Monday, December 3, 2018

I'm Drying Up, Man

This will meander. I apologize. President Pussygrabber stole the life out of me and I haven't had the inclination to blog and also I've been spending too much time on Twitter and am, therefore, suffering from a surfeit of opinion. There are too many opinions! This is my opinion! Who wants to hear more?

I know, I know! Not you.

Good burn, imaginary blog reader!

Anyway, another opinion (it's why we're here, folks). Wanna know the worst thing about getting old? The increasingly cacophonous drumbeat of your own mortality. That shit sucks.

Also, my skin is drying the eff out!

I am a moisturizing mofo. I have a subscribe and save Amazon deal for L'Oreal Revitalift Anti-Wrinkle + Firming Night Cream. The name of this product makes me angry. I don't care. I love it despite its dumb plus sign and false promises. And, look, I know that night cream and day cream are the same thing. I'm not stupid! I saw Patti Lupone as Helena Rubenstein in War Paint explicitly state this (the previous statement a total Tahani name drop because, you guys, I saw Patti Lupone on stage IRL and it was ah-mah-zing)  but for some reason I'm happy with Ponds in the morning but I require something from a glass jar at night. I can handle the cheap plastic Ponds jar (is it a jar? does a jar come in plastic? aren't jars by nature glass? tub? it's a tub, isn't it?) after a good night's sleep, but when I'm nestled up in my comfy king-sized bed, nightcap beside me, soothing television show in front of me, I cannot with the plastic. I must have glass! MY PRECIOUS!

Amazon tells me that most people get one jar of L'Oreal Revitalift Anti-Wrinkle + Firming Night Cream a month.

Lololol, I blog scoffingly.

I get two jars a month. Plus the giant tub of Ponds (I've accepted the tub-iness of it) for morning and also other ad hoc face and neck moisturizing. There's a lot of ad hoc moisturizing. I work from home.

I also just indulged in the buy-3-get-3 deal on Ultra Shea Body Lotion from Bath and Bodyworks. I am bougie in the most basic ways imaginable. The shea is ultra which is so much better than shea that is moderate, self-effacing, discreet. I mean, obviously.

(shhh. I don't know what "shea" is, but I'm a sucker for it)

People tell me they can't stand how greasy they feel after they apply lotion. WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? I AM FLUMMOXED BY YOUR LOTIONLESS WAYS!. I apply lotion to my skin and it drinks it up like it's Nic Cage chasing an Oscar (note: Don gave me the start of this metaphor, but the surprise twist ending is my own. I AM PROUD). I emerge from a shower, dry off and slather myself in shea in all its ultra glory. It's wonderful. For about an hour. Then MOAR LOSHIN!

I inherited nice skin from my mother (thanks, Mom!).  I am a sun avoider from way back. I wash my face once (not twice! Nevah twice!) a day. I take care of my skin. I have been the motherfucking Daenerys Targaryen of skin protection. DRACARYS, wrinkles and dry patches and sags. DRACARYS YOU ASSHOLES.

But I am knocking up on 50. This battle grows more pitched, more heated. I grow weary from the fight. Sometimes a bitch just wants to go to sleep, you know? But I'm going to fight on. I'll drink a lot more water, commit to at least 8 hours of sleep a night, enter into some Mephistophelean pact (does anyone have a Mephistophles guy?), ponder deeply whether I can afford to do whatever Nicole Kidman has done (I love Nicole Kidman, you guys! But there is a lot of science behind that smooth, poreless nature). You know, a normal skin care regimen.

Anyway. This is my first blogpost in forever. I hope you've enjoyed it. I'm going to go upstairs and apply more lotion.

Monday, September 10, 2018

It Got Real Mean This Morning

On Tuesday-Friday, during my morning make breakfast/clean kitchen/deal with dogs routine, I'll watch the previous night's Late Night with Seth Meyers. I love that show. He seems like such a good guy; never leering or creepy; happy to elevate his women writers, smart and engaged, and angry about all the right things. His Closer Look segments are an invaluable tool for staying informed in these parlous times without being dispirited. And Jokes Seth Can't Tell is somehow simultaneously the most hilarious, most radical and most adorable 5 minutes of comedy. I just love him.

But I can't watch it on Monday mornings because there's no show on Sunday. Bummer. On Mondays I go local and hang out with the fun and charmingly punchy WGN morning crew.

This morning the Around Town with Ana Beleval segment went to the Old Joliet Prison which is now a park or some shit like that. This would have been sort of great because a park is better than a prison, but during the segment there was this exchange, paraphrased:

Joliet Prison Tour Guide: When the prison was active, prisoners could get their GED or, for a while, even a full college degree
Ana Beleval: Wow! That's great
Joliet Prison Tour Guide: Well, they stopped the college program because as a judge said 'Steal a car and get a free college education,' so they just went back to the GED program.

