Gene Simmons, I'll never fuck you. Ever.

Even if I wasn't single - and even when I was single - I can tell you with supreme confidence that no member of the band KISS could have or could lure me into bed.

Somehow, according to the band's frontman Gene Simmons, more than 4,600 women have - and continue to (despite the fact that he's married) - slept with him.

My friend Bernadette shared this NPR interview with me, where Simmons - who, by the way, is a first-rank capitalist, with a marketing company, and a reality show where he and his partner televised their facelifts - says that every (heterosexual) guy wants to be like him, fucking his way across the universe. The only thing that stops them, he says, is that they don't have as much money as he does.

"Money is the single most important thing on the planet," he says.

My first question to my friend was, "What about the makeup?!" Terry Gross asked that question in the interview, and he replied, "I wash it off."

I'd say very few of the men I have come in contact with want to be a swashbuckling asshole. Most of them want or have wanted their fair share of conquests, but I don't think they're all pigs at heart.

"If you want to welcome me with open arms," he tells her, "you have to welcome me with open legs."

What do you think?

PS Gene Simmons - I don't care how rich you are, I'll never fuck you! With or without the makeup.

TGIAFF!

Thank God it's almost Fucking Friday!! This has been a never-ending week since last Friday. Overnight in the middle of nowhere for work that day. Conference at work all day Saturday. As of tonight, my boss and I have worked 24 hours out of the past 48.

I love my job - but I need a whole weekend. Tomorrow is CHOCOLATE with Darth and Pheromone Girl and I can't wait!

But first, I need to get through another meeting...I am feeding people Subway sandwiches in the hopes that their mouths will be too full for them to cause any trouble.

And selfishly...I ordered all of the sandwiches sans the onions. People in our organization tend to whine and the last thing I need is whining + stinky breath.

Is that passive aggressive or am I just a control freak?

Happy almost Friday!

Helpful is in the eye of the beholder

We had our annual conference for work last weekend (there went my weekend!) It went well but nothing exhausts me more than being around a lot of people - especially ones I don't know or don't know well. This, I read, is the mark of a true introvert, although only people who know me well believe that I'm that way.

There were 125 people who signed up, most of whom I hadn't met before. Fortunately none of the real cranks were there this year - mostly nice people and only a few irritating ones.

I was probably most surprised by a guy from the Southern part of our state who came up and introduced himself and said, "Riot Kitty! I'm J. You're wonderful! You always help me when I can't get your boss on the phone! And you helped me today the minute I walked in!"

Thanking him, I was puzzled at how I had helped, because I hadn't talked to him (so I thought) at the conference prior to that moment.

Then it dawned on me: I had shown him the way to the restroom.

Helpful is definitely in the eye of the beholder!

I would have been burned as a witch.

My dad is fond of saying that if I had been born in another century, I'd have been Joan of Arc.

I'm not quite that brave - I think had I even been my age in the 1950s, though, I'd have been burned as a witch. (By the way, Peach Tart wrote an interesting post about being glad she wasn't stuck in the 1950s.)

Both of my grandmothers are married to chauvinistic jerks. I don't feel bad about saying this because none of my grandparents (and all four are still alive) have bothered about their grandchildren, so the only bits I have seen are what I observed at rare reunions and gatherings.

My grandfather on my biological mother's side is just a bastard, honestly. I had to spend two days with him and my grandmother a couple of years ago when my great aunt (my grandmother's sister) was dying. I had some choice words for him when he continually picked on my grandmother - just mean, unnecessary, bullying stuff. Thing is, he shut up when I told him to knock if off. She hasn't spoken up for herself in 55 years of marriage, so she probably doesn't realize that under that bravado varnish, he's just a coward.

He has been in the hospital with a staph infection and my dad and I were debating whether my mother would go to his funeral if he died. We both agreed that she shouldn't, because he was just a terrible father. Neither of us communicate with her, but I think he really fucked her up.

Anyway, he told me a hilarious story about one of the times we had visited my grandparents while he and bio-mom were still married. I was maybe four years old and I asked why my grandfather was served his dinner before the rest of us. (Yes, it was that kind of sexist household.)

My dad, who these days would never sit at a dinner table with this kind of shit going on, said it was out of respect.

But I wouldn't leave it, even at age four.

Me: "But why?"
Dad: "Because...he's the head of the household."
Me: "Why? Who decides that? What if we're hungrier than he is?"
My grandfather (to me): "I'm glad you don't live here."
Me: "I would never live here!"

If I would have ever had to live in that house, I think I would have been burned as a witch.

