A genetic desire to say...

Fuck you, Walt Disney company!

Mind you, I think Disney's new animated movie - featuring its first African-American princess (about time, guys!) looks very cool.

Not so cool: the company's spokesman, Gary Forster, proclaiming that:

“We believe it is an innate desire in the vast majority of young girls to play out the fantasy of being a princess… They like to dress up, they like to role-play. It’s just a genetic desire to like pink, to like the castle, to turn their dads into the prince.”

(For more, read it here.)

Newsflash, Gary: some of us had the genetic desire to collect action figures like Green Lantern, Batman, and the Incredible Hulk.

Last time I checked, none of them wore pink.

I don't even want to go near his implications about us wanting to marry our dads. I think Freud spread around that fucked up idea quite awhile ago, actually.

What pisses me off the most is that mainstream media haven't murmured a mere peep about this outrageous comment. I found out about it from Feminist Review.

Can you imagine the uproar if Forster would have made such a stereotypical comment about an ethnic group? It just goes to show that women, while making up more than 50% of the population, are still an acceptable group to generalize about.

You notice it's a (clueless) male who made this comment, anyhow.

Each day I realize how lucky I was to grow up with a feminist dad who told me I could do anything I wanted. He'd be pissed about this kind of comment, too.

The fluffy white f%$k!

This is why I can never stay mad at him...because he's so damn cute!

I am eagerly awaiting text from all of you who have e-mailed me vowing to use the words "fluffy white fuck" in a sentence!

Post them in comments...I can't wait!

The Count's F*$#ing Vacation!

Sweet story of the day

OK, call me a sap, but this story about the world's tallest man is truly heart-warming.

Haven't we all, at some point or another, felt like we didn't fit in, or didn't belong? My mother told me that when she was in elementary school, she seriously thought maybe she was from another planet! That, she reasoned, would explain why she didn't fit with the rest of her family...

When I was in college I told a friend that I felt like I was nobody's kind of girl. "Of course you are!" she said. "It's just that none of them can have you."

That felt like a million bucks...compared to a friend who said, a few years later, that maybe I "wasn't meant to be with any one person romantically, but just a really good friend to a lot of people." Ouch.

He was wrong, obviously, and his wife still hasn't figured out that he's gay!

I still have people comment that I'm "out there," "something else," or a bit different, but you know what? I'm happy about that now. I don't see myself as weird, but why be dull?

Anyway...I thought it was sweet that people all over the world have come out to befriend this man in the Ukraine, who is now hoping to meet his soulmate.

Good luck, sweetie!

Unfortunately, there were three separate movies...

Happy weekend!

Reason #1,204 that I'm glad I'm not a guy

I'm reasonably confident that my boss will never ask me to piss in a plastic bag instead of wasting time hunting down a bathroom.

What else should we expect from a shitty phone company with shitty service? (Qwest.) Dumbass corporate motherfuckers.

Sorry, that's redundant, isn't it?

Please! Take a moment today...

And hug someone you love. And tell them you love them.

My aunt's husband of less than four years committed suicide this week by taking a one-way hike up a mountain. The last memory she has of him is a big fight, and him leaving and threatening to kill himself.

Clearly most of us aren't on the edge like that, but STILL. Fights and anger are temporary. Let your loved ones know how you feel, because we never know what will happen next.

PS What makes me really fucking mad are all of these know-it-all readers who have posted on articles that my uncle "was an idiot" to go hiking without overnight gear. You dumbfucks. He didn't go on a hike. He was suicidally depressed and didn't plan on coming back. I wish you'd realize how fucking painful these comments are.

People, places and things...that pissed me off today!

MEOW!!!!

OK, some of you have been accusing me of being Little Ms. Sunshine lately...so here you go. I actually started this blog to have a vehicle for ranting so I'd rant less at home, but I've strayed from that...trying to focus on the positive...but hell. Like the magnet on my fridge says, "Sometimes It Just Feels Good to Bitch!"

So here's my top 10 list of things and people that pissed me off today:

1. The impatient bitch in the white Jetta who almost ran me over in the crosswalk near the post office. Have you heard of pedestrians? You were in such a bloody hurry to go to ... the drive-up mailbox! Mon dieu! If you would have waited for me and not almost put me in the hospital, surely the box would have gotten up and left, right?