And then Ana and the tour guy giggled over that clever judicial assessment.

Y'all - we live in a country where the idea of a kid going to prison in order to get a college education is a laughable (laughable!) scam. Let me say that again: a person goes to jail (to jail!) because they can't afford to go to college and we laugh (laugh!) at that.

And, obviously, there's not a man born of woman who goes out, steals a car, does years (YEARS!) in Joliet prison, gets their prison issued college diploma, walks out a felon (FELON!) with all the commensurate lack of rights that entails and goes:


This is a total fiction that this judge came up with in order to screw over prisoners who were already pretty screwed over on account of that they were in JOLIET PRISON! Do you know what Joliet Prison looks like? It looks like this:


Yes! I think I'll sacrifice my freedom in order to live in this cheerful place for several years in order to scam Illinois out of a free college education (WHICH SHOULD BE FREE TO ANYONE WHO WANTS ONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!)

I just really want to live in a country that's not so mean. I am shook (I think that's what the kids say) at the blithe laughter that followed that incredibly mean exchange. I wish we, as Americans, had a national, civic inclination to kindness. But the "Screw him! I got mine!" voice just seems increasingly loud, increasingly influential in the way we legislate and politick and live. It's gross.

I read this quote about Jane Addams years ago which I can't remember exactly. I have googled and googled and I can't find the quote - but I'm sure that it was said of Jane Addams by a woman who worked with her and I think in an interview with the late, great Studs Terkel: Miss Addams never judged anyone because she knew what life could do to a person.

I love that quote (which I've totally gotten wrong, only I'm sure the spirit of it is right). Jane Addams understood that her lived experiences and her strength were different than other people and so she showed them kindness, helped them on a path away from whatever desolation and misery their lives had brought them to. 

But I guess it's childish to expect the country to grow up into the kind of empathy that people who've lived life with open eyes and open hearts can have. And I guess the adult in me knows that rather than judge other people for their meanness, I should redouble my own efforts to kindness.

But I'm judging you a little, mean Joliet tour guide and Ana Beleval. Just a little. As penance, have a Jokes Seth Can't Tell. Seriously, it's like a tonic for mean.

Sunday, August 12, 2018

A Tale of Two Feminists and Their Hair

Here's a neat interview with the marvelous Lena Waithe, whom I think is just the cat's pajamas:


Next up, here's the story of a lady who stopped coloring her hair and the incredibly rude people who commented disparagingly on her decision. I found myself thinking a few times in the course of this story that she must have made up some of these anecdotes, but I also know the things people have felt at liberty to say to me and that there are some rude motherfuckers out there. Folks, don't make rude personal comments to people. I shouldn't have to tell you that. God!

These stories are similar, right? One woman cut off her hair, one woman stopped dying her hair.  I'd be lying if I didn't say I preferred the Lena story to the InStyle story (not a big fan of the "here's how I been done treated wrong by the world" rhetorical device). But I will note that both are about changes that a woman made and not about Changes Women Need to Make.

But the reactions went elsewhere. Over at the post where I read the Lena Waithe story, there were many commenters bemoaning how attached some women are to their long hair and how they haven't embraced the liberty that really short hair provides. A friend of mine shared the gray-haired lady's story, saying that women who don't dye their hair are "slaves" to an unfair beauty standard. And then when I objected to that she was thoughtful and kind but also implied that those of us who don't choose to embrace the gray are sacrificing our authority. Ma'am!

Here's a brief list of beauty standards I've heard that women need to stop embracing:

  • Short skirts
  • High heels
  • "Vocal fry"
  • Slutty clothes
  • Overly modest clothes
  • Gym clothes
  • Black clothes (confession: this is one I've heard personally many many times)
  • Colorful rainboots (confession: I've objected to that one before)
  • Visible bra straps
  • Bras
  • Nylons
  • Bare legs
  • Losing weight
  • Gaining weight
  • Walking fast
  • Walking slow
  • Saying "sorry"
  • Saying "like".

Lookit: Men (shoot, PEOPLE) reflexively trust other men in positions of authority more because men have been the sole occupants at seats of authority for the entire history of western civilization. It's not female voices or clothes or style or any other form of female presentation that keeps us from power. It's not because we've sacrificed authority in pursuit of approval. It's because men have held jealously, and thoughtlessly, onto it.

