from home many many years ago to be with her Boogerschmearer of a husband. My bad, and I pay for it every day I don't get to see her. Second wyfe works at the orthopaedic clinic where I used to work, and I love her dearly and I want to take care of her and make sure no one ever hurts her EVER and again, I pay every day for the fact that I am too lazy to get off my ass and go see her more often. (But then, she could come see me, too, yes? Roads go both ways, no?) I also have a wonderful boobielicious candidate whom I am grooming to be myne third wyfe. ^^groucho eyebrows^^

And then there are my bitches. At one point when I was still working, I had about a dozen. Now they are down to two, The Blonde One and The Serious One. The Gaited One is still out there somewhere, but she seldom joins us when we have a margarita night. I drink with my bitches. I snark with them too. They are wonderful in that they love me despite the fact that I let them down on a regular basis. They are beautiful strong womyn who don't need me to take care of them, so they don't qualify as wyves, but I would stand in front of a train for any one of them, even those who have gone on to bigger and better things who I haven't seen in years.

These are the basics. I'm not sure how often I'll be blogging here. When the Unit leaves, I will have some time to dry out, and once I have two non alcohol soaked brain cells to rub together I will figure out some kind of schedule where I work over here two or three days a week and the rest of the time concentrate on my blog. Who knows. I've been known to spread myself too thin, though, so I am not going to make any commitments that I can't keep. I hope. As I've been known to say probably way to often: We shall see.

I Present My New Kitten! Miss Laretta (Kincaid)

2008-10-25T12:08:00.004-04:00

Photo: Dale Harris

Well, I didn't go with little Rain, the kitty I mentioned that was available for adoption from www.zanisfurryfriends.org that I found on Petfinder.com - that I mentioned in a previous post; things didn't work out that way. The lady who was fostering her was in Long Island, they were going to have to come over and do a "house check" - which I don't fault them for, that's understandable; but I have been adopting and owning pets for 16 years and I just don't have time to wait for them to bring her over just to see if I liked her...and then have a complete stranger come into my house and tell me "your place is a shithole and not good enough for our pet" - because, to be honest, my place is not the epitome of Better Homes & Gardens.

However, my pets seem to dig it, and they seem to dig having a Mom who loves them and makes sure that they get to eat before she does. Considering that I saved all these critters (I have four, now including Miss Laretta)from either death or living in a cage, and that they get the best food and health care...well, that speaks for itself. I was not responsible for Nina getting cancer and dying. I have to accept that...and move on. Did she have symptoms? Sure, but I am not a vet and I didn't see them. I did drop 6k on her two years ago to save her from diabetes and got two extra years of life out of her and gave her shots religiously twice a day for two years...so I think I'm a good pet owner.

Anyhoo, I hope that Rain finds a home - she looks really precious and please click on the link above and check her out for yourself or someone you know.

Here's the story on Miss Laretta: I was, after a weekend in which I was despondent over things in my life, leaving for work and heading toward the train at Union Square. On one side is the subway station, where I was intending to go. On the other side, is a Petco that has a KittyKind adopting station, where you'll find anywhere up to 25 cats in cages, many kittens, waiting for a new home. As I started walking towards the train, my feet suddenly seemed to have a life of their own and I headed in the opposite direction - toward the Petco.

An hour later, I emerged, beaming, with a small little girl kitten in a carrier...headed for home with me.

She is four months and two weeks. I have named her Laretta in honor of my old friend Larry C. Sullivan, a.k.a. Laretta Kincaid to his close friends. Her name in the shelter was "Loretta" and it seemed like a perfect idea to me.

She is a spunky little critter and I adore her...and the other pets are taking to her just fine. Spud is starting to groom her.

I think all is right with the world.

Moving Up and Onward...and the Setbacks.

2008-10-19T01:12:00.008-04:00

Artwork by Augie Pagan

It's so hard to examine oneself when you :

1) Think you're kind of a mental fuckup even though you think you're relatively okay compared to some of the whack jobs out there
2) Think you're being stupid for getting upset when you come across photos of your ex...two months after you've broken up (granted, from the night we broke up, and right next to pics of my cat Nina who passed right afterwards)
3) Feel one day like you're doing FINE and the next, well, today I guess, like you are not FINE and wondering how the FUCK did that happen?
4) You are very different than you used to be in post-breakup mode; an almost asexuality has descended up on me like a wet blanket.

I think, since my descent into and subsequent emergence out of the nether regions of my mind a couple of weeks ago that brought with it panic attacks, intense depression, and a feeling that I would never again be okay, I have started really to get so much better. I have had all this great stuff happen for me: the article about my being an acting teacher and my philosophy in the New York Examiner, my being added as a staff writer for TheFabMarquee.com, and the putting together of the fundraiser, readings, and all those things that come with trying to stay busy and being successful at it - on top of taking on more work from my day job so I stay late - and it has really helped.

But all that is questioned when you can get thrown off balance just by accidently coming across photos of yourself with your ex on the night you broke up, that you had forgotten about, wedged next to pics of your dead kitty. I find myself hoping sleep will come quickly and I can get off this train to self-pity and mourning.

Mourning for what? My cat, yes; she was my baby girl. I will be having a new cat come by for a visit that I found on petfinder.com - her name is Rain and she's a tortie-maine coone mix, about 2.5 years old. Since I'm running a geriatric center over here for animals, I need to get some young ones or else when they all start to kick the bucket I'll have to be locked up. But mourning for my relationship? Still?

I'm not used to this. I'm older now...and I'm amazed that it takes so much longer...even though months ago I knew that this man and I were destined to only be friends, that we just wouldn't be able to make it work, although I desperately wanted to because he was only one of three people since my ex husband and I parted ways that had been a kind, loving person who didn't just want me for a piece of ass.

Getting over and getting beyond...it seems to come only in spurts. What do I have to do, lock myself in a room and avoid all audio/visual stimulation in case Brad finds his way into it?

We talked on the phone for the first time in a week today; second time in two weeks, as per my prompting that I just couldn't talk to him and recover. But we spoke like 10-15 times and at one point, it was like we were having conversations that we used to have: how to help him pick out a printer...things like that.

It really was okay until I saw those pictures. Then my mind went into a gridlock.

Artwork by Clint Scism

I know eventually I will be okay, but want that to be now, because I have to be around this guy a lot over the next few days and suddenly I just want to stay at home and not go anywhere, not be anywhere near him, for I am afraid that I will cry. And the strange thing is, is that if he suddenly said to me, "Dianna, everything was a big mistake, we should try another chance," I know that it wouldn't be worth it because it wouldn't work. He can't give me what I want...and I can't do the same. We can give love and friendship and loyalty...but sometimes that isn't enough.

And I want to know, when those things aren't even enough...what is everything worth anymore? Just sex? Just pet dander and allergies?

I have to now spend the rest of my evening trying to forget these past two hours...and try to move on. I have a man in my life who adores me and I adore him, but I can't be intimate with him because I have this fucking block. It's not fair.

I just want to move on like Brad has.

Couple of things I want to just say, for the record:
1) I'm so sorry that my first time at a Yankee Game in old Yankee Stadium was with him. On the night we broke up. I am forever disgusted by that and will try to really think of the next time I go to a game as the "real" time.
2) I'm so sorry that my first cruise was with someone who I was broken up with two months later. And that during that cruise my hopes for our relationship were suddenly increased to the point that I thought it was actually going to work...only for it to come crashing down.
3) I'm almost sorry I met him...and then have to say no...THAT was worth it. For it was. I just wish that so many firsts for me were not with him - for I really don't think he was worthy of being "my first" of anything...since he never gave enough of himself to me like I gave to him. He tried...but his giving of himself and my giving of me are like night and day.

Sigh. Sorry to bore...but I'm sad and angry at my being sad. That's what sucks...when you can't even cut yourself a break.

Fare Thee Well, Nikki!

2008-10-16T12:11:00.002-04:00

We say goodbye to Nikki, who has contributed some insightful and intense articles on this blog site, but who, as per her final entry here on the site a few down, seems to feel that she doesn't jive with the others on here. We have lost some other people either due to time commitments, difference in opinions, or due to their cover being blown and some will be joining again at a later date, perhaps under a different name.

But I suppose that in starting this site, I wanted to make it a place for women to vent, while still being able to also have the option to just talk about important things going on in their lives. Perhaps this site isn't "Ornery" enough for certain people...or the writers.

Either way, I also don't want to alienate the blogging community and have this site labeled as a bunch of cunty writers who go to other women's blogs, leave comments that are somewhat insulting (calling them fat, etc), and then use this blog as a launch-pad for a rant on them or their philosophy. There is differing in opinion and writing about it - and then there is just lashing out. There are blogging meter sites out there that, unfortunately, link my name to the blog as the sole author, so when a post is written it says "Billychic wrote: ____"...and yes, I don't want to be responsible for certain posts that I think are too negative and draw negative attention to this site.

I want to entertain our readers as well as educate them, if possible, and I hope that all of the writers on this site share my opinion. I know that many of them do. However, writers on here have a responsibility to remember that they are representing this blog when they leave rude comments elsewhere and decide to expound on said comment...and if they wish to do so they can write that particular entry on their own blog. This doesn't necessarily apply to things like politics, etc - for that can get heated, and its supposed to; however, I would hope that we could all maintain a sense of decorum when we write - or leave comments on other writer's sites. The same way that I wouldn't allow a post that represents bigoted and racist rants (which I tell writers when they join) I also don't want us to write inflammatory material that alienates everyone completely. We can complain...we can even go tell someone from our personal lives to go get fucked. I do it quite often. But it seems to defeat the purpose of writing about how most women are such assholes...when this is a woman's site.

So, we wish Nikki all the best, and if you wish to read her writing, which I recommend you do, you can check her site: http://www.iamnotbitterbut.blogspot.com.

Royal Pink: A Chick Band for All Seasons - A New Monthly Sun Night Party!

2008-10-15T13:31:00.006-04:00

Royal Pink, one of my fav chick bands in NYC, (they are so nice and so naughty) is playing a regular monthly gig on the Lower East Side at Mehanata (a.k.a. the bulgarian bar) - 113 Ludlow Street between Delancey & Rivington. There's one this Sunday, the 19th; doors open at 8.