Tip for the uninitiated

Now I know that people have used dead relatives as an excuse to get out of things. Someone I knew in high school, for instance, worked at the same shop that her sister had worked at previously. On her last day, her boss pulled her aside and said, "Oh, by the way. You and your sister are the only people I've employed who had three grandmothers die while they were here." You see, M and her sister had used the excuse a total of three times. Oops.

However, here's a tip for the uninitiated: if you use death as an excuse to get out of a meeting, make sure you don't kill off relatives of which you only have one, more than one time.

The board member that I hate - HATE HATE HATE HATE! - OK, I don't really hate anyone but she comes pretty damn close - the same one who is constantly criticizing everyone else, while promising the moon and yet never delivering any work - missed a meeting last night. She said her dad had died.

And then I find out that six months ago, she canceled a meeting with another person in our organization who happens to be a friend of mine, because - guess what? - she was making funeral plans. For her dad.

Does she have more than one?

I told my boss and for the first time since I met him, I saw his jaw drop.

But over a work dinner tonight (and I think he had had a few beers after work), he blurted out, "Shit! That woman is NUTS! And I put her on the board!"

Then he looked at me sheepishly, because we both work for a mental health organization, and said, "And I don't use that word lightly, because you and I are nuts, too!"

So now I am off to our conference for work this weekend...I expect more strange stuff and more laughs.

Outreach for bigots

A lot of my job is becoming outreach - which is cool not just because it was my idea, but because we need to spread the word into all kinds of communities that mental illness is not a sin. Sadly, some communities still feel this way (we are told) even though having depression, say, is just as organic as having diabetes.

So I don't normally write about religion but this week the Vatican has really pissed me off. They've decided to extend a warm welcome to non-Catholics, specifically Anglicans, who are upset about progress - namely, the fact that women and GLBT people can become priests.

That's right. Want to keep female, and non-straight people of all genders in their place? So does the Vatican! Join us in celebrating heterosexual men as religious leaders! Even if we won't let them have sex, if we *did* let them have sex, their dicks would be in the right place!

It just makes me sick. The Catholic church, in my opinion, is outrageous enough - the pope has the audacity to live in a palace in robes that probably cost more than my car, but go into poor countries and tell people who can't feed the kids they already have that they shouldn't use birth control.

But this isn't the first time the Catholic church has done some marketing to gain membership - you know all of those Roman holidays? Well, they figured that it would be easier to put Christmas and Easter around those times of year to bring Pagans into the fold.

First Pagans, now bigots. Anyone who wants to join and give them more money, I suppose.

So I suppose it's religious marketing 101.

Incidentally, I have been to Vatican City, which is also known as the smallest country on earth. They wouldn't let me into the Sistine Chapel because my dress showed my shoulders. But I was allowed to wait outside at the gift shop while the rest of the tour went through.

Honest to a fault

is how I'd be if I didn't try to be diplomatic in places, say, like meetings for work.

Aliceson tagged me for this meme, and I am supposed to tag 7 other people, but I've tagged the hell out of most of you, so feel free to participate or not as you see fit. I'd love to learn more about you all!

The theme: 10 honest things about yourself.

So here goes:

1. From age 13 to 26, my hair was just about every color except platinum blond: all shades of red, most shades of blond, dark brown, and even black. Then I stopped fucking with it and it's sort of a dishwater brown with a few gold bits if the sun or the light hits just right.

2. I have had (unwanted, mind you) sex dreams about every male boss I've ever had except the one I slept with. Don't worry, this was in college, and I was a freelancer. For the paper, I mean.

3. I am the only person in my family with my last name. I bought it. Meaning I paid a lawyer $500 to go to court and change it for me. Just because.

4. I am tough when I need to be, but also a somewhat sensitive person who can get hurt feelings easily. I'm working on this.

5. My cats are more appealing company to me than most of the people I know - or my extended family even.

6. It's difficult for me not to be judgmental of people that have a lot of resources - e.g. time or money - on their hands and don't use it to help other people.

7. I hate TV because until I moved in with my dad in seventh grade, the TV was always droning on in the background, because my mother wanted to do her own thing.

8. I am a closet John Denver fan.

9. I am naturally a curious person to the point where it sometimes annoys other people.

10. One day I'm afraid I'm going to go ballistic in a crowded grocery store when the 90th person bangs into my basket with her cart, tries to cut in front of me in line, won't get her ass out of the way so I can move down the aisle, or asks the checker 16 different ways if they carry an item when she has been told 18 times that they don't. I may lose it and start throwing heads of cabbage at everyone and get kicked out. I really might!