And yet it's we women who are constantly being told that we're presenting ourselves wrong. It's almost like patriarchy reinforces itself by convincing women that patriarchy is our own fault. But here's a hot secret: women, patriarchy isn't because you don't look right. Dress how you like to dress. Wear your hair how you like your hair to look. Wear makeup if you want, or don't if you don't. If you like how you look in heels, wear heels. If you think they're dumb, don't. Shave your legs and your pits or don't. Your voice isn't too high. Your voice isn't too low. You don't need to talk more. You don't need to talk less. You do need to stop telling your sisters that they're woman-ing wrong.

Here's my hair testimony: I wear my hair really long and somewhere between pink and blonde. This is about 75% because I hate getting my hair cut, 15% because pony tails are just so easy and 10% because of vanity (i was always scared to dye my hair crazy colors in my youth, so it's a treat to do it now). It is 0% because I give a shit about youthful beauty standards (my careful skin care regimen is because of that and, men, you should join me! Moisturize!). That said, if you do like to turn a man's head with your sexy hair, you go and get it, girl! 

The wise and wonderful Amy Poehler said, "Here's a motto I want all women to embrace: Good for her! Not for me." 

I'm less wise and wonderful so instead I'll say this: there's no way to be a woman wrong. Feminist respectability politics are bad. And, for the love of Maud, let's embrace femininity as the multi-faceted, rich, abundant bucket of everything it is.

Saturday, July 21, 2018

The New Radicals

WARNING: This is a post about healthcare and the execrable Joe Lieberman. If you come at me trying to compare the politics of Hillary Rodham Clinton to Joe Fucking Lieberman, I will get in my car and I will find you and follow you around for the rest of your life hollering that Hillary Clinton was busting her ass trying to get us to universal coverage 25 damn years ago.

I just heard Jon Lovett do an opening rant about Joe Lieberman (who is execrable) on this week's Lovett or Leave It in which he explained how Joe Lieberman, all by his little self, killed the Medicare Buy-In for 55 yr old + Americans. Had he not killed it, people 55 and over wouldn't have to keep killing themselves to hold onto their corporate health insurance and young people would be paying lower premiums as older people cost more to keep healthy, and thus drive premiums up. Joe Lieberman was working for the insurance companies who are, I genuinely believe, more evil that Philip Morris.

Speaking of which, I also read an article this morning over on Splinter about a British woman who was diagnosed with lung cancer and who is on the path to healing due to government-provided health care. She will not end up broke. She won't end up scrabbling to come up with thousands of dollars to pay for life-requiring medicine. She'll just get better.

On the liberal scale, I'm pretty far left. I also believe, though, in incrementalism and that you can get away with being more liberal in New York and Chicago than you can in West Virginia. I think expanding already popular programs is a more practical path towards healthcare-for-all than blowing up what we could get into law despite the nasty little corporate shitheels like Joe Lieberman. I could well be wrong and I'm happy to have that argument. This isn't about that, though. This is about how my party, the Democratic party, has a long history of letting the right intimidate them not into moderating radical leftish positions, but rather into radicalizing moderate positions.

Government-backed healthcare is not a radical position. It is as practical a position as one can take in American politics. It makes fiscal, moral and political sense. The system we have now is radical. It's breathtakingly expensive and irredeemably cruel. I don't want any Democrat, any liberal or any person trying to tell anyone running for any office, especially if they are running in an already liberal district, that they should not be agitating for it. If you let the nasty little corporate shitheels tell you that a congressional candidate in Queens can cost you an election in West Virginia, you've already conceded a radical argument. Stop it.

Let's all remember that it doesn't matter what a democrat running for office says; the toadies at the GOP propaganda network will lie about it.  For instance: not one democrat is agitating for open borders. The right-wing noise machine (led by our feckless, traitorous president) says they are on the daily. Not one democrat is agitating to ban guns, but likely every member of the NRA believes they are because they are being told they are by rightwing liars.

So let's just stop letting them set the terms for the debate. They are skilled liars and easy manipulators. Fuck 'em. Just say what you really believe and stop giving a shit what Tucker Carlson pretends to get his knickers in a twist over.

Saturday, July 7, 2018

Got some Ragrets and some White Feminism


I got some ragrets, you guys, about my sign at the #KeepFamiliesTogether march. Here's what it said:


When I made it, I was feeling good, but there was this little voice in the back of my head going "Meg, are you sure this is a good idea?" And then I answered (as one does) "I don't care about those horrible women!" And then my little voice said, "Well, that's not quite what I meant..." and then I said "shhh, I'm watching TV" (I was watching TV by that point).

When I got to the march, I felt great about my sign because all kinds of folks were asking to take a picture and telling me how great it was and then about 30 or 45 minutes into it, I realized that all the people telling me that it was great and asking to take a picture where also white ladies and my little voice said, "You picking this up yet?" And instead I went to have a beer with my smart friends who did not have problematic signs.