From the email:
Are you ready for the queer punk dance party of your dreams? Because this Sunday night your pinks are playing at the first ever anonymous, the new and extremely fabulous monthly party at mehanata. Yes, it's a school night, but we know you will risk being a little sleepy on Monday morning in exchange for some quality debauchery. Here are the details:

please join us for the first night of a new monthly party:

a dance party for queerpunx and our friends.
bands. djs. plenty of dark corners.
wear something you can get dirty in.

sunday, october 19, 2008 – doors at 8 pm
and the third sunday of the month from now on

october 19 - MIX Festival closing night afterparty

featuring
Inner Princess (genderfuck/genrefuck punks)
Royal Pink (dirty-girl feminist rockers)
and more...

plus projections by the MIX Festival crew!

just $5

at mehanata (a.k.a. the bulgarian bar)
113 ludlow street between delancey & rivington
F/J/M/Z to delancey/essex; B/D/Q to grand; V to 2nd avenue

[inspired by - and we hope in the spirit of - Homocorps, the Clit Club, Rock n Roll Fag Bar, and all the other parties where the dance floor and the dark room are both alive and well]

NOW THAT SOUNDS LIKE A PAR-TAY.

:)

Is 30 Really the New 20? I Sure As Hell Hope So.

2008-10-15T12:23:00.003-04:00

So, I've accepted that fact that I'm not going to be a superstar by the age of 25. Partially because I'm already nearly 38, but also because I've gotten to know the industry like the back of my hand already, and find it startling that so much of it is about not just who you know (or who you blow) but also that you actually seem to get ahead if you're younger and less talented...and yes - skinny.

Look. I'm not just bitching because I just lost out on a part to someone else who, if she stands sideways, you might not see her; I wish her the best with keeping her boyish figure. Oh, and also the fact that I'm wondering if she's even old enough to have her period...

I am actually in a good age group, where there are lots of parts for women my age. The problem is that I might actually look too young (YAY!) so I have to compete for younger parts and then lose them to women that are more suitable for that age (NOT YAY!). I mean, it's not THAT bad - I've actually had another good year where between acting work and voice-over work I have been able to live comfortably (as long as I dont buy anything for myself or go on a vacation)...so I can say that I'm a working actor.

But when I go to an audition and see the sea of ladies that are younger...I try to chant the mantra that "30 is the new 20" in my head...and it just doesn't fly so well. The only thing I have on these other ladies is experience and acting ability (in most cases). Then there are the really talented young ladies that piss me off...because I am not above being jealous. But I'd rather lose the part to someone who can act, than someone who is just eye-candy.

Is that true? The 30-20 thing? Who came up with that? Some crusty old bat who was trying to deal with the same issues that I am? Because I'm approaching 40 and I don't know if they have the same mantra but in a size 30-40.

I also get discouraged because people don't take the work seriously. The just go from talking about what they had for dinner with a fellow auditioner, and then walk in. And sometimes they get the part. I am auditioning for people who were a baby when I was 18. It's a little weird. I applaud people for getting the gumption to try to make films or produce bdwy and off-bdwy shows when they are in their 20's - but I know part of the money is coming from their parent's trust fund - and I question why I'm even there when I would be willing to put money down that they couldn't tell you the difference between Elia Kazan, Tennessee Williams, or Jimmy Stewart.

But I might be just really assuming too much - except that when I try to have conversations with so many of the people I'm competing against and they have never read any Williams or seen a Hitchcock film, I have to ask myself: where is the industry going? Why am I here? And, most importantly, WTF?

How to Get My Mojo Back: What to do when you just don’t feel like the Rockstar you are

2008-10-14T23:25:00.000-04:00

So, as you all (whomever reads my blogs and talks to me) know, my life has recently been in the shitter with my breakup with Bradlee and then my cat Nina dying all in like the same month. Needless to say, it all finally overcame me and I literally had a nervous breakdown a week ago...but I'm doing okay now. I actually went to a friend's party on Saturday (was a little nervous, didn't walk in with my usual "okay now the party started 'cause I'm here" swagger - possibly because I didn't know anyone except the host), and it was groovy: we watched 80's cartoons and ate breakfast and drank Mimosas.

Smokin'.

So, I'm starting to get back into being able to have a life...and to enjoy it...(with bouts of depression here and there)...but I ain't got my mojo, yo. I don't feel sexy. I don't feel...womanly. I feel like one of the Marge's sisters on the Simpsons.

Not Good.

I consider myself to be an attractive, intelligent, sexy, and relatively awesome person to hang out with kinda chick. I'm fun, funny, and lotsa people like me (or at least the ones who aren't talking behind my back while they act like they like me - sigh - fuckers)...however that's all intellectual. I don't feel it. It's like...imagine The Dude from The Big Lebowski suddenly not being the dude - well, The Dude without his carpet.

That's me. I'm a female sexual version of The Dude. Sounds weird, but ask my friends and they'll tell you it's true.

But I've lost my carpet. (ha - the references in here are getting interesting but unintentional, but please enjoy the fun) - and I don't mean that I necessarily have to go to Henrietta Hudson, although the thought is appealing...except...what, kids?

I LOST MY MOJO.

I'm not going to rant here on why; some know but I don't want to be rude to my ex, so we'll leave it at that. I might leave something juicy on OW, though...just a nugget. I mean, you can't break up with me and not get something written about you, as a couple of people know...even who became my friends again eventually.

SO HOW DO I GET MY MOJO BACK?

Stella got her groove...but I'm kinda in a bind here: having trouble even wanting to bump into someone else in a supermarket aisle let alone do a horizontal tango with one of several available lovers/exes that I could. And not because of my ex anymore...no. Because I lost my fucking carpet.

So. I gotta find it again.I guess cleaning my house a little this weekend helped. Now, off to clean my mind.

I Realized Something...

2008-10-14T08:01:00.002-04:00

I've realized something. Women are content with their current status in society. I mean we pretty much have the same equal status in the workplace as men plus paid maternity leave plus we’re not expect to do any work that’s really that hard, like moving furniture or laying concrete, stuff like that. We’ve got whole departments in Universities dedicated to studying nothing but us, the spotlight is on us, we totally rock.

We rock so much that we can do anything men can do. We can be firefighters, we can be police officers, we can be soldiers, hell we can even be cagefighters (in some states). So a bunch of women get together to take the firefighters test back in the 80’s and EVERY SINGLE WOMAN FAILED THE TEST. Of course they sued the city and the city had to drop the standards of the test drastically or else be accused of discrimination. I’ll be fair, allegations showed that the test was slanted against the women, but most of those women were five freaking feet tall. I mean hey there’s five foot tall male firefighters, there’s nothing wrong with being five feet tall, as long as you can carry the average victim who is about 5’10” and 140-160lbs to safety, which is in the job description.

The Police Department was a bit more stingy on rules, they only dropped standards for the women at first. The women got angry and sued for discrimination, why should their standards be the only one’s lowered and why should their standards be lowered at all? The Police Department partially won the case citing that the standards were necessary for the job, but still had to drop standards for male candidates as well as females candidates and ended up dropping female standards even lower. The women lost their case because scientists claimed that it was physically impossible for a woman to be as strong as a man, hence their standards will always have to be half to 70% of what the male standard is, period, no arguments. So when the cities forced Police Departments to drop standards for male candidates as well as female candidates, they had to drop female candidate standards anyway. All because we wanted equality. Wow.

Then when the Military found itself the next one on the liberal feminism hit-list, it held its ground. It’s the freaking Military, they jump out of perfectly good airplanes and do pushups to get their food, in fact it’s rumored that in order to join Delta Force, you have to go into the wild in wintertime, kill a wolf and bring back it’s pelt (or wait that could have been a movie I saw involving Spartans). Our Military is the most hardcore organization on the planet, so it would not be intimidated by the itty-bitty ACLU. Wrong. The world’s greatest military was punched in the nuts and kicked in the kidneys because it didn’t only have to let women in, it had to let them practically get away with murder. Male candidates have to do at least 17 pushups to get into the Army, women only have to do, get this, 3. 3! And on top of that, the Military has to train them with the men, which would be great if they were actually made to keep up with them, but Drill Instructors were sued when the women couldn’t handle the yelling and hence the use of the “blue cards” was implemented in Basic Training (ask a soldier what a blue card is). To this day, the military has outlasted all of its civilian counterparts and maintained at least some of their dignity and high standards. Some of those Generals who fought and made their name in wars like Viet Nam would point M16’s at the liberals before sacrificing the integrity of their Unit’s to drop standards just “to be fair.” The Marines are still battling integrated basic training and have held on, and to this day, there are no women in combat arms. Congrats Uncle Sam, you ole’ hard-charger you.

It would seem that there is really no place a woman can go to be equal to a man and it would seem that it is scientifically impossible to anyway. However, women will find equality in the most unlikely of unheard of Government Agencies…

The US Forest Service, believe it or not, has some of the most elite firefighters in the world on its payroll. They’re Wildland Firefighters, they get dropped off in the middle of the brush with nothing but a handtool and 2 days worth of supplies and put out the really big, dangerous forest fires you see on TV. It is a given that somewhere around five of them will die each year in the US. If that aint combat, I don’t know what is. What makes the Forest Service so cool is that before women could join Los Angeles FD and fight house fires, they could be Wildland Firefighters. To this day, the only standard the Forest Service has for its crew’s is that they be able to do the work. It’s the responsibility of the Crew’s Captain to make sure their entire team is up to the physical level that the job requires. That means the crews PT together, and no one gets left behind, and if someone just can’t keep up after a certain amount of training, sorry, you gotta go because you’re a very real safety hazard.

Well hot damn these Firefighters are cool, how come they haven’t come under the same BS that the other cool agencies have? My honest opinion, probably because no one really knows about them that much, I mean it’s the Forest Service, don’t they like manage national parks or something? Most people associate the Forest Service with getting tickets from Park Rangers more than they associate it with one of the toughest jobs on the face of the planet. But the truth is that there are women in these jobs and they are hitting it up punch for punch with the men.

Same with the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard has never been exclusive. When the Rescue Swimmers were founded, they were founded without gender restrictions, which they were able to get away with because they were under the Department of Homeland Security and not the Department of Defense like the rest of the Military Branches. They took the Air Force Commando Program and founded the Aviation Survival Tech (Rescue Swimmer) School and a few years later, the first girl joined the ranks. No Lowered Standards. The Army Salvage Divers have one standard. 40 pushups, 6 pullups, and timed 500 meter swim. You will not find ANY gender references in their code AT ALL, ANYWHERE.

To be completely honest, it’s not just these two agencies, there are capable women everywhere, in all walks of life, in every branch of the military, in every office of government, desk job, manual labor job, in the private sector, who are completely capable and even outdo their male counterparts. However, because of the majority of women in the world either being unable or unwilling to climb to the level they have attained, the majority of the world thinks that the only job a woman can outdo a man in is a hand job.