2. The equally impatient asshole in the silver Lexus who tailgated me through the school zone on the way home. What part of the words "School Zone" don't you understand? As immature as it is, when you started really riding my bumper it felt SO GOOD to finally give in to my urge to flip you off.

3. The cat. OK, I know you're pushing 20 years old, which the vet says is like being 92 if you're a human, and you're deaf, and you're a purebred, and you have kidney failure - none of which are any fault of your own. However, I *did* inherit you from my younger brother and this geriatric cat care (and vet bills) are all fine any dandy, BUT...must you piss on the bathroom floor and then scream your head off? You fluffy white fuck! It's bad enough that I have to clean up after you, but do you have to whine quite so loudly about it? I'm cleaning it up, not you.

4. The immediate family of a friend who is caring for his ailing parents. You three (wife + adult kiddos) are the most selfish bunch I've ever heard of. The spouse: you work fewer than two full days a week, and you can't manage to even ride with him on these trips to the hospital, or even go to the grocery store without complaining? The best thing he could use, in addition to the support you're not giving him, would be a great blow job, but from what I hear, that happens like once a year. So glad I'm not married to someone as selfish and bitchy as you. The kids: you can't even change your own lightbulbs? Does he need to wipe your asses in the bathroom as well? Give me a fucking break!

5. Sprite Zero, or whatever you are called. Why must you be so addictive? I have been drinking a bottle a day which is an OBSCENE amount of soda for me, and full of chemicals...and it never seems to last more than a few minutes.

6. Movies. Why do the ones currently playing all suck?

7. Heather Mills. You gloat to the whole world about getting nearly $50 million for four years of screwing! And then have the balls to say your ex slighted your kid because you're only getting $70K a year for child support!!

8. People whose calls I am WAITING FOR after interviewing. At least reject me! This not having a job part sucks. I'm educated, hard-working, and personable. I'm also fucking broke, so fucking hire me already!

9. Nicotine. Why do you allure my husband, who quit smoking almost four years ago? Fucking tobacco companies. You're also responsible for the health problems that my friend's parents are going through. Intentionally spiking your product, marketing to kiddies and then your CEOs lying under oath about whether they believed their products were addictive. Rot in hell. Those multi-billion dollar judgments are too good for you. It's blood money.

10. My body. Why do you have to ache under stress? You're 31, not 101!

That is all.

Free speech? What free speech?

Why preach tolerance when you can simply sue people you disagree with?

Give me a fucking break, would you? Shouldn't entire nations be a bit more grown up?

As much as I believe that we should all accept each other, get along with each other, be tolerant of each other, etc. - OK, with the exception of Dick Cheney, Elliot Spitzer and Ken Starr - I also believe in the freedom to offend.

Can you imagine censoring anything and everything we considered offensive?

For me, that would basically wipe out the GOP...

Why can't you just keep it in your pants?

OK, I *hate it* that a Democrat has gotten caught up in a sex scandal...because despite evidence to the contrary (including evidence that has forced several Republicans to resign), Republicans are, of course, piping up and playing pious...

And a disclaimer: I think prostitution should be legal. Only because it would create a safer environment for the men and women (mostly women) who are in the sad (in my view) position of selling themselves for money. No moral judgment on my part.

I also know that some people are uptight about sex, and many marriages/partnerships/relationships suffer from this.

That said...

A tip for the uninitiated: Don't run for public office on an anti-corruption platform and gloat about busting a prostitution ring when you're paying $5,500 an hour for a call girl.

And is it just me, or are the rest of you just sick of the wives being hauled out to press conferences to stand by the asinine guys who were dumb enough to get caught with their dicks where they should not have been? Then these asshats "apologize" to their families and most of the women (including the wife of the mayor of Detroit, who got ensnared by sending some 14,000 text messages on public phones to his mistress) say, "Oh, I stand by my husband."

No, you are letting your husband publicly walk over and humiliate you. That's why it puzzles me that people see Hillary Clinton as a great big feminist.

Yeah. Not my business, but you know what? I sort of feel like it makes the rest of us look like inane Tammy Wynettes who are fulfilling the 1950's stereotype, standing by our men.