Gurls and boys, I have often said this of myself: I am smart, but I am not quick. It often takes me waaaaay too long to get to understand things. Fr'instance,  it took me until the middle of this week, far too many days after the march, to realize what my little voice was trying to say.

That sign up there? That is some peak white feminism. I carried that message into literally the safest environment I could, and then toted it around so that other white ladies could congratulate me (and by extension, themselves) on how much better we are than Permit Patty and Barbecue Becky. Oof. That sign was so self-serving and I have regerts. My browser keeps trying to autocorrect my misspellings. I am being funny, Autocorrect. You don't know my life!


Anyhoo, my sign had another side. I am not even a little bit craftsy and I was embarrassed at the outset of this side of my sign because I thought it looked a little low-rent and poorly done:


It does look a little low-rent and poorly done. But it also does not have a problematic message. This sign doesn't put me in the middle of the equation and, despite looking as though it were made by a third grader operating under a pretty tight deadline, that makes it a much better message.

I'm trying to be better, folks. But I reckon I'm gonna be traveling this path along the way...



Live and learn, white feminists. We live and we learn and try to get better.

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Acting and Reacting

When I was in the UK last week, a male friend of mine asked me what I thought about the new  upskirt photo law making its way through Parliament. I told him I thought it was great and that I hoped all those creepy motherfuckers got ticketed past their ability to pay for their ISP. He shrugged and said "I just don't get why the women don't just give him a slap on the face and walk away."

I'm gonna let The Vixen respond for me. 


I loved that loud messy queen and I loved her especially in the reunion show when all the queens were dissecting her following a fight with Eureka she said "Everyone's telling me how to react and no one's telling her how to act."

Oh, that is concise and well-said, n'est-ce pas?

Before we start instructing someone on how they ought to react, first let's ask ourselves "Do I have the necessary context for an informed opinion?" If it's a matter of groping, catcalling, upskirt photos, etc and you are a man, gurl, trust me: you don't. There are some women who are up to the task of calling it out (like The Vixen!), slapping the groper's hand away and there are some who aren't. Speaking personally, I hate it when men put their hands on me, say gross things to me, etc., and have for almost 40 years (gentlemen, for context, be advised that this tends to start for girls around 10 or 11, or, if they're people of color, earlier). I don't feel secure or strong enough to slap his hand away or call him out. I shrink and disappear into myself and am only eager to get the fuck away.

A story: I was walking down the street with Laney when she was 11 and we were holding hands. A carful of dudes catcalled us because they thought we were a lesbian couple. This happened four years ago and I still wonder if I reacted right.

But you know what, fuck that! My reaction isn't the point - their action is. And that's all I'm willing to discuss anymore.

Because, ladies, we all learned what happens when we pay more attention to our reaction than their actions, right?

[INSERT GIF OF DONALD FUCKING TRUMP DOING OR SAYING SOMETHING SEXIST AND HORRIBLE BUT I'M NOT GOING TO PUT ONE HERE BECAUSE I CAN'T STAND TO SEE HIS STUPID FUCKING FACE]    

Remember, when confronted with bad behavior, let's all concern ourselves more with the ACTION rather than the REACTION. Be like The Vixen. I kind of love her.



Monday, June 11, 2018

I Can't Decide

The hardest thing about being a grown-up is decisions. I have decided that this is the hardest thing. This is the last decision I am capable of making today.

One of my coworkers tells me that his fantasy job is to have a hot dog cart on the beach where the only decisions are ketchup or mustard. I'm a vegetarian and that sounds amazing.

Sometimes my husband and I will be trying to decide what to have for dinner and he'll say "Whatever you want, baby" and that's about the only time when I want to divorce him.

I might ask my daughter what she wants to do on a Saturday and she'll give me a teenage shrug and so I'll make a decision which is then invariably disappointing and that's about the only time I want to run away (That's a lie. I'm living in Trump's America and want to run away literally all of the time).

Throughout my average working day, I'm met with "what do you think about..." or "what should we do about" roughly every 13 seconds. Of late, when I hear that, all I think is "mustard." I prefer mustard to ketchup. Of this I am abidingly certain. I may waffle, though, between spicy brown and yellow. I never say "mustard" aloud, but I am always thinking it.

I was getting a pedicure on Saturday (this is the most first world problems post ever, isn't it?) and the dude poking aggressively at my toe cuticles told me I was too sensitive when I flinched (I should find a better pedicure place but then that's just another decision and also they have a parking lot which makes it so easy) and then he asked if the pedicure was all I wanted.

"Yep," I said.

"Are you sure?" he said. "Something about your eyebrows, maybe?"

(I really should find a better pedicure place.)