Just look on Youtube. Girls are strong now. Girls are fighters now. Girls fight and die and kill in combat now. Women were always able to become the President, but now it’s actually a reality and not just a bar joke. There are things that make a man and a woman different, but physical strength is quickly starting to not be one of them. Maybe that’s why society seems to be threatened by it, it’s quick. We all know how eagerly society accepts change with open arms (yeah right).

As for the more well known agencies. The City Fire Department, the Police Department, The Military, they are plagued by women (and men) who are little more than excess baggage. But in their ranks, there are many capable women who highly exceed their standards, yet they are so overlooked either because there are so few of them or they just get lost in the masses. I met an Olympic Swimmer who got turned down for the SEAL program just because she was a woman. They say if they let one woman in, they have to let them all in, and all those worthless women would only have to do 3 pushups to get into the SEAL program.

Here’s what I propose. If women want these jobs so bad, and they don’t want the double standards, why don’t they all just max the male standards? If the men have to do 75 pushups, then do 75 pushups. If the men have to hit x amount of sales in y amount of time, then do it. Don’t give them a reason to drop standards, and the double standards will go away. If they didn’t have a reason to keep women out of these jobs, they wouldn’t. And I believe they wouldn’t, despite the Old Boys Club, because the Pentagon genuinely flipped out when Congress ordered them to take 16,000 female soldiers off Forward Support Battalions in Iraq. However, many women give them a reason to. If the Police women would have just worked out a little more and passed all the men’s tests with flying colors, the women’s standards would have just faded away with time. This is what the serious women in the Military do anyway. And here’s a secret, men only put down women whom they are able to put down. When a girl can get their back, they welcome her with open arms and you will never find a more supportive group of people than a guys’ team.

However, I recently realized something. Women don’t want to be strong. They don’t want to outdo men. They don’t want to even do the same jobs because then it will be construed that they have to do the same jobs. Lower standards mean easier work, hells yea! More chill time! Who the heck would want to make things harder than they already are? Well now our male co-workers are angry because they have to pick up our slack and they can’t say anything about it or else they get fired. The only thing they can do is not hang out with us, and we even complain about that! All we do is complain that we want equal rights and equal pay, but we don’t want to do the same work for them. We think society should let us kick back a little more because we’re women, and we let scientists go around saying that we’re incapable of kicking back any less than we are. Are we really content with being called incapable?

Yes, I think we are.

I mean am I the only one around here that notices we’re getting stepped on left and right? We’ve gotten to the point socially where most men feel that they can’t have female friends. Men don’t support women because it’s seen as being weak. Well, maybe if we stopped being so goddammed weak, they would start supporting us and start treating us as equals essentially because we would be equals. And furthermore if we were strong, we wouldn’t need their support anyway. But so far everyone just thinks female ambitions of physical or mental strength are, at the most, “cute,” and are never taken seriously. Talk about being self-sufficient. Has Girl Power just become an internet porn term?

But no, the majority of women don’t care. You’re all accountants and sales clerks and waitresses and teachers and mothers and any woman who isn’t is just a dyke or a butch or some trannie who wishes she had a penis. You’re content to do “women’s work,” and dog the girls who aren’t. The most vicious objectors to the woman’s suffrage were women. How typical. How disgustingly typical.

What would make me happy is if there were more strong women, mentally and physically, who weren’t hypocrites and who don’t make it harder for the women who really are trying to make it in this man’s world. If there were enough strong women to push the issue, the issue would be pushed. Moral support is important to individual success, yet in a country where 60% of the population is obese and Depression has been declared an epidemic, I think this is more than just a women’s studies problem, this is a social problem. Personally, I say raise up all the standards and the women who can survive, will, and the rest will wither away and rid society of a generation of weak women. But I’m sure there are gentler methods of dealing with this problem. First I would be happy if we all came together and acknowledged that it is a problem.

I would be happy if there were more support for strong women, which would lessen the social stigma, which would increase the number of women wanting to be strong, which would decrease the number of women who just can’t hack it, or encourage them to start hacking it, and open up opportunities for women that were formerly closed to them. I want every woman to make a commitment to herself that she is going to make an effort to become strong, in whatever way, whether it’s taking more control of her life or losing weight or doing 3 pushups or running a marathon, whatever. Just start becoming stronger in some aspect, that will teach your daughters to be stronger, and then they’ll never let men hit them or male co-workers push them around and they’ll be able to actually do whatever they want with their lives. More support, less lowered standards. Start believing that we can, and furthermore, that we SHOULD.

In regards to this blog, I’ve come to realize that my opinions are not in line with the community here. This is a pop-culture blog, a place to talk about cheating boyfriends and hot movies and how we really need some chocolate sometimes. I’m tired of being the one who “stir’s the pot.” No one’s going to like my movie reviews anyway because most of the movies out now totally suck IMO, and my solution to a cheating boyfriend is a phone call to some Albanian friends, an unmarked van, and black ski masks (oops, I didn’t actually type that). I think maybe I’m a little too intense for this crowd, hey life is about finding your place in the world right, this is obviously not mine. So for my own sanity, I won’t be writing here anymore.

If for some strange, insane reason you feel compelled to read any more of my political controversies, flame me over at my blog: http://www.iamnotbitterbut.blogspot.com

Girl Pushups are for GIRLS

2008-10-11T11:38:00.002-04:00

Push Ups and Pull Ups are great and you gals can all learn to do them too!

Well, my response to these beloved sources of inspiration?

Screw it, No We Can't!
---Cranky Fitness

It’s the year 2008 and even Arnold Schwarzenegger says that human muscle is human muscle, whether you are a man or a woman, and it responds to one thing and one thing only…hard work.

Well shucks now that it’s the year 2008, women hitting it up with the dudes is almost common place with the advent of Crossfit and the addition of Women’s Wrestling in the Olympics. Now I see girls repping out pullups on Youtube who aren’t even super Romanian Weightlifters like the stereotype of the 90’s said they would have to be. Now we’re seeing more and more girls hop on men’s football teams in high school and movies are being made idolizing girls who hit it up with the boys.

This is a good thing right? Equality of the sexes. Finally! After so long as being viewed as “the weaker sex,” we can finally do anything a man can do AND have children. Hah! Just when you thought being a girl had its drawbacks.

So why are some girls complaining about how “the bar has been raised?” Now girls aren’t just doing pullups and pushups, they’re expected to do pullups and pushups. There’s no more “girl-pushups.” No more “modified-pullups.” That’s so last decade. If women want equality, well hop damn they’re going to have to work for it just like the men do. Guys have to work out at the age of 13 when their growth pallets are still forming just to be accepted by society, so what makes women think that we should be any different if we want the same treatment?

“Oh but we don’t want to have to work hard like the men do,” yeah we just want the preferential treatment no strings attached. This is why men hate girl’s on guys teams, they think they won’t want to do the same work they will, and hence they try to isolate us into our own environments. Every men’s sports team trains harder than the women’s sports team, even in college. I trained with the guys swim team and it was hell compared to the girls practice, I gained like an inch on my arms after one workout.

Here’s the deal, we all campaigned and complained for our civil rights for over a century and now that we’re getting them, let’s not screw it up. If you can’t do a pullup, don’t worry, just practice, start by hanging and doing negatives. But if you’re too fat to do a pullup, stop eating. If you’re too weak to do a pushup, hit the bench. The “oh I can’t do it because I’m a girl” excuse isn’t going to fly anymore. You wanted girl power, you got it.

Now earn it or shut the hell up. (And yes that’s me in the vid doing one arm pushups).

Oberon Theatre Ensemble - Fall Frolic: A Fabulous Fundraiser!

2008-10-08T14:36:00.000-04:00

Try saying "Fall Frolic Fabulous Fundraiser" six times. Now add some awesome wine, gourmet cheese, and really scrumptious dessert chocolates; throw in mingling with a great theatre crowd, and you have the recipe for a wonderful evening.

A little from the website (which I just started helping with):

An Evening of Mingling, Wine, Gourmet Cheeses, & Decadent Dessert Samplings!

All to benefit Oberon Theatre Ensemble and our upcoming 2009 Season!

Purchase your ticket today!

When:Tuesday October 21, 7-10 pm
Where:Professor Thom's
219 2nd Ave, between 13th & 14th Streets

Tickets will be *$35* if purchased before Oct. 14
and *$45* if purchased after.

Please go to www.OberonTheatre.org/Fall-Frolic/ to use the PayPal link. I couldn't get it to look groovy on my site here.

Gourmet foods generously sponsored by:

Ideal Cheese Gourmet Cheese Shop (www.IdealCheese.com): Ideal Cheese offers the finest cheeses of the world. Our cheeses are available per lb, per full wheel, or even in specialty cheese baskets for gifts or great treats. Ideal Cheese also offer specialty products, such as fine Cooking Oils, Vinegars and specialty meats.

Our Cheese and Specialty Products are of the highest quality and we pride ourselves on offering our customers the very best cheeses of the world and specialty foods, online today. The Ideal Taste...The Ideal Choice.

and

Sweet Muse (www.SweetMuse.com): Sweet Muse celebrates the creative, playful spirit in all of us with handmade treats to indulge the senses and inspire. The fudgy, gourmet brownies are freshly baked from scratch using only the finest ingredients and then carefully hand-packaged into gift tins and gift boxes perfect for both personal and corporate gifts.

Swirl Events will be at the party to provide information about the wine and wine pairings.

Swirl Events (www.SwirlEvents.com): A SWIRL EVENTS WINE TASTING is a festive and elegant idea for Holiday Parties. In this tough financial climate, we are an affordable option, allowing you to still celebrate with style while maintaining your budget. Swirl makes your entertaining effortless. We provide EVERYTHING for your event including a selection of amazing wine, gourmet chocolate and cheese pairings, elegant stemware, and our professionally-trained team of Swirl wine experts.

Cash bar will also be available.

It just keeps getting better: you don't want to miss out on our RAFFLE, so be sure to get your tickets early when you arrive!

There will be raffle prizes donated by our headlining sponsors, Ideal Cheese and Sweet Muse, as well as other fabulous and generous raffle donors including:

Maieutic Theatre Works (MTWorks),

Hotsy Totsy Burlesque,

Barnes & Noble,

Lansdowne Road Sports Bar

and many more!