No one I know would do that. I mean, hello! And in the case of this gov's wife, here she is sending a message to her three teenage daughters that this behavior is OK in a relationship.

Yuck.

I asked my husband last night, "How the hell do you think he explained the situation and then got her to go to that press conference?"

His reply: "I imagine he told her what was up, then she got out a pair of scissors, and he'll never get them back."

A guest blog...

From my friend "Chella" (that's her alias) in England - she's a native East Coaster and hadn't experienced an earthquake until that one in Northern England hit recently. (She's the one in the middle; I'm on the left and her fiancee, Sarah, is on the right.)

Her style of writing is so hilarious that I thought I'd use this excuse to share it with you:

So I’ll set the scene:

I’m sitting at my desk in the attic, checking my email and talking on the phone with my best friend back home in New York.

I start to feel a slightly distracting rumbling. "Big truck?" I think, still chatting away.

Next, the rumbling gets louder, and I felt the ground shaking. "We live near the railway line..." I rationalize.

Then I realize it feels more like a New York City subway train going under a building. I calmly tell my friend Matt to hang on while I do a quick mental inventory.

Okay. I live on a dead-end street, so trucks can't pass by for that long.

And, I can’t be feeling a New York City subway running under me, mainly because I am in a room on the second storey of my house, but also, and slightly more pragmatically, because I am in Sheffield.

The rumbling becomes a roiling motion that bubbles from the south, toward me, through the house, and passes further on down the hill toward the city centre, behind me. The angled Velux window starts chattering like teeth. The windowsill display of childhood artifacts comes to life. I watch our Miss Piggy and Mork and Mindy lunch boxes, Official Sesame Street Rubber Duckie and one of the cuddly mice from Bagpuss dance to the edge of the sill like a kitschy, nostalgic dream sequence. I am momentarily mesmerized.

It’s the lunch boxes that remind me of my childhood in the US and break me from my reverie.

"If you are ever in an earthquake, get everyone together and stand in a doorway, away from the windows." Mrs. Young taught us well.

That's what it is! I spring into action. It all happens very quickly.

I’ll slow it down so you can see the hummingbird’s wings, as it were:

"Matt! I think we're having an earthquake." Half panic half excitement into the phone.

"What? Now? Okay." He doesn’t protest as I drag his disembodied voice downstairs on the cordless phone.

Three police-style knocks on the bedroom door.

"Sarah! Did you feel that? Come here!"

She comes to the doorway, bleary eyed, watching me as I stand purposefully with my back pressed to the door frame. She looks at me for a long moment, and not in a good way.

"Didn't you feel that? We're having an earthquake."

The look continues.

"Well, it's stopped now, but we were. I think we were. I mean...do you think a big truck went by?"

Okay, the look is quite withering by now. I start grasping at straws.

"We learned in school that you have to stand in a doorway." This comes out in the whiny tone of voice a second-grader would use, which doesn't help my cause.

Finally, she gives me her verdict: "You woke me up because you think there was an earthquake? I'm going back to bed. We don't even live on a fault line. And get off the phone."

Oh yeah, the phone. I take Matt outside with me to make sure there isn't a more localized cause. He’s happy to keep me company as I do a quick inventory of the garden. No collapsed roofs, no explosions, no piles of bricks or mud. No...

Nothing, actually. No people, no dogs, no lights on. I’m alone in the street. Then the phone goes dead.

It takes me and my adrenaline-fueled imagination a little while to work out that I have simply walked out of range of the cordless phone signal.

What? It COULD have been an imminent zombie attack.

All of my neighbours have jobs and babies. As I peer up at their darkened windows, I decide not to wake up anyone else. Based on Sarah’s response, I suspect that the further removed from my immediate household, the worse the reaction to a summons will be.

I go back inside. Sarah, as promised, had gone back to bed.

Am I hallucinating? How can I prove I’m not losing my mind without delving into those pamphlets of the great philosophers I so diligently collected last month? Cogito ergo sum…cogito.

I become frustrated, realizing the only people I know who are still awake are in the Eastern, Central and Mountain time zones. Much nearer to regular earthquakes, but, crucially, a bit to far from this one to accurately comment.

I cannot rest!

I want someone to investigate.

“Ma’am, you’re ringing to report that your house feels wobbly?” I can hear it before I even dial. I choose not to waste police time.