Do I have to make decisions about my eyebrows now? I never thought about my eyebrows in the 80s, 90s or 00s. For some reason this decade I'm asked to start paying attention to them and my head is too full and if I agree to do "something about my eyebrows" all I'll be able to think is "mustard" and no one, no matter how gentle they are with toenail cuticles, will know how to translate "mustard" into some eyebrow shape.

I think I'll make one more decision and decide not to give a shit about my eyebrows. I wear spectacles (that's right, I said "spectacles" because I am classy) every day so who can even see my dumb eyebrows?

Mustard is superior to ketchup, tho. And your eyebrows are probably fine.


Sunday, June 10, 2018

Internet-ish

A few days ago, I shared this silly internet meme about how to find your British royal name. It was goofy and I mostly shared it because both my grandmothers were named Mary and that is a thing that Irish Americans probably all have in common so that's fun. Three separate people jumped on the comments thread to tell me how I was sharing a thing that gives people the answers to your various security questions (name of your first pet, street where you grew up, etc).

Tip: don't "actually" someone until you've read up the thread, guys! I can only be scolded for the same thing so many times before I get huffy!

Anyhoo, I told all these guys that I felt like those questions were easy enough to find out from anyone and besides, who the hell is asking for a grandparent's first name on a security question?

And then a couple of days later I was signing up for some dumb account and that was the security question they asked.

So, I felt dumb. And I felt dumb in the way that I really hate to feel dumb, because I like to think my Internet IQ is pretty high (unlike my Marvel IQ because I still don't know if Paul Bettany is a mutant or a person or a robot or what) and falling for some dumb phishing thing like that makes me feel old and stupid and out of touch.

I come from a generation that's not particular exercised about privacy. I still remember going full Navin Johnson when I got my first apartment in Chicago - excitedly cracking open the white pages and staring all starry-eyed at my name, address and phone number and feeling like a Real Girl Now! And now I live in a world where I alternately feel like I'm way too worried about privacy and not nearly worried enough and I can feel both of these things at the same time especially since it means I don't have to answer the phone if I don't know who's calling (Seriously! Remember when you had to pick up the phone to find out who was on the other end? That was the worst!)

I don't know. I have no answers. Do you? And, while I'm asking, did we know about those infinity stones the whole time and can't Dr. Strange just send us back in time or something? If you have any questions about rotary phones or dating in the 1990s, send them this way. I would like to feel expert on something again.


Saturday, June 9, 2018

How's Your Rage?

I was on a conference call Friday, waiting for a customer to join, chatting with colleagues when I referred to the film Mean Girls as a classic. The guys on the other end of the call (really lovely guys, all of them) gently scoffed at this and referenced Citizen Kane and The Birds as real classics.

You guys, I am not proud of myself about this, but I let the simmering low-level rage that's been my constant companion these last two years get the better of me. I sputtered and fumed and then the customer joined and we started talking about less interesting things like technology and workflows.

For men (well, straight white men) a smart comedy, that remains culturally relevant fourteen years later, written by a woman and about girls doesn't deserve to be called a classic. But those hoary old films by a narcissist and a straight up monster will always, no matter what we learn about the people they were, rest undisturbed atop their pedestals.

I have a theory about why I get so mad these days so easily: I think for the first 45ish years of my life I lived in that go along to get along space; I just kind of went with it that the women will bear the responsibility for making the men feel good, that what the women do will never be taken as seriously as what the men do, and that men will just always be the ones in charge.

And then, of course, Donald J Trump happened and I think I, along with most of the American female population, and thought:


...unsealed the rage spigot, and let it loose. This has left me with a rather large surfeit of rage.

Another thing happened: Jake Tapper was interviewed by America's boyfriends on Pod Save America post SmokeyEyegate (tm me) and he said that while he hadn't seen The Handmaid's Tale, come on, it's obvious Michelle Wolfe was making a joke about Sarah Huckabee Sanders' looks. I'm still mad about that. I can't stop being mad about that. 

Ann Dowd is a brilliant character actress who is doing incredible work playing a character who is not just complicit in a deeply misogynist government, but also a true believer who is among its most effective enforcers. The analogy is clear to anyone with even a passing interest in the show. But to Jake Tapper, the only material fact about Ann Dowd is that he himself would not care to have sex with her. I am so offended on Ann Dowd's behalf!

You guys, this interview was a couple of weeks ago. I mean way too long and way too in passing for me to still be mad. But I'm still mad! I'm still so angry at how he pleased he was with himself, how confident he'd earned a brave boy cookie for his whole "I'm just being honest" shtick. And I'm angry that the Pod Save guys, who all knew it was crap, just let it pass without commenting.