It's going to be a lot of fun, and for a good cause: Oberon Theatre Ensemble is a great theatre company, who has gone out on a limb to put me in productions and work with me...and has 12 years worth of incredible plays and staged readings - two of which I will be in coming up this Fall, I think...

So if you can, come on out! The raffle gifts are going to ROCK and the cheese, wine, and desserts will be amazing.

xo
D

RIP Nina Mouse

2008-09-22T14:43:00.004-04:00

Nina passed away Saturday, 9/20, around 12:30 or so. I had to take her in to put her to sleep because the malignant tumor that was in her ear had made its way into her brain and was causing seizures and she was unable to walk or lift herself up. As we waited for the doctor's appointment at my apartment, we sat in the window propped on pillows so she could see outside, with a "Mozart for Cats" cd that I got that she seemed to like...and I brought out two ice cream sandwiches which she licked and gobbled. I kissed her and told her how much I loved her.

At the doctor's office, wouldn't you know it, she was able to walk (oh, the healing power of ice cream!) but the doctor told me that these episodes would happen again and more frequently. He assured me that what I was doing was for the best...and the look in her eyes when she couldn't move and was having a seizure was of terror and was so pitiful. I did NOT want her to go like that while I was away from home at work or whatever.

Even at the very end, she made a few little huffs and snarls of annoyance as we layed her down and the needle went in. I looked into her beautiful eyes and told her I loved her again and that she would be seeing God soon...and then they added the drug that put her to sleep.

I miss her so much...and I am a better person for having had the 9 years I did have with her, when she showed up on my doorstep in the rain one night in St. Louis. I thank God for giving me the time I had with her.

If you have a pet, please give it a hug. I have three other pets that need my love, and I have to be here for them...so I need to be strong. Hard, though. Really hard.

A Moving Episode About Alzheimer’s and a Trip Down Memory Lane Thanks to Stargate Atlantis

2008-09-14T11:22:00.005-04:00

Photo by Mark Perez

Back when I was about 10, my Grandfather died. He had been in a nursing home for a while, and I remember running up and down the halls, not wanting to stay in that sterile room, its cold and bland-colored tiles smelling like disinfectant and the urine that the disinfectant was supposed to have cleaned up. I think one reason why I didn’t want to stay in the room was because he didn’t know who I was.

Looking back now, we know that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s and the dementia had started much earlier. I remember when they moved him from his apartment in Dallas, TX, into a limited care home, where he was able to bring a lot of his furniture and it was almost like a new apartment except that it was smaller, and there were nurses who would check on him if he needed them, and there were common eating areas, etc… It was kind of like somewhere between a bachelor pad and a nursing home.

Then, somewhere along the way, in what must have been a relatively short amount of time, I think my mother was informed that he needed more help than they could offer; and that when we went over there I remember Mom saying things like “Dad, you already asked me that,” or “you know who that is, that’s Ernie, my husband.”

Funny, the things you think about just from watching an episode of something on TV. I just happened to download an episode of Stargate Atlantis (one of my favorite shows) because I don’t have cable right now, and in their current season, about two or three episodes back someone suffers from a similar illness. It was heart-wrenching; not your average sci-fi show. It brought me back to Paw Paw and that final place he was brought to: a nursing home where the patients either screamed obscenities or drooled or sat quietly. There was one man who couldn’t have been more than 40; he was handsome but his hair was very grey. He has suffered some kind of condition that left him practically in a vegetative state. There was also a woman whose room I would creep into and try to talk to; she would suddenly start yelling at me, calling me all kinds of names. That only made me go back and sneak in her room again. I delighted in bothering her. I think I did so because I knew that I just didn’t want to be in that room with Paw Paw and Mom and Dad and Esther…as they watched over him.

I was never close with my Grandfather, from what I remember. Not that the man wasn’t kind or loving; I see pictures of me as a baby and little girl sitting on his lap. I remember his apartment, how I loved to go there; it was a place of secret hiding places and cornbread. I called my Grandfather Paw Paw. Paw Paw had a marvelous bedroom; I think what I remember most was his grooming area. He always kept himself looking great (the man was married twice and apparently a ladies man). What I remember the most from his apartment are the makeup kit and brush that he used to brush his moustache with dark dye, his lava lap (which I inherited at my request), and these two glass roosters that sat on top of his TV. I always thought the roosters were going to bite me, even after I got older and knew that they were just glass. I also remember almost drowning in his pool (actually, I was only underwater for a few seconds, but it was enough to make me never take up swimming until I was 13).

His was the first death human death that I experienced in the family – or at all, actually. The only one besides that was the death of Cuchi Frita, our Yorkshire Terrier, who I adored and who was taken from Mom and Dad way too soon.

I wish I had spent more time with him, but I don’t think Mom and Dad wanted me to see him too much…he was a very intelligent man who, I imagine, was outraged that he was unable towards the end to remember things that he once knew…who, in the end, didn’t even know Esther, my grandmother, or my Mom, his daughter.

I have been so sad over the past month, with my breakup and what’s going on with Nina. But I think that losing one’s mind – or watching a loved one go like that - might be the saddest thing that anyone has to go through – a schoolmate has a mother who developed Alzheimer’s in her early 50’s, and I remember when Erica told me I couldn’t come stay at her house anymore because it had just gotten too difficult and they were eventually going to put her in a home. And that was when we were in high school.

Life’s hardships always never cease to amaze you – in the ways that something that seems so difficult and impossible to deal with is something that seems so unimportant when placed next to something else.

Interesting.

Why Women Are Crabby

2008-09-08T20:05:00.003-04:00

Wish I could take credit for this one, but a good friend sent it to me. Despite it all, I'm proud to be a woman!
- C

We started to 'bud' in our blouses at 9 or 10 years old only to find that anything that came in contact with those tender, blooming buds hurt so bad it brought us to tears. So came the ridiculously uncomfortable training bra contraption that the boys in school would snap until we had calluses on our backs.

Next, we get our periods in our early to mid-teens (or sooner). Along with those budding boobs, we bloated, we cramped, we got the hormone crankies, had to wear little mattresses between our legs or insert tubular, packed cotton rods in places we didn't even know we had.

Our next little rite of passage (premarital or not) was having sex for the first time which was about as much fun as having a ramrod push your uterus through your nostrils (IF he did it right and didn't end up with his little cart before his horse), leaving us to wonder what all the fuss was about.

Then it' was off to Motherhood where we learned to live on dry crackers and water for a few months so we didn't spend the entire day leaning over Brother John. Of course, amazing creatures that we are (and we are), we learned to live with the growing little angels inside us steadily kicking our innards night and day making us wonder if we were preparing to have Rosemary's Baby.

Our once flat bellies looked like we swallowed a watermelon whole and we pee'd our pants every time we sneezed. When the big moment arrived, the dam in our blessed Nether Regions invariably burst right in the middle of the mall and we had to waddle, with our big cartoon feet, moaning in pain all the way to the ER.

Then it was huff and puff and beg to die while the OB says, 'Please stop screaming, Mrs. Hear-me-roar. Calm down and push. Just one more good push (more like 10),' warranting a strong, well-deserved impulse to punch the %*#!* (and hubby) square in the nose for making us cram a wiggling, mushroom-headed 10lb bowling ball through a keyhole.

After that, it was time to raise those angels only to find that when all that 'cute' wears off, the beautiful little darlings morphed into walking, jabbering, wet, gooey, snot-blowing, life-sucking little poop machines.

Then come their 'Teen Years.' Need I say more?

When the kids are almost grown, we women hit our voracious sexual prime in our early 40's - while hubby had his somewhere around his 18th birthday.

So we progress into the grand finale: 'The Menopause,' the Grandmother of all womanhood. It's either take HRT and chance cancer in those now seasoned 'buds' or the aforementioned Nether Regions, or, sweat like a hog in July, wash your sheets and pillowcases daily and bite the head off anything that moves.

Now, you ask WHY women seem to be more spiteful than men, when men get off so easy, INCLUDING the icing on life's cake: Being able to pee in the woods without soaking their socks...

So, while I love being a woman, 'Womanhood' would make the Great Gandhi a tad crabby. Women are the 'weaker sex'? Yeah right. Bite me.

~Author Unknown~

My Cat Nina Has Cancer...And I'm Devastated

2008-09-06T21:12:00.000-04:00

Thank you to all who wrote in to me about my being happy that she got through her tooth surgery, etc...and we were waiting to hear back about her ear infection/eye infection...and why it wasn't going away.

Turns out it is cancer.

I am getting xrays to see if it has spread, for it is the kind that does...but I think the battle may be coming to a close for my little girl. Diabetics don't fight infections very easily...and this illness she has is apparently very tricky.

Please pray. If you don't pray, then send good thoughts.
If anything, please send her warmth and no pain...and I just hope at this point to have another month or so with her...or as long as I can until she is in pain and there is nothing I can do. For if it's spread to her lungs and lymph nodes, which the doctors say may be the case...then I have to let my little girl go.

I got two extra years with her, and I am so grateful! So grateful! But I'm so damned angry - there is no reason at all...why creatures who give us so much love, who already have a life span that is so much less than ours (depending on who we are, I guess) have to get diseases like this.

So please send your love and warmth to a little girlie kittie who every night puts her paws on her Mommie's forehead and makes biscuits...and who scratches on the bathroom door until I let her in...who hisses at the cats but will rub noses with Chico, my dog...and who is my little baby girl.

Thank you for listening to me ramble, but I can't do much else right now except just cry, and that's bothering the pets, lol, for they're like, "Mom, wtf, you need to chill, yo..."

Certainly puts things into perspective...like my recent breakup, life questions, all kinds of things. All I know is that one of my "kids" is ill...and I don't know if I'll be able to bring her back from the brink this time. And I'm furious that I can't.

Billychic

&#)$*!@ Web Design

2008-09-05T13:51:00.003-04:00

I'm taking an online web design class and all I can say to those who LOVE it is Kudos to you! I want to be you and understand and love everything about it.

But I don't.

I'm in week 3 of a 6 week adult ed class and have had enough with the random spaces and quotation marks in HTML.

Let me explain why I'm actually taking this. My job is to set up training classes for the military and emergency response personnel worldwide. Never a dull moment for me. Anyway, part of what i do is ensure that some of our classes are posted on our website. I do this my emailing my stuff to the nice guy in Germany who controls the data and information that is actually displayed.

Ok, so during my annual review, my manager asked how I enjoyed that portion of my job (as a computer geek/programmer & chemist himself, he adores all the techy stuff like this). I remember clearly telling him I liked it but didn't quite know how the German guy added the info on the site. And voilá! It was included in my review.

Please don't get me wrong. I love learning new things and usually jump at the chance for a challenge. But since my job is extremely involved and detailed I am thrilled to have the guy who is a web designer to do that part of my job. But taking a class in Web was not something I truly wanted to do... creative stuff is NOT my forte. Actually, thinking about it, I don't really have a creative bone in my body. I admire those who do. I know I'm good at keeping things organized and making sure things and people are where they should be at exactly the right time and not at anything creative.

But I digress.

Though we have a local state school not far from me, when I received our small town listing of adult ed classes, I was thrilled they offered "Intro to Web Design". My boss approved it and off I went.

It was cool at first. I get the starting points of html and head and body and making sure things are closed (like this but not in this order /html and /head and /body). My challenge comes when doing a string of tags where my fingers immediately hit the stupid space bar and then I create unknown tags like bg color rather than bgcolor.

NOTE FOR YOU WEB PEOPLE: I can't put these in the proper brackets since I'm adding this post to (you guessed it) a web site and they don't show up in my post if I do. sigh

Sounds minor but it's driving me INSANE!!!!

I read through the material and ace the quizzes for each lesson. Then I do my damnedest on the affiliated assignments. I work hard and double check everything. Every fucking keystroke. And without fail, I miss a whole shitload of things. It's driving me absolutely BONKERS!

SIGH

With all this bitching and moaning, I should mention that I am definitely learning something. I realize that slowly I am learning the codes and what they do. But I'm also learning that though this is very cool I am not meant for this field. This is where people like you, JS, come in and can do absolutely amazing things with interactive games.

In the meantime, I'll get through the next 3 weeks of classes and hope that I'm still able to chug my way along and actually do something the instructor will find acceptable. And then beyond that, try to find a way to avoid taking "Web Design II: Creating Your Own Website".

Hotels

2008-08-30T11:02:00.003-04:00

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

2008-08-29T18:35:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-29T14:14:00.000-04:00

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?

2008-08-26T02:55:00.002-04:00

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!

2008-08-25T19:21:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-17T15:08:00.001-04:00

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

2008-08-16T02:42:00.004-04:00

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

2008-08-14T23:40:00.005-04:00

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

2008-08-14T11:43:00.003-04:00

-----------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

2008-08-12T10:39:00.010-04:00

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

2008-08-10T05:03:00.006-04:00

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!!!!

2008-08-04T15:43:00.002-04:00

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?

2008-08-02T15:53:00.003-04:00

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

2008-08-01T12:25:00.005-04:00

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.

RIP George Carlin

2008-06-23T23:16:00.002-04:00

Rat shit, bat shit, dirty old twat;
69 Assholes tied in a knot;
Hooray...
Lizard shit...
FUCK!

Some might find that the fact that that quote is the most important memory I have of Carlin growing up might be aghast. Others would find it delightful and very appropriate.

All I know is that in many ways George Carlin shaped my views on sex "what about Roller-Fucking? That's a sport!", freedom of speech (I think I don't even have to give an example here) and just the hilarity of the stupidity of people that you are surrounded with...he was an important part of my growing up - as a youngin'; as a college student; and as a 30-something neurotic divorcee trying to get her shit together down this weird road we call life.

George, I'm so fucking sorry about your passing; you will be missed terribly. Thank you for opening our eyes to the bullshit, for allowing us to laugh at the bullshit, and call infinite bullshit on the bullshit.

Yours was a ride that we will never forget. I hope you are smoking a big fat joint, your hair tide back in a short short ponytail, and giving your best impression of a really stupid redneck in such a way that God and Jesus will throw their heads back and howl with laughter.

Love you, man.

Why Are Shitty Lovers Nice People?

2008-05-12T04:21:00.002-04:00

It seems that that title wouldn't make sense: if someone is a shitty lover that usually means that they don't care about the person they're with - and therefore that makes them...well, it makes them a jerk, right?

In most cases, yes. However, I think the person that I have been sleeping with lately is an exception to the rule.

He is really, really nice; he is concerned for my health and welfare; he tries to help me through my issues with addiction, etc; he encourages my art. In terms of looks and physicality, he's extremely attractive and is well endowed (not gigantic, because that would terrify me, but he's not lacking in that area). Once the clothes come off, he stays hard as a rock and has plenty of stamina; he sticks around to (try) to get the job done (or what he thinks is getting the job done).

However, get the guy in bed, and you find out that:
1) He does not like to go down on women. The only time he ever has so far is if I actually force my crotch into his mouth. I'm not sure if this is his idea of a good time, but I'm not well-versed in Klingon foreplay and I would much rather be ravished that have to orally rape my lover.
2) I have to always be on top. Always. Some women may like that, and I do admit that I enjoy being on top at least 50% of the time...but I really would like to try other styles - and good old fashioned missionary is still right up there in my top three positions. This guy is so lazy (well, he's also overweight, so that might have something to do with it) that inevitably he waits for me to climb on before we can get anything going on. I feel like I'm getting on a kiddie ride and am wondering if I'm tall enough to ride on this ride. Part of the problem is that his enormous stomach (he is an ex-football player, so he has broad shoulders that make him look more stocky and burly than just a big fat-ass) is in the way, so if he tries to take me on the bottom I am nearly crushed to death. Literally. One time we tried it and I had to fake an orgasm just to get him off of me. Another problem stemming from this is that he gets winded.

I'm afraid he's going to have a heart attack during sex like one of the opening scenes of Private Benjamin.

3) He really hasn't a clue about foreplay. In fact, if it wasn't for a little groping and a quick kiss, I would think he was asking for me to pass the salt or something or the remote for the tv instead of his quirky signals that are supposed to suggest to me that he wants to get busy.

4) Going back to number ONE: he loves it when I go down on him, but will then immediately get me to climb on top to finish the deal or else just keep blowing him (all the while begging me to stop so we can have sex, although he won't let go of my head). Never, ever, ever, any reciprocation.

This is a guy that I have started to really care about...but am I an idiot if he's wonderful in every other way but in bed and I want to stop seeing him? Inevitably, I get off, but I could on my own with a few batteries and an Adam & Eve Catalog. He's been there for me more than any other guy I've ever been with in my life...but I really think that if we stay together I will have to find another lover on the side...and I don't want to hurt him like that.

I've tried talking to him about it - and he said he would make an effort to try harder. He has started some actual foreplay now...but he still doesn't go down on me...and he won't offer an explanation.

Why do I get stuck with these...oy. I can't even finish the sentence. Anyone?

Corporate Greed--UPDATE

2008-04-02T12:05:00.002-04:00

From CNN:

(CNN) -- A former Wal-Mart employee who suffered severe brain damage in a traffic accident won't have to pay back the company for the cost of her medical care, Wal-Mart told the family Tuesday.

"Occasionally, others help us step back and look at a situation in a different way. This is one of those times," Wal-Mart Executive Vice President Pat Curran said in a letter. "We have all been moved by Ms. Shank's extraordinary situation."

In this case, the "others" are CNN, who ran this article last week and the sources who comprise the over 130,000 hits on Google for the search term "Debbie Shank", the 141,000 for the name "Deborah Shank" not to mention all of us who left letters deploring the greed exhibited when WalMart sued a brain-damaged woman for the money she won in a lawsuit, kept in trust for her FUTURE care.

Did it do any good to raise hell about this? Apparently it did.

More from CNN:

The Shanks appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court declined in March to hear the case. CNN told the couple's story last week, prompting thousands of angry blog responses and at least two online petitions to boycott the company.

On Tuesday, Wal-Mart said in a letter to Jim Shank that it is modifying its health care plan to allow "more discretion" in individual cases.Video Watch Wal-Mart reverse its decision »

"We wanted you to know that Wal-Mart will not seek any reimbursement for the money already spent on Ms. Shank's care, and we will work with you to ensure the remaining amounts in the trust can be used for her ongoing care," Curran said.

"We are sorry for any additional stress this uncertainty has placed on you and your family."

It's still a sorry-assed thing to find that it took an enormous public outcry to get WalMart to do the right thing, but at least they eventually did.

I Wish I'd Never Been Born

2008-03-10T17:35:00.002-04:00

Well, been a while. This is the first time I'm going to be back writing in months. Short, sweet, and to the point...I wish I had never been born.

I mean, what the fv/k, who the hell am I and what am I doing here? I'm a stress case post-teen stuck in Liminality with no education and an identity crisis. Nice.

BUT...

I do have a Nintendo DS that I link-play with random little kids I see in public (cuz you know how they have that WiFi option that let's you wirelessly link to any console within 400 square yards of you, pretty cool actually). I read graphic novels for adults as some sort of twisted oxymoron of being a kid and an adult, or maybe just being an adult and wishing I were a kid again, or wishing I could still be considered a kid. I think the worse thing I do though is pick out older men in my life who embody my idealized version of mentors and hero's and follow them, idolize them, make myself and my upbringing their responsibility so that they can take the place of a father I never had. That job announcement's been open since I was a...kid. Still accepting applications.

My "father" is like 61 years old and Albanian and grew up in a concentration camp somewhere in Kosovo. He never had a father, "so he doesn't know how to be a father," at least according to my mom, and I'm supposed to feel bad and give the poor guy a break for trying to at least raise his family.

Well dammit apparently his idea of "raising" a family is raising his voice and the back of his hand. That sonofamother doesn't flush the toilet, and then when the hallway bathroom is hopelessly clogged he won't let his kids use his bathroom. We have to hold it until mom comes home. I held it all night once. He used to smack me across the face so hard I'd go to school with red marks until my mom threatened to call child services on him.

And life is worth living right?

My dad doesn't know how to be a father, so why the hell did he have kids? What the hell am I doing here? Why the hell would he be so selfish as to bring a child into the world just because he felt like it. Or wait, no, someone told him to. Apparently you're not a real man or a real woman unless you have children and you're selfish if you don't.

Well I'll be damned, that sounds like getting a puppy for Christmas and it's the old toy by New Years. Why the hell do people even have kids anyway? I mean don't they know that life is FUBAR so bad that it should be illegal to wish a full life span on their worse enemy? Much less a child?

I wish I had a father, seriously. I wish I had a hero to look up to and model myself after so that I don't have to go around looking for role models in older men. Now I'm probably gonna go play my PS3 or something, trying to grow up through fantasy hero's on TV.

Macbeth and Ghost on Fire at Theatre Row: Produced by Oberon Theatre Ensemble

2008-03-02T02:22:00.003-05:00

Oberon Theatre Ensemble has just one week more of our Winter 2008 Rep Season!

Our plays this season are Macbeth directed by Phil Atlakson, and Michael Weller's Ghost on Fire directed by Eric Parness. Both are at The Lion Theatre at Theatre Row - 410 West 42nd Street, west of 9th Ave.

Purchase Tickets from Ticket Central
by phone (212) 279-4200 or online or at the box office.

The price of a ticket is $20 - what many of us spend for a couple of cocktails. Come on out and support a great theatre company that's been around for 11 years...and you get a chance to see some great showcase theatre!!!

Please check out www.oberontheatre.org/calendar for dates/times

Addictions, Addictions: Does the Cycle HAVE to Continue?

2008-02-25T12:35:00.004-05:00

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about addictions. Both of our mothers are alcoholics, and my father had had a heroin habit apparently; I have only met him a few times and the times I did chat with him he had a faraway look in his eyes that was only made more annoying by the way he chain-smoked his cigarettes down to the filter until they were almost as brown as his teeth. Last I spoke to him, he ran a dive bar near Venice Beach; but I heard that he's moved out to Colorado. Mom knows, I think; she usually has a glass of wine near her when she talks about him.

I have several friends, actually, who have various addictions. Another friend I spoke to the other day - who should be writing on here - has somehow gotten hooked on pills, despite her insistence for 15 years that she would never do so, due to her family's history of pill addiction and alcoholism. Another friend started smoking cigarettes at the age of 33; but that was out of a need to curb an out-of-control eating disorder that made her balloon up past 300 pounds...so that really doesn't sit in the "our parents were messed up, so we are too" category.

I have a memory of my mother shouting, throwing pots and pans around in the kitchen. I was about ten or eleven. I remember it like it was yesterday: she was on her hands and knees, under the counter, in the cupboard where she kept all the cookware. She was muttering "C'mon you bastard, c'mon..."

I asked her what she was doing. She said "Go to your room, honey - Mommy is looking for something and she is just upset that she might have to go to the store instead."

So, I went. I had the door open a crack. After a few minutes, I heard her make a happy sound, like a child who gets a toy it wants. A little later, I crept down the hall, my feet silent on our carpet...and she was in the dining room, with a drink in her hand. At the time, I didn't make the connection, really; I was just happy she was okay. Now I realized that she really probably wasn't after all.

Where does that bring me to now? I have always smoked pot, drank, ate pills, dropped acid, smoked opium, blown some flake, had lots and lots of sex, and although I stayed away from heroin (mustn't be like Daddy, now) ended up doing that too, although I didn't shoot it up. Most of that I did in my 20's, so I always chuck it off to college rites of passage, or "finding oneself in their 20's" or whatever...easy as pie to do, it is, blaming the seeds of addictive behavior in the ravages of youth. It's much more difficult to explain to yourself (or others) what business you have doing most of those things and too much of a few when you're approaching 50.

I insist that my love for wine and pot and the occasional lude or tranq when I can get it are well-deserved at my age. I work hard...I do yoga...I eat well. So why not? Well, there isn't really any reason why not, except for when I go out occasionally and come home looking every damn year that I am, alone, reeking of cigarettes (not mine, my friends') and sometimes the scent of sex - and have to really look at myself in the mirror. Am I really all that enlightened?

Or am I just the nearly middle-aged grown-up daughter of two addicts, who never realized that although she didn't rummage through the house looking for a bottle of alcohol or put needles into her veins, she still has the echoes of addiction running through her...and needs to be watchful of this fact? That she maybe does have a problem?

There's a part of me that just wants to say no. And then there's another part that whispers yes...yes yes - and it's about time I finally grew the hell up.

Collaboration in Arts is a Fucking Joke.

2008-02-21T14:50:00.005-05:00

I used to think that it really was possible to enjoy the beauty of the collaborative process in the creative arts - especially the performing arts. It's not so much an issue in other art processes; many of those come to life with the stroke of a pen or brush, or the shutter click of a camera - and they are more expressive and work better when solitary more often than not.

But in the performing arts, whereupon you have actors, directors, dancers, musicians; and you work with playwrights, designers, choreographers to make a dream come to life - one creates, if you will, an EVENT on stage.

Heh. Bullshit.

I am in the throes of surviving something akin to a nuclear holocaust after my most recent forray into the world of "collaborative arts". What a crock of steaming shit.

Working on a film that we already had our doubts about: a remake of a classic set in the world of the contemporary, whose director had the vision of Mr. Magoo; a cast of mostly half-baked actors with the talent of an acorn, surrounded by a indestructible wall of masturbatory and (un-deserving) self-righteousness fanning the flames of their egos that would make even the most indignant divas seem like meek toddlers from a Feed the Children commercial; an assistant director who was so focused on the term "assistant" that he chose to rise above it and thereby be an insulting prick to each and every one of us; a producer who couldn't find her own ass with two hands and a road map, and spent the entire budget on setting the location shoot overseas because of the "gorgeous landscape", and leaving the cast with basically a fig leaf to cover their privates and enough money to simply buy booze to try to forget this nightmare.

I have to ask - really, I have to - what is the fucking point? Why call it a collaboration when it is nothing more than an opportunity for people to spin in their own little orbits and maybe bump into each other in an attempt to get to the desired end?

Art is not supposed to suck this badly, I'm sorry. People are not supposed to be so ruthless and stupid at the same time. Film is supposed to take life to a new level, a heightened reality and a vision, and mold it into cinema and move an audience - be it to tears, anger, laughter - anything.

I just find, as I sit here in my honeywagon (can I really call it that? it doesn't even have a toilet), chewing on a celery stick from a really tired Craft Service station, that perhaps I need to rethink my expectations. I have been around this industry since I was a child, and I'm still shocked at how much it sucks. How the people with no clue are the ones in charge. How a young man, a fellow actor (if I can call someone who acts to himself and acts on his lines an actor), who has the audacity to tell me how to say my lines so that he will look better (and continuously upstages me until the director says something) can not know that he is a fucking tool?

I am convinced that everyone is sleeping with everyone on this set. That's why it's all going to hell in a hand-basket; nobody is calling anyone else out because they're schtupping each other.

The irony is that I'm the only one not getting laid, yet I'm actually the only one really getting fucked.

MIA - In a Big Way...

2008-02-15T16:55:00.000-05:00

First of all, I'd like to thank some of the regular readers of this blog who have been checking in to see if I'm still alive. I appreciate it...there were a few months that I wasn't too sure, actually...lol

I went from having Mono (earlier post) to having to have surgery done on my uterus (ick - same old shit I have had to have done three times before) to getting swept up in a new theatre company (yay!) whereupon I was hired to be the Stage Manager and Assistant Director for a production of Macbeth...a very challenging job, to say the least. This is on top of my regular job - the one I get paid for, that is, my Clark Kent gig if you will. So, I would work 10-6 or therabouts and then head over to rehearsal from 7-11 and then into production...for the past two or two 1/2 months. Needless to say, the Mono never really went away, my cramps got really bad with the surgery, and I've been tired as hell.

On the BRIGHT side, I am now involved with a new theatre company, since my father decided to shut down our school - the one I was so happy about? Daddy realized after 6 months (or, not even that long, really) that he was too tired to teach after all, and David decided to move to California (long story) so I was left without a school to teach at (NYFA only seems to hire me during the summers) and no theatre company any more - since my group had withered and died like the potted plant in my apartment that I just noticed is looking really tired...

Oh, wait - the bright side, right, sorry...so ANYWAY...I'm involved in this new theatre company, the Oberon Theatre Ensemble...and I have a great new boyfriend. We just celebrated our six-month anniversary...which is a really cool thing, considering that I was starting to wonder if I had it in me to even have a "relationship" anymore.

What happened, though, is that my blogs suffered tremendously. I would come home after working all day and then rehearsing (and now, for three weeks in production) totally whacked out and unable to even log on to blogger, much less think of something to write. I've had so much to say...so many things I've wanted to share, but I've been battling WEIRD health issues with trying to conquer this new position.

I've been an actor and director of theatre; I've floor-directed, directed, produced, hosted, etc LIVE television; I've even assistant stage-managed theatre here in NYC once. I thought this would be difficult but not that big a deal.

I was SO wrong. This has been one of the most difficult things I've had to do in my life. Then again, I've said that same thing many times...so perhaps simply growing as an individual is the hard part?

Oh, and what else: this month within a week of my show closing (March 8th) I start a new job in my company on the 12th - pretty damn cool, happy about it, since I'll be doing something different and making more money...and in a position to rock-climb that damn corporate ladder; AND I'll be getting a roommate - which is weird because I only have a one-bedroom...but he's my friend and I'm going to live in my living room.

So...there is an update - sorry I've been MIA - again. I'm going to try to get back on track, because I was really starting to get a lot of readers, both on here and Ornery Woman - and then I just got sick and had WAY too much on my plate.

But you have been in my thoughts...often. Thank for reading.

xo
Billychic

Boredom Makes the Crotch Grow Fonder

2008-02-08T08:42:00.004-05:00

I'm in trouble.

I have been in a relationship for about four months now, and I'm very fond of this person. In fact, there are times when I feel that I love him, and that we could have a really great long-term relationship...and who knows what else after that? He's been, for the most part, great in bed - at least in the sense that he always wants to make sure that I'm satisfied. Considering that so many men seem to NOT be interested in that (sorry to any men reading this, but I can't begin to tell you how many guys are like "hey lady, you're on your own") and the fact that I'm very interested in making him happy, we both always end our lovemaking sessions with smiles on our faces.

He's caring, kind, considerate (most of the time), and an interesting person with a fierce intelligence. He isn't sycophantic in any way, nor is he a cold bastard (well, at least not a lot), and he seems to be a very loyal person who tries his best to keep his word on things. In short, he treats me like I try to treat him - most of the time.

That said, the flames of passion are already waning. For some reason, he never seems to want to have sex with me any more. I know that he is really busy right now with work on a project (we both work in advertising, but he's at a more successful and horrifically busy firm) that could really put him into not only a new tax bracket but in the midst of a whole new clientele; and I myself have been über busy with my job and a job search (on the sly) that is making me re-consider my career choice thus far. I was originally an English major and intended to go into writing and journalism - and found myself suddenly very far from that, surrounded by uptight Soho cliques.

_____ doesn't seem to be interested in me physically any more. He'll joke to his friends after a few beers that "his girlfriend is gorgeous and has a great ass" or he'll tell me how beautiful I am and that it's so wonderful to have me over...but he seems to rather go to sleep than have sex. If I start things, eventually it works it's way into us doing something - but I'm starting to have to do all the work.

And, as a result, no matter how many times he might say that he's attracted to me, I have to wonder if he still is. Is his interest waning? Is he already tired of my body? Is he taking me for granted? I don't think he's seeing someone else, but those thoughts flutter through my head as well, and I can't help but feel the stirrings of indignation inside of me.

And then...unfortunately, because of my wiring, the moment I feel that the person I'm with isn't into me anymore...I begin to look around. Not look as in sampling the merchandise, but simply window shopping. We'll be out and I'll blatantly flirt with one of our mutual friends, picking a piece of lint off of his shirt while I talk to him, ignoring _______ until he taps my shoulder and smiles, "Can I get in on this conversation?"

I want to say, "Only if you let ______ join in with us in bed." Instead, I smile and say "Of course!"

Several of my friends have told me that I'm Poly, and I try to refute this statement to the very end. I know that when I'm in a relationship I am very faithful and I get jealous at the idea of my partner with someone else. However, I also know that I have a very high sex drive and very low self-esteem; two factors that are a recipe for disaster if my partner is treating me like a pal instead of a lover. The fact that the sex that we do have is so vanilla that he hasn't gone down on me since the first month we were together is starting to make me miss the more adventurous aspects of any relationship I've had, sexually.

I am starting to miss the attention of people who flirt with me, who find me attractive. My thoughts are more and more traveling to recent exes, some of whom I talk with on the phone, for we are friends, and I fantasize about encounters. I know that it's harmless, and that I wouldn't (for these exes are exes for serious reasons), but part of me wonders at how harmless this all is; and if I'm not at the edge of a precipice, waiting to fall at the slightest shove. If not into their arms, then the arms of some others whose bodies my eyes have wandered over as of late.

One friend, with whom I have not slept for over a year, always talks about us hooking up every time we talk, even though he knows I'm attached to someone. It's more of a regular joke now, and I tell him he's so silly and then change the subject, but I know that if I was to say yes, he'd be ready in a heartbeat. He recently, during a lament I was making about the state of affairs of my sex life, suggested we go away for a weekend when the weather gets warmer. I almost said yes.

The thing is, I really, really care about the guy I'm dating. I really think he cares about me, as well. I know if I bring this up now, right now, he's going to just blow it off because he's so busy - and my mentioning this will be a big deal...he's going to tell me that I'm being ridiculous and that I couldn't pick a worse time to talk about this. That if I can just hold out a few more weeks, then he and I will have more time to enjoy ourselves together.

But what if he doesn't say that? What if he tells me what I fear: that he's tired of me, of us; that I bore him as much as he has begun to bore me in bed; that the glamor and shine of a new experience has worn off, leaving a lackluster smudge in it's wake?

I guess I don't want to know that either. Not sure...except that instead of being able to have sex with my boyfriend, I'm fantasizing alone in bed at my apartment about being with old flames and current mutual friends. Not a good sign.

Fuck You AND Your Elfin' Lovin'

2008-01-02T08:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the wife and I decided we'd had it with people. Well, ok more accurately, half-drunk, half-stupid "exceptionally midwestern" straight white people.

We're at this post-New Years party and everyone's on their way to another alcohol buzz, it's 2pm and I'm thinking. Drinking makes me really obnoxious (over my usual limit of obnoxious) I can't drink in this company.

And they're all sprawled on the couch (this beer-fattened couple, sans bread crumbs) watching "Lord of The Rings" or one of those over-blown fantasy things...and the music is blaring, and they're drinking their "wedding beer" (it was their anniversary too, and they had this giant bottle of Belgium Beer with an...Elf? on it?)

And I'm like, "what's this?" ... usually dumb movies are playing at this house. I've gotten used to it. And the wife under blanket, sprawled on couch is like, "are you KIDDING?" And I gave her that look I give my students like, "you heard me...shut up."

So we're subjected to dramatic readings of the script, misty-eyed memories of that day they watched all three in the theater (in a row?), and on and on.

I tried to escape to the kitchen for more water when it started to feel like Mystery Science Theater over there on the couch.

Now here is why I'm writing this crabby little piece.

"Oh no, the elf LOVING!" The husband whines. I look at him, because watching them act like sedated nursery schoolers on the couch is INFINITELY more interesting than this movie I glance at him questioningly.

"Well," I wonder if he realizes that he's sort bordering on pissing me off.

"Well, it looks like they're about to make out sometimes. I mean...really."

Ok asshole...you're a GROWN MAN, half drunk at 2pm. Your wife brings her blanket with her to other people's houses, and you're complaining that a little elfin' lovin' borders on
what, inappropriate?

That does it, I'm not leavin' the house anymore.

And my campaign motto is surely, "seltzer in 2008"

Don’t Fear the Feminist

2007-12-22T16:17:00.000-05:00

Last week I received a MySpace friend request from "Women's Studies." While I typically don't accept friend requests from people I don't know personally or from non-human profiles (like mags, groups, etc.), I do like to check out who's checking me out and asking for my virtual friendship. And as a Women's Studies major, I thought perhaps this was someone I knew or maybe a group of BC WS alumni.

So I clicked on the icon:

... and lo and behold, it was nothing as comforting as a fellow feminist, but a "feature length horror film currently in post-production ... the story of a pregnant grad student and her friends who are held captive at a women's academy that's actually a cult of feminists bent on the enslavement of men."

I was horrified (clearly the point of a horror movie, but not this film's intended inducement of horror, I'm afraid); but I still mustered enough objectivity to watch the trailer. My horror certainly grew in intensity, but now it was the result of über-cheesiness that actually takes itself way too seriously: "Rather than a typical 'hack & slash' horror movie, it's an intelligent look at groupthink, women's issues, and how blind belief in any one-sided dogma can create a terrorist." Oh, riiiight.....

Then I wondered, who is actually making this film? My suspicion that it was not written or directed by a woman proved correct. Why is the fact that this film was conceived and created by a man so predictable, you may ask? It's a phenomenon I sometimes refer to as "It's still all about men." The short summary is it's a common assumption about feminism that essentially equates it with man-hating (and in this extreme fictional case: enslavement, torture, and murder). I find this premise not so much offensive as simply insulting. I'm a feminist because I hate men? Sorry to break anyone's heart, but men shouldn't flatter themselves. To think that men (even the hatred or abuse of men) is at the center of feminism is still self-congratulatory and egocentric.

Is this film supposed to be scary because "it could really happen"?! The likelihood of this scenario is not outside possibility but definitely probability. A more likely, and perhaps scarier scenario (for most men, anyway) would be a film about women that didn't include men at all: didn't mention, show, or long for one. A really frightening film about feminism might be one in which there was no longer a need for the word or concept because the world it depicted was so much more advanced than our society that real equality were a given and not a question mark.

The ideal that feminism promotes is actually one of inclusion; if it's excluding or harming anyone, it's not feminism. A pithy statement from one of my favorite bumper stickers is: "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people." To take this sentiment further, one of bell hooks' book titles says, and I agree, Feminism Is For Everybody. Thus the goal of feminism is fairness and "free-to-be-you-and-me," regardless of who the "you" or "me" is.

Truth be told, I think "Women's Studies" (the horror film) is more accurately a form of projection, a depiction of one man's sado-masochistic fantasy. So all you gals who fancy yourself a dominatrix looking for a guy who likes to be whipped into shape by a strong woman, Lonnie Martin may be your dreamboat.

Corporate Greed--Is There a Limit?

2007-12-20T17:05:00.000-05:00

This question keeps coming to mind in recent years, and each time I think I've seen the upper limit, I run into a blogger's post like Daizie's here. She first shows the way to a post at the Daily Kos, and since they say it just fine I'll wait til you've read it.

Really, I'll wait.

Looking at my watch...

Ah, you're done? Good. Time to rant.

I've never been a fan of this company, but hearing this story simply takes the cake, one that I will never buy at Wal*Mart again. When their employee was defenseless, they robbed her. When she was fairly awarded support for the rest of her life by the courts, her employer stole it from her, whining that she'd used a benefit that she paid for out of her small salary. Now she and her family rely on Welfare and Social Security Disability in order to pay for her round-the-clock care and still feed them all and keep a roof over their heads.

I was so shocked and angry that such a huge company has so little compassion that I went to the headquarters website and told them so. I specifically told them that since they took all that money from that poor employee, I don't see where they need my money or that of my friends, neighbors, Internet bitches or anyone else I can get to hold still long enough for me to repeat this story.

Wal*Mart's behavior was heinous and there's NO excuse that could possibly explain why it took Deborah Shank's remaining life savings from her in order to scratch its greedy itch. I told them that too.

If you wish, you can add your voice to that of others by going to the corporate website, www.walmartstores.com .

Barcadi Evening

2007-12-20T11:46:00.000-05:00

Today’s dinner: Barcardi Gold, straight from the bottle, and Baked Tostidos, in fun “scoopable” shapes. Strapped in a furry red robe from Target, I ingraciously perch in my crumb-riddled office chair, scored off Craigslist for $20.

The cat paws at the door, pathetic little scratches, “they’re trying to kill me,” mews.

So I take off my hearing aid. It sleeps on a mountain of GRE study guides stacked at my elbow: curled, flesh-colored, tailed. It looks like a fetus.

In the middle of the night I felt JS stumble around the room, and opened my eyes to his nude, hulking frame wavering in the dark like a white dybbuk searching for its lost eyes. He leaves. In his absence, dark shapes grin: the stationary bike with its wide, handlebar mouth; the fallen towels with their bemused folds. In the far corner, a bench press stirs, little dumbbell children giggling at its teats. A square of striped light pans across the far wall, followed by bleating hip-hop and a dull engine roar. I am reminded of Georgina’s house: Georgina’s room, Georgina’s shadow, thudding and pixie-haired, Peter Pan on steroids; a distant cousin with the face of a horse and the wits of molasses. That was the only summer I knew her.

He returns, steadier now. In his hand is an envelope I confuse for a Kleenex. He seems relieved I am already awake. He sits down next to me. I adore his belly. Written on the envelope, in his spiky, sleepy hand:

“Your hearing aid is screeching.”

Only, he spells it “screaching,”

Embarrassed and guilty, I start mouthing “I’m sorry,” forgetting that he’s the one who can hear; I forget that. I forget that people hear. I mouth to them often when I am deaf.

Pen still in hand, he writes:
“I just wanted to know if that’s okay.”

Georgina married in the early 90’s and I imagined him to be what I, at the time, imagined all husbands to be: balding and skinny; thick glasses and collared shirts; newspapers and crossed legs; CNN and Law & Order. I imagined him to be much like the Dad from Calvin and Hobbes:

Who also kind of looks like the Web guy at my work, and Tom Hanks.

Go See Juno

2007-12-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen Juno yet, you should. You should stop whatever it is you are doing right now and go see Juno. I'm serious. Any moment lived without having seen Juno is just an empty shallow lie of what your life could be. Go see Juno.

I have mentioned before my all-encompassing love for this movie. If I could hug Juno, I would. I would bake Juno cookies sprinkled with unicorn tears. I would travel all over the country in a van and dance in fountains with Juno while The Magic Numbers plays in the background.

Am I being hyperbolic? Hell no, my friends. Hell no.

Often when I watch a movie I will gender-swap the lead roles when I replay the scenes in my head. And then I would recast myself as the newly-improved leading lady and imagine whatever current boy I am fixated on as my romantic interest. It just helps me get through films and life in general.

Men's parts are usually (always) more interesting. The guys have the best lines. Remember Vera Farmiga in The Departed? Her character might as have been named "Vaginal Plot Point". Meanwhile, Mark Wahlberg is rocking all these awesome one-liners, and it's not fair! I want to shoot Matt Damon and make jokes about Alec Baldwin's mom! What about my dreams?

The reason I love Juno so fervently is because I wanted to be Juno. No mental gender-swapping neccessary. Ellen Page's Juno was just awesome personified. She could have taken any of those Apatow boys to school. Who else would scream "THUNDERCATS ARE GOOOO!!!" when their water breaks? Juno rules.

I love this movie. I wanted to stand up in the theatre and shout "They got it! They finally got it!". I wanted to grab strangers on the street and tell them all about this near-religious cinema experience. I want the whole world to see this movie. I want it to make truckloads of money. I want Diablo Cody to win an Oscar. I just want this movie to prove that women can sell movies. I am making it my personal mission to spread the word about Juno, and you can help! Tell your mom. Tell your mom to tell her friends. Then, tell your friends and your friends' moms and tell your friends' moms to tell their friends. With your help, the world can become wrapped in a warm Juno embrace. One nation, under Juno.

Seriously, go see Juno.

gone

2007-12-16T11:59:00.000-05:00

She was only 42 and she's gone.

We met more than 10 years ago and have been like sisters since.

Seven years ago, we were having dinner and her laughter raised my heart. I remember the conversation turning to her recent engagement to her long-time boyfriend and her doubts about him. She sadly told me, "I don't see marriage in my future." I told her it was, that she just hadn't met him yet. The conversation moved on and we spent the rest of the evening in fits of laughter and sillyness as only women can do.

She broke up with him a week later, and told me that he wasn't the man for her. She wasn't ready to spend her life with someone she wasn't certain about.

She put her energy into her work, and relished in spending time with her family and friends. She always made time for her friends. We were her family too.

Six years ago, she was my rock as I was dealt a blow about my health, and helped me realize that "everyone has something" and that this would only make me stronger.

She was there for her mom as she fought cancer and won. She never waivered, just remained the strength that her mom needed, only leaning on us when she felt she needed us.

Five years ago she introduced me to her new love -- and a doctor at that! Seeing the adoring look in his eyes, I knew he was the one. He treated her like a china doll and doted on her every move.

Three years ago she got engaged to this man of her dreams. Two completely different cultures melding into one, ready to spend the rest of their lives together.

A few months after she announced her engagement, I did too. We we the happiest women around, two friends who had found their lifemates.

Two years ago she was convinced something was wrong with her because she "just wasn't feeling right." Doctor visit after doctor visit, trips to non-conventional doctors and nothing. They all made her feel like a hypochondriac. Her future father-in-law (also a doctor) pulled some strings and got her in with a specialist. It was identified: leukemia.

When we asked what we could do to help, she asked for our prayers and mentioned she needed healthy blood. Both my future husband and I were matches to her blood type; we immediately made appointments at Sloan Kettering to donate for her. She was floored that we would travel 2 hours to do this; her husband even called us to thank us. For us it was a no-brainer -- a friend needed help and it was the least we could do.

She and her love postponed their wedding 2 times so that she could get her treatment.

After 9 months, she was in remission.

Last year she got married. One month later I did too. We were at each others' weddings and experiencing the happiest days of our lives.

Earlier this year the leukemia raised its ugly head again. The doctors told her that her only option was a bone marrow donor. Her brother and parents were tested but they weren't a strong enough match. Miraculously, someone somewhere had donated their child's umbilical cord and the fresh, pure blood was a perfect match. She was on cloud 9.

In July my husband and I had dinner with my friend and her husband and laughed. We spoke little about the difficult time she was going to be enduring in just a few days but she was looking forward to the transfusion since it could possibly allow her to live. She wasn't fooling herself; she knew it would be very hard but she wanted and needed to do it.

That was the last time we saw her alive. She was laughing and loving life.

Over the next few weeks we spoke through email and on the phone then her strength dwindled and we heard from her husband and family.

On October 19 I received a call from her husband that she died.

On October 21, our first anniversary, we spent the day at her wake.

It broke my heart to see how devastated and cheated her husband was. But it gave me strength to hear him say that he was so lucky to have known and loved her.

Taking my cue from his words, I now realize that though she's gone, I am the lucky one. I'm the one who was fortunate to have had her in my life. It was her energy, her positive look on life and her friendship and love that makes me a better person. She will always be a part of my life and I cannot thank her enough for that.

It's only been 2 months since she's gone and already I miss her so much.

Portrait Of A Reader

2007-11-28T12:08:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling like a very bad reader right now.

I have spent a month on Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady, and I am just barely halfway through.

I am just...not feeling it. I usually eat up Victorian literature like blueberry mini-scones, but I cannot...am I supposed to like any of these people? I don't trust them. I haven't gotten to know them very well, and I just don't trust them. Osmond in particular creeps me the hell out. I am sure that his relationship to his daughter is supposed to be "affectionate" and "loving", but all I see is "manipulative" and a "pervy". When he refers to her as his "little convent flower" my skin crawls. Something just does not seem right there. And who the hell names their kid Pansy?

What is Madame Merle's deal? Is Ralph in love with his own cousin? Is Isabel actually looking for independence? I don't know, I don't care, and for the life of me I don't know why. How did things get to this point? This is like being in a boring but stable relationship: you know something's not quite there, but you don't know what it is. How did I end up in this relationship? Are things ever going to change? Jesus Christ, The Portrait Of A Lady, we're drowning here, don't you see that? Don't pretend like everything's fine. I don't even know who you are anymore! THIS RELATIONSHIP IS SUFFOCATING ME!

Maybe The Portrait of a Lady is just not a good subway book.

Am I the only one who feels this way about this novel? If anyone out there has read The Portrait of a Lady, tell me: should I stick this out, or move on to other books? Does it get better? More interesting? Less passive-aggressively pervy? I hear Moll Flanders is pretty hot. Is she available?

What if I read The Portrait Of A Lady Monday through Friday and see other books on the weekend? Will that make me "that book whore"? I am in such a moral conundrum...much like in Victorian literature.

Damn this book.

Kanye’s Mom’s Gone to Heaven (and now we’ll have to put up with his whining)

2007-11-18T16:21:00.000-05:00

Nooo! Not Momma West! First Anna Nicole and now Kanye’s mom? All Hollywood’s momma’s are leaving us! Whose next, Britney Spears??

Rapper Kanye West’s mom died on November 11^th due to get this…complications from Liposuction. Well at least it wasn’t a Stingray through the chest like some famous parents decide to go out on.

Now here’s my prediction for the future of Kanye West, and how his mammie is going to come back as the Angel of album sales…

Kanye is going to go off into seclusion for like a year. Not going to be seen at parties, avoid the public, maybe even leave the country. Then he’s going to emerge as a “whole new Kanye” and go public about his experience with losing his mom. How he was battling inner demons, very depressed and talk about contemplating ending his life. Then he’s going to peddle it into a book and generate absolute fandom and use the craziness to announce the release date for a new album. Then he’s going to just bust out and completely blow everyone away and it’s going to go like quintuple platinum and he’s going to thank his mom on stage.

Dang. If only I were that smart. (???) The downside is that now we’re going to have to sit through all of his lyrics preaching about how we should hug our loved one’s more and be better people.

Writers can Strike?!

2007-11-14T13:56:00.000-05:00

This is news to me. Seriously, I didn’t even know writers could strike! I mean, they’re self-employed on commission aren’t they, who are they going to strike against? Themselves? Weird.

BBC NEWS- There is no end in sight to the increasingly bitter Hollywood writers strike. Union members and their employers, the studio producers, are rigidly sticking to their position that they are not to blame for the deadlock.

Okay, so apparently every screenwriter in Hollywood is refusing to write. Shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives will purportedly suffer the hardest (as if these shows are well-written anyway, I’d rather watch Scrubs and Chickfights on Youtube). And Oh No! The Jay Leno Show is going to have to air re-runs! NOOOOOO!!!

Writers are ticked because apparently with the inundation of digital media like DVD’s and TIVO and internet broadcasts, Networks are doing things like airing shows online or selling DVD’s of the series and not paying the writers every time they do so. Writers want what are called “residuals” for when their media is used outside of a regularly scheduled program, even though they’ve already been commissioned and let go.

What they heck, so they want to get paid for work they’ve already been paid for? O.o

And even actors are walking off their jobs to support the writers! Someone please tell me what actors have to do with this? No one’s more air-headed than actors nowadays, they strike for jobs they don’t even have. Hah, I’m going to laugh when they get sued for breach of contract.

You know what, I’m a firefighter. I spent the summer fighting raging wildfires in the worse fire season in California history. I got paid about $12 an hour. I’d sure as heck like to make a little more money seeing as I’m like, you know, risking my life and all. But hey, that’s what they pay me, and I took the job. What am I going to do? Refuse to go fight a fire until they pay me more?

So now there are a bunch of writers wandering around Hollywood with red shirts that say “On Strike.” I’m temped to get a red t-shirt that says “Go Back to Work” on the front, and “8 Cents” on the back.

Right now, if I were an up and coming writer, I’d jump on the opportunity to be a scab for a big show right now. Screw the Writers Guild’s threats of retaliation, use a pen name and get your foot in the door while everyone else is at home sleeping.