This isn’t a crime. I need a public institution that investigates things that aren’t… necessarily… crimes.

Inspiration strikes. I log onto the BBC news website.

Good old BBC.

'A tremor felt in the Midlands.'

Refresh.

'4.7...'

Refresh.

'5.1!’

‘Biggest Earthquake of my life!'

You know what?

Me too.

Vindicated, I dial New York, eager to share.

Thank you.

How COOL is my mom?

Glass ceiling? Ha! She says...making appearances in the Wall Street Journal and San Jose Mercury News!

V.v. cool. :)

Keeping the candy shop open...

My husband figured out that I am the only wife among himself and his male coworkers who doesn't withhold sex (aka "the candy shop," as his coworkers call it) when pissed off. (Who am I kidding? I couldn't hold out that long anyhow. Toys can only do so much.)

Coworker #1's wife didn't hand any over for a month...until he stopped talking about wanting to buy a motorcycle. He figured this out on his own, mind you, she didn't connect the dots for him.

Coworker #2's wife didn't like a video that he brought home...they usually watch them together, and even go to strip clubs (Mr. Riot Kitty suspects they are both bi, incidentally), but apparently trans-on-trans porn wasn't up her alley. She also didn't say anything, but as Coworker #2 told my husband, "I went to the candy shop and it had turned into a dry cleaners."

Coworker #3 is simply a jackass...my husband suspects he was simply being himself too often.

But perhaps now we know a fix for all of this...

It's funny, because a friend of mine in college used to complain that his wife wouldn't give him any unless he was doing enough chores. She wasn't verbal about it, either...he just figured it out.

And did more chores.

Dear God, I hope my family doesn't read this!

Warm and fuzzy moment of the day

How cute is my kitty?

Do you remember being this little?

I came across this picture tonight - I think it's from 1998 - of me and my little brother.

I e-mailed it to him and inquired, "Do you remember being this little?"

Lots of things have changed since then, of course - one of my favorite being the fact that the burn mark on my thigh has disappeared. (Tip for the uninitiated: Never let a hyper cat near a hot bowl of Indian soup that's dangerously close to your lap.)

It's weird watching your little siblings grow up. Not that I want them to remain children forever; on the contrary, I think they get more interesting as they get older.

When this picture was taken, Blake was 2 1/2 and my little sister was an idea. I was 21 and didn't yet have a year of sobriety under my belt. I hadn't yet lived in the Northwest, worked as a reporter, or visited England or Japan. I still highlighted my hair and worried to death about the most insignificant things. (Granted, I was already a coffee addict.)

When Blake was this age, I'd babysit him and encourage him to eat "buk" (chicken), he still liked getting stuffed animals as presents, and he didn't talk very much. He idolized my brother Nik and at age 2, he was already a neat freak.

These days, when he's in the right mood, he can be verbose like you wouldn't believe; he's 12 going on 40 and probably the most mature of all four of us (ages 31, 28, 12 and 7) and - surprise! - he's more prone to be messy.

When I was 12, I thought it would be forever until I grew up.

Not so, my dad said.

That was the same year I moved in with my dad and he told me, "These six years of you being in junior high and high school will go by more quickly than you think. You'll blink and you'll be in college."

I couldn't wait to turn 16 and drive; turn 18 and be legally adult; turn 21 and be really adult. And since 21, he's right: time has flown by faster than I ever thought it would. I've lost friends and relatives and coworkers. I've learned that we have to think about death as a part of life and that we might not have as much time as we think with the people we love. (Or, alternately and preferably, the people who we don't!)

A good friend and I have been debating the idea of happiness - of when it's appropriate to live for the moment, and when it's just not possible. When it's OK to extricate yourself from a situation and exit a relationship even if you will likely hurt other people in the process.

The older I get, the more I learn that the less I know.

When I was little, my dad used to say, "Life's too short to be depressed." Later on, when I was clinically depressed, he began to say, instead, "Life is too short to worry about things that don't matter." It's a good mantra.

I do know that despite the bumps, despite the tangles and things that really piss me off, I am blessed. Blessed to have Blake, and the rest of my family, husband and cats, friends, ESL students and people at church in my life.

Of course I am still a caffeine addict who swears at Oregon drivers, but hey - no one's perfect.