And that may be who I'm maddest at, now that I think about it: the nice guys, the good guys, the guys who aren't horrible to women, and who even actually like women, are friends with women, but are also so deep in their own privilege (I'm sorry - I'm starting to hate that word too) that they fail to notice so much.

I'm sorry, I'm ranting.

I think I may start greeting my lady friends with "Hi! How's your rage these days?" I think I may start greeting my male friends with "Hi! You questioned any deep-seated assumptions yet today?" 

And I write all this knowing that as a white, straight, cisgendered, able-bodied, middle-class woman, I'm operating at a pretty low difficulty setting. But so long as Donald Fucking Trump, who is the Platonic ideal of the terrible American male, is our president, I can't stop being mad. 

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Roseanne. Hard Pass

I consume a lot of pop culture - more so than the average bear. Some people are impressed with my pop culture consumption, others think I must get absolutely nothing done. Here's a quick bullet list to how I consume so much:

  • There are only a few shows a week that I watch while not doing anything else. Currently, those shows are Atlanta, RuPaul's Drag Race, The Americans (starts tonight!), Superstore and The Middle. These are the only shows airing that demand full attention. Some due to their extreme quality (Atlanta and The Americans) others because I just have a real good time with them (RPDR and Superstore), and one purely for the nostalgia (The Middle). Due to the great advances of DVR-i-tude, this only adds up to about 2.5 hours of television a week
  • The other TV things I consume happen while I'm doing other things - I may watch The Goldbergs while I'm doing the dishes. I'll check into AP Bio during a workout. 
  • I waste no time on cable news. I've long held the position that cable news causes cancer. It's bad for you in a million ways. I like Chris and Joy and Rachel too! If there's something really good on one of their shows, it'll be on Facebook the next day. Cable news is a terrible way to stay informed and a blight on America. The Sunday shows are worse. I get my news from the Crooked Media guys, Wonkette, Charlie Pierce and Josh Marshall. All these sources are proudly liberal, but free of bullshit. Recommend. 
  • I follow pop culture blogs and twitter that recommend the good stuff to watch. My all time favorite of these is Pajiba. I've turned many of you over to them. They are smart and funny, staunchly anti-racist and feminist, and they have great taste. 
  • Also, I fucking hate it when everyone is talking about something and I don't know what it is. I have never understood the sense of superiority that some people seem to feel when they don't know something that everyone else is talking about. Like, why do people show up on a Facebook thread about Game of Thrones talking about how they don't watch that show? What's the point of that? No one thinks you're cool, buddy. 
All of this is lead up to the Hard Fucking Pass I'm going to give Roseanne. I watched about 10 minutes of it last night and then clicked off. Jackie was like the worst caricature of a Hillary voter and Roseanne was like the gentlest NYT profile of the misunderstood Trump voter. And you know? Fuck. That.

You don't get to say 'I'm not racist! Look at my cute black granddaughter" and support Mr. "Very Fine People on Both Sides," Mr. "Get Those Sons of Bitches off the Field." You don't get to say "I'm not homophobic! I support my genderqueer grandson" at the same time you support the man responsible for the pointless, cruel transgender ban in the military. 

Trump supporters do not get a pass just because they come around with witty writing and a thick sheen of nostalgia. None of it should be normalized. 

There are not two sides here that can reasonably disagree. This is not normal. Don't watch it. Watch The Middle.  

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Tupperware or Rubbermaid. I Don't Have Room to Care.

I bought a set of Tupperware from Amazon. It wasn't Tuppeware - it was Rubbermaid. But I don't  know the word for the things that I call Tupperware but aren't tupperware and I can't be bothered to find out or even whether it should be capitalized when I'm using it as a generic descriptive noun. Anyway, it looks like this:


I opened my fridge tonight to put the leftover pasta away and there it sat in its clear plastic container with a red top, right next to 6 or 7 other fridge things in the same, albeit differently sized plastic containers with red tops. It was beautiful. The order and sensibleness of all my fridge things stored in tidy, dishwasher-safe containers that all look the same, albeit differently sized? I enjoyed a palpable, authentic frisson of pleasure.

(This is not my beautiful wife.)

I almost never write in this blog anymore. I haven't played my piano in months. I had this plan to finally turn my novel into a proper eBook and even realized how it should begin (that only took 10 years or so). But I haven't done any of it.

Instead, I spend all my free brainspace stuffing it full of information about L'il Duce and the chaos he's engendered.

I don't want to know who Andrew McCabe is. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, that liar and sociopath, doesn't deserve the space in my brain she takes up. Fuck Jefferson Davis Sessions, that racist old ferret.

God, I loved it when I only sort of knew who Eric Holder was.

I'm so angry at the people who live in that Fox News bubble (or, worse, just liked the cut of Trump's jib or something) who gleefully slouched us into this Bethlehem.

I had a Republican friend who really hates Trump tell me recently that she likes Paul Ryan. How could ANYONE LIKE PAUL RYAN!?!?!  Paul Ryan cares about nothing nothing nothing but increasing the wealth for the thinnest sliver of already wealthy Americans. He has no other policy position. No other guiding moral principle. He is a nice p90X body casing an absolutely depleted morality. There is nothing of substance about him at all.

But he says he hates abortion. He doesn't hate abortion. He doesn't care about abortion. But he knows he'll get votes from people who do and so people vote for him. The same people who, sorrynotsorry, can't be bothered to wrap their heads around the manifestly obvious truth that the only real way to reduce abortions is to increase access to birth control and sex ed.

See also the gun people, who just don't care that our children are being massacred at the altar of their gunny cult. They like it when Mitch McConnell fellates an AR-57 so much they don't care that he's the guy who keeps you desperately tethered to a corporate health care policy that couldn't give a shit about keeping you alive. Their concern begins and ends and how grossly they can profit off poor and middle-class people. The same people who keep fucking voting for them!

I don't want to know that Rex Tillerson laid waste to the state department that Hillary Clinton and John Kerry (but especially Hillary) spent eight years laying solid diplomatic ground on. HRC jetted around the world and worked her ass off to keep us safe. But to the folks who love Trump, she's Cruella DeVil meets Lady MacBeth meets an Ugly Stepsister, or some other bullshit sexist trope that the stupidest among us use to organize their lives.

I'm just so mad all the time. Aren't you? How does anyone have time to do anything but refresh Twitter and be mad (and be terrified and then mad again... mad is easier than terrified).

I soothe myself with bourbon, escapist tv and the calming, consoling, palliative joy of matching tupperware. Or Rubbermaid. I don't give a shit.

What has the American monster tweeted tonight?

By the way, don't give me any advice. Please. I am not soliciting advice. I'm venting. I'll give you advice instead: buy matching tupperware and fake orderliness in a terrifyingly chaotic world.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Still Banging This Drum

After every mass shooting, my Facebook lights up with arguments about guns on social media.

Let's not anymore, OK?

First, and you know this: you're never going to change their mind. If a person's first response to the murder of 17 people in a high school is to defend the weapon, to "well actually" your grief and anger, to make sure you know that their right to own a gun is more sacrosanct than the lives of your kids, then that person is either too stupid or too morally bankrupt to have a conversation with. I know David Brooks disagrees with me, but he's a person whose opinion I can no longer be bothered with.

Much like Ms. It's Not Guns, It's Mental Illness. Ignore her (it's ok, she doesn't really give a shit about mental health care). She's beyond help.

There's a little dopamine rush that comes from these arguments, though. I know. I've had a million of them. And I know this is pretty rich coming from Ms. Shouting Down a Well, but I'm pretty sure Wayne LaPierre is delighted to have you expend your energy trying to expose the myriad logical fallacies coming from Mr. We Need to Arm The Teachers. Every argument you have with Ms.We Just Need To Enforce the Laws We Have, is one less argument you're having with someone who can actually do something about this.

The NRA is not powerful because of the money. Thinking that it's just the money kind of liberates us from responsibility, right? How can we, with our little incomes, hope to do battle against the billions coming from Big Gun.

But it's not the money. Big Gun isn't Big Pharma or Big Wall Street. Big Gun is successful because they've corralled a large, intractable, single-issue voting bloc. But, remember, while it is large and it is loud, there are more of us than there are of Mr. What's Next? Outlawing Cars.

So stop arguing with people on Facebook or Twitter. Rather, spend that energy letting your congressperson (via CALLING) know that you will never again vote for anyone who has more than an F rating from the NRA. I'm going to do it, and my senators and congresspeople already DO have F ratings from the NRA.

I'm not here to lambaste social media. I love social media. Keep on sharing great pieces like this or this. Follow, post, and retweet those amazing kids like Emma Gonzales who are ready to fight. Keep talking about the racial disparities in reporting on these things. Social media is a powerful organizing force. But it is not a place where minds are changed.

Look, you don't think Mr. But Chicago isn't calling Ted Cruz when the devils at the NRA gin him up about losing his guns? He is. And, you guys, I haaaaaaaate Mr. But Chicago. You have no idea the force of will it takes for me not to argue with Mr. But Chicago. But, I'm not gonna. Instead, I'll let some poor staffer for Dick Durbin know that this is the issue I care about this the most.

Hey! Did you guys know that the NRA PAC website has voter registration and polling place info on its front damn page.

Call your congress member and senators and ignore Mr. Good Guy With a Gun. And if you want that dopamine rush, remember this, ignoring that guy is going to irritate and frustrate him way more than any response you can give him. And that's fun!

Also, give money to Everytown, if you've got some.

Monday, January 15, 2018

On Aziz Ansari (Y'all Were Dying to know My Take, Right?)

This is going to be a super quick one because it is 9:00 pm which is bourbon and The Crown time. But I find the various hot takes about Aziz Ansari are spinning around through my brain and I feel compelled to add my two cents (because that's just what this debate is missing: another middle-aged white lady's opinion!).

When I first read the Babe article, my first inclination was to go "oh, come on! We've all been there, honey." And that's how rape culture works - we're all bred in an environment where male desire is coddled and privileged while female comfort is left standing outside the window, in the snow, tentatively waving like "can I come in for a second? Or is that too much of a bother? I'll just stand here a while longer." We're all steeped in "oh, he just did what men do" and "she needs to learn to manage the situation and her reaction to it."

That's not right. Right?

And then later I read another hot take all about how we're RUINING AZIZ ANSARI'S CAREER! And I was, "um, it's been two days. Are we really sure we're ready to bury Aziz Ansari's career? After two days?"

I read a tweet today by a twitterer called Wikipedia Brown (come on! is that the best twitter handle ever, or what?) in which she used the word "unlearning." We all have a lot to unlearn about the way sex and sexual politics and gender relations go.

I'll start: there are degrees of #MeToo. There's rape, there's gross abuse of power, there's groping and masturbating at, there's unsolicited dick pics, and, yeah, there's privileging your own orgasm over her comfort. Men have to unlearn their right to behave this way and women have to unlearn their inclination to accept it. I'm pretty proud of Grace for telling him the next day how he made her feel. When I was 22, I'd just have been ashamed of myself for going to his apartment without the expectation of having sex in exactly the way he wanted to.

I have a lot to unlearn.

Next: I'm not gonna avoid season three of Master of None. I looooooove Master of None. I think Aziz Ansari is brilliant and hilarious and thoughtful and, basically, a decent person who needs to unlearn some shit. In other words, I'm not studying on exiling Aziz Ansari off to the island of misfit men.

But I'm also not mad at the idea that he's going to have to spend an uncomfortable few days thinking about his sexual expectation and his behavior. My fondest hope from #MeToo, is, well, that there will be a lot less rape. That's really number one on the list. But right up there too, I hope that the men of the world (many of whom, I'm sure, are guilty of exactly Ansari's behavior) will spend some time thinking about the times they may have made a woman feel unsafe and violated and learn to start doing what women do all the fucking time: pay attention to how the person they're with is reacting and feeling.

It's not that hard. Women really do it all the time.


Saturday, January 13, 2018

Quick Lil Bloggity

I'm doing a little work as I watch the Letterman Obama interview on Netflix. Sigh.

I liked President Barack Obama. This is no hagiography; dude made big mistakes. But at the very least, you got the feeling that he cared. That he set his rather substantial intellect to every task and gave a shit about the effects of the decisions he made.

It's tragic to have gone from someone so clearly thoughtful as president to someone so clearly thoughtless; to have gone from someone with clear moral compass, to someone clearly amoral; to have gone from someone brilliant to someone so fucking stupid.

But an even more baseline tragedy of having gone from Obama to Trump is the vision. Obama's vision of American exceptionalism hews equally pragmatic and optimistic. The promise of America, in Obama's worldview, is to continually strive to be more perfect. Not perfect (because that's impossible) but more perfect. Obama thinks we as a nation can keep getting better.

And the way that happens is by opening America up to the people who've been historically excluded from it - people of color, LGBTQA people, disabled people, women, etc.

So we bounced from a leader with a worldview of pragmatic optimism, who believed in the generosity and expansiveness of American culture to a leader who recklessly longs for the day when he and people just exactly like him were the only people America was for.

But, you know what? Fuck that. Fuck Donald Trump and his ugly racist, misogynist worldview. In a word:

First things first, we're all gonna get on the phone on Monday and call our MoC and tell them DREAMers get to stay. If you're lucky enough to be repped by a Dem, tell them "no continuing budget resolution without protection for DREAMers." If you're repped by a Republican tell them that if the government shuts down because they couldn't come to an agreement on keeping the DREAMers here, you'll hold them responsible and not the dems.

Why? Because those 800,000 Americans make America better.

Next things next, we're gonna do everything we can to rid Congress of the blight of Republicanism. That is no longer a functioning party. They are all of them, every single one, enabling the Racist-in-Chief and his doddery, reckless path to recreate an America that was terrible for the majority of people who lived in it.

Every last one of us is gonna walk out of the voting booth in November just like this: