The Barking Carrot

We Need A Change...

2009-05-22T23:49:00.001-07:00

You know the saying; "When the diaper's full, change it?"

Of course not because it's gross.

But that's pretty much it. This blog is just full of crap at this point, and I'm moving in a new direction with my life, and feel my blog should represent that. And this one doesn't,

So rather than deleting it, I'm just going to change it.

My new blog is located at www.visinvox.com. It's got more political overtones with a more personal aura, though there will still be the occasional vague reference to whatever topic I feel a need to discuss but don't want to address on a public level. You know what I'm talkin about? Yeah...

So check me out there, and use the comment button more frequently when you do, because I like to debate, but people think I'm crazy when I argue with myself. Especially out loud...

Anyway. This blog will remain up for your eternal viewing pleasure, but mostly for my eternal viewing pleasure.

fin.

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.”

2009-04-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

Is this the life of a 23 year old? Walking in a dream-scape as though having passed through the mirror into a world where the sidewalks move beneath sleepy eyes and dangling feet? Often, I cannot verify that I'm doing anything intentionally. These movements are predictable, expected. My eyes are open but I can't make out a concise actuality.

Four a.m. and I'm awake counting the pathetic few hours I have left of precious sleep. The mornings are fast and the showers are probably too warm but my body is still asleep and doesn't notice. Cold cereal, sour milk; little registers until the early spring breeze hits my cheeks and I vaguely realize some part of me has left the building. The bus stop is thick with smokers and I ache for a long drag but hold my breath as I walk by and try to forget the gray fingers as they reach out and follow me before disintegrating into the surrounding breeze. Music fills the silence that lingers inside my little green Camry as I drown in the extreme vigilance required to prevent collisions and citations by various people who's existance I can't justify. Lost in exhaustion, I fear I may only meet reality at the moment of impact.

Occasionally I wonder why I even attend my classes after such inadequate rest, except perhaps as an attempt to revive the scattered residue of my once vigorous social life through vague text messages and Internet exchanges, or to affirm the appearance of propriety in the eyes of those who might be taking role. The wise voices get buried between financial woes and broken hearts and petty matters my thoughts refuse to release. It's seldom quiet upstairs and on days like this I can't even keep a medically induced concentration for very long.

I don't need sleep. I need a week-long coma and a fighting addiction to valiums.

I can hear them arguing about a Justice's interpretation of the Constitution just beyond the glaze that covers my eyeballs. Something about civil rights and implied liberties. I add my two cents and pray my voice is coherent and wise, then retreat back into oblivion until I hear the rustle of papers and drift into my next chair in the following classroom. This is where I want to be, albeit unconscious. Here, crushed between these walls and merging with a wealth of knowledge I have yet to hold. I am a wide-eyed child, wanting nothing more than to understand a world that can't understand or concieve a natural desire to learn; that preaches blue-sky adventures while demanding suffocation and structure. Oceania with a view. They can define the terms, but I don't want the rules I've been given. I want something else. I'll get it, too.

Back home I wander blindly amidst political summaries and paragraphs with highlighter and ball-point ink. The books I want to read sleep on the shelves in front of me, collecting dust as my interests expand into areas that will take years to finally reach. I will never understand as much as my whims demand and my desire to know more than there's time to learn is daunting and weights heavy on my motivation. But each dawn I wake up and continue the pursuit.

They say it's not what you know, it's who you know, but I don't like that, and I won't abide by it.

At 7 p.m. I live in an empty city, as though the apocalypse of evening strolled through and swept the people home, but there's little time to admire the tranquil lull. One day I attend work, the next day I attend class, rotating through the week between two obligations that both demand my reverence, time, and energy. Shifts end and I walk home in the dark, passing vagrants and gentlemen; the identities of neither individual distinguishable by appearance. Funny how that works. Then, a belated dinner if I've salvaged my appetite or perhaps I'll peck at some frozen blueberries while cracking open another folder and disposing of the twilight in a sea of words.

The invitations I turn down at this hour all sound the same, usually noting my frequent absence or lack of acceptable communication. But anymore I just don't have the will to forgo another night's sleep paired with another groggy morning of forgetting my keys and walking into lectures already in discussion. It'd be for what? Side-long glances down the bar and prying at the ears of unavailable souls, coyly soliciting their company, but unsure of what I would do with it if they ever obliged. I only participate in this sport when I've no real desire to the win prize. I don't have time for men who live in blissful ignorace. I'd rather my time be spent with one happy to suffer. Still, the vultures circle around me as though I'm out of water, each with look in their eyes makes me wonder if they know something I don't. The drinks they buy don't quench my thirst and each sip brings me closer to the cool, shady mirage, but further from the firm oasis.

And all too often I go willingly into the abyss.

Bad Neighbors GET MY WRATH

2009-03-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

Today, I decided to stay home and study.

It's 12:15 in the afternoon and I'm sitting at home in bed with my American Governmnent test in the works. I have my math homework and my Political Theory books sprawled out across my bed. I'm really doing a good job of minding my own business these days, and doing my best to maintain good study habits in hopes of actually getting A's this semester. Now, I'm a quiet loft-dweller. I'm a mellow college student who doesn't throw parties or have loud groups of friends over to play horseshoes in the living room. I haven't assembled furniture using power tools or hung pictures on the wall using picture frames I crafted by hand using an electric saw at 11 o'clock at night. Not lately anyway. My kittens no longer meow loudly throught the bottom of my front door while I wait for the elevator in my hallway. I don't have singing frogs, and I'm not a rockstar. I'm a good neighbor.

Late last week at about 2am somebody decided to make TOAST, and managed to create enough smoke to signal a fire, causing the building fire alarms to go off at 2AM. For the record, this is when normal people sleep. This is not when normal people make TOAST. Now, in all fairness, I must admit that there have been times where I had consumed a little too much wine and attempted to cook a frozen pizza, only to discover a week later that I had never turned the oven on and the pizza had dethawed and sunk into the wire oven rack and begun to mold. Nobody's perfect. But, come on. It takes a talented douche bag to burn TOAST that bad at 2am.

Given this isn't the first time in the past month that the building's fire alarms have been sounded, the fire department decided not to waste their time coming out and the duty fell upon me and the rest of the tenants to call management and have them reset the alarm. Try falling asleep after standing outside for 20 minutes in short shorts, a sweatshirt with a kitten stuffed inside the front pouch, and bare feet, with a fever. Oh yeah. But I did it. And I didn't complain neither. Why? Because I'm a badass.

The point is, I'm a good tenant, but I'm no angel. And if you upset me, or don't respect the fact that we have very thin walls, I will seek revenge. Most of my neighbors are polite, respectful, and helpful in most cases. They smile in the elevator, hold the door open, and put the laundry detergent I left in the wash room outside my door when I forget to grab it. But the guy that lives on the other side of my bedroom wall? Well, I can tell we are going to have some conflicts.

First let me point out that, when I moved into my loft, I believed that he was a woman. I believed this because I don't know many men who choose to listen to Womanizer by Britney Spears on repeat until 11 o'clock at night. Looking back, I think he might have been masturbating to her music video, which makes for unsettling mental pictures while falling asleep now if I happen to hear music being played next door after I tuck myself in for the evening.

Currently, his music is so lound that I can clearly understand the lyrics to the crappy R&B music that he's singing along to. In retrospect, maybe my actions have made matters worse, but when this first started about an hour ago I got sick of listening to it and decided to fight back.

Rather than banging on the wall, or going and knocking on his door and politely asking him to turn down his music, I decided to play by my own rules which means: No Rules. Armed with only computer speakers, and a website (Pornotube.com) which provides free access to gay porn, I pushed my laptop and speakers up against the wall, turned the dial to provide for maximum volume, and began to play loud grunting hardcore homosexual intercourse through the wall shared by our apartments....

....which are thinner than I thought, because shortly after this began, with my head pressed up to the wall to listen for his reaction, I heard him turn down the music, let out a loud belch, pause a moment, then say, "What the fuck? Oh. My. God." before immediately turning his music up louder than it had been before. Still, I think I totally won that battle.

Lesson: When I play, I play to win.

Anyway. Today, I decided to go study at LatteLand.

Watchmen

2009-03-12T21:28:00.001-07:00

"Furthermore, as ever-escalating amounts of money are poured into the pursuit of the specific weapon or conflict that will bring lasting peace, the drain on our economies creates a run-down urban landscape where crime flourishes and people are concerned less with national security than with the simple personal security needed to stop at the store late at night for a quart of milk without being mugged. The places we struggled so viciously to keep safe are becoming increasingly dangerous. The wars to end wars, the weapons to end weapons, these things have failed us."

It's sick how poignant an argument made in a piece of literature written over 20 years ago still is today. I'm starting to think the evolution of our species is a farce. Humans, despite the technological and industrial advances, still seem to roam the Earth as naked and barbaric as the beasts we supposedly matured from.

"I will give you bodies beyond your wildest imaginings."
We will never learn.

Here's a toast to love and sin in a world where nothing is your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.

My Trip Home

2009-02-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

Ok. So admittedly I wasn't the best student back in Elementary school. If I remember being classified as any one thing, it would be "unorganized." I don't think I am in posession of a single vintage report card that doesn't make note of this flaw. Sure, my dad always called me "creative." But what do dads know? The problem, I've always thought, with my education is that few of my teachers ever actually answered my questions. Most of them just told me the answers to the questions I was supposed to ask. Admittedly, at the time I was also entering into the formative years of my budding feminine sexuality and easily excited by the prepubescent little boys who irritated the hell out of me. I was taught at some point that if they picked on you it meant they liked you, and so I figured I'd let them know I liked them back, and ended up getting sent to the principal's office more than once for drop kicking some innocent 4th grader in the junk. The point is, I was distracted. And let's face it, some things never change.

Still, it's easy to see how the basics of US Geography were never fully grasped by my surprisingly inqisitive little mind. I remember, of course, memorizing the names and capitals of all 50 states. I was never an A student; I had better things to do. Don't get me wrong, I knew my shit.

Yet somehow the system failed me.

As many of you know, I recently made the long drive home to Kansas City from Los Angeles where I spent the past year observing the society and culture of the Damned. While my research was not funded by any scientific foundation, I feel I walked away from the experience better and more cultured person. Also, 5 pounds lighter, addicted to whole foods, and with sand in my shoes.

The drive home was longer than I had anticipated. This is probably due to the fact that I slept through the majority of the drive out there and thereofore had little experience to base my assumptions on. To my amazement we kept ending up in wierd states that were way off the route, or so I thought. For the majority of the trip I was certain I was in some sort of magic car, and I kept hitting my dad up on the walkie-talkies asking "Are you sure we're in Arizona? I thought we were just in Vegas?"

Unfortunatly, the cause was not a magic car. The cause was my inability to properly identify my location on a map, which in turn was caused by my not knowing the actual layout of the United States on a map.

In order to best explain this I have provided pictures as reference for those who learn best with visual aids. Below we have a map of the US, slightly adjusted to adequately display my ignorance, the route I thought we were taking based on the states we were going through (I didn't have a map or directions. I was following the mattress on the back of my Dad's truck), which corresponds with where I thought I was on the map at any given time.

As you can see, we started out in LA. I know this, because that's where I lived. From LA, we took a slight detour to Nevada, which for one reason or another I was positive did not border California. I was wrong. The first clue should have been that I didn't drive through any other states to get to Nevada. So from Las Vegas we drove a couple hours and passed through Arizona. I thought we were making great time because I thought Vegas was located in the middle of Nevada. It's not. Then we ended up in Utah a few hours later, which again confused me because I thought Utah bordered California (which sounds really stupid now...) and that we had driven through it on the way to Nevada. Then suddenly, we were in Colorado. The route from there to Kansas City needs no explination because it mostly looked like this...

Or like this.....

...for 15 hours straight. Which, dont' get me wrong, is really cool for the first ten minutes. And then you realize you just drank a gallon of Diet Pepsi and passed the last rest stop for 40 miles two minutes ago.

Now that I've throughouly confused you, below is the actual route we took home.

In my defense we were driving for periods of 7-10 hours at a time.

Yeah, well, of course it's easy when you have a map.

But considering the fact that 1/5th of American's can't locate the United States on a map, I think I deserve points for actually displaying pictures of the right country.

Corporate America Can Suck My Carrot

2009-01-26T21:13:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading Thus Spake Zarathustra right now in my Contemporary Political Thought class, and I'd like to mention a valid point that Nietzsche makes in one of the parables. There's an idea in the religious community, probably outside of it too, that if you don't participate in sinful deeds you are a virtuous person. Nietzsche points out that if you don't have any desire to commit said bad deeds, that not doing them doesn't make you virtuous. (Duh.) Virtue is having the desire to commit various sins and the will to not act on that desire. So, if you have no desire to steal, molest young boys, or covet thy neighbor's bangin' hot wife, then not doing those things doesn't make you a virtuous person.

Now, let me give you a more straightforward example.

Right now, I would really like to turn about 6000 pretty white ping-pong balls into cherry bombs. (I'm not skilled in the art of constructing explosives, so my options are limited, please bear with me.) Then, I would like to take those 6000 exploding ping-pong balls and systematically blow up the upper levels of management at the headquarters of Toyota or Apple, starting with the meatheads who wear their man blouses just a little too tight across their chesticles, and work my way down from there. Probably not do any real damage or cause any fatalities (not due to any lack of effort on my part), but at the very least cause a few of them to evacuate their bowels into those expensive Andrew Christian briefs they're probably wearing. Maybe take a butter knife to the throat of Steve Jobs or do something completely irrational and messy like that. I have the complete and unfettered desire to go postal on the big suits and piss-ant retail workers who royally sodomized my near-virgin bum today.

But, since I'm not acting on that desire, I'd like to point out that those people should thank their lucky fucking stars I'm such a virtuous person.

fin.

Nothing's Fair In Love And War..

2009-01-04T15:21:00.000-08:00

He looks at me and says, "So who are you then? Really?"

And I take a moment to think about it as my eyes slide away from his caustic gaze. He's serious when he asks me this question and maybe it catches me a little off guard. Usually when people ask this question they want to know what you do, what you like, what you listen to. And most of the time they don't really care unless they're pursuing something like a romance. Even then it's just good small talk. Besides, who am I really? I don't think anybody's anybody, not really. Except for maybe if you're under the pretense that we truthfully are what we eat, in which case I'd be a Ritalin pill and two eggs, over easy.

Him and I, we're sitting in the corner of a bookstore off 5th and Baltimore in the Walldorf District, or what some call the French District, where nobody's really French but the cafe's sell baguettes and one of the boutiques has a cut-out of the Eiffle tower pasted to their front window. Nobody puts much effort into things these days. They don't have to.

I had told him I was 18. I wasn't. I told him I was Julia. It wasn't. I told him I loved him too. I couldn't tell you why. I didn't. I don't know. Maybe I did.

I tell him, I don't know. I tell him this because in all likelihood it's probably the only thing I know for sure is true. Anymore, when people ask me questions like this I just make something up to entertain them. I don't soul-search inside myself because I've never thought of myself as more than a composite of the rest of the world, a product of some sort. I figure, if they really knew themselves, they'd know me too. Anymore, it's easier to just make somebody up than to define the intricacies that comprise my whole and separate me from the masses. I'd have to know alot more about the world than just my perspective of it to determine anything for sure, and anyways, who's to say I'm who I say I am? People change, so nobody's ever really who they say they are. Not for long anyway. Besides, by the time I've figured myself out, somebody's fucked me up good and everything's changed.

And he tells me, "I think I deserve to know."

I don't think he does. I don't think he deserves anything.

I'm a liar, I say. It's the truth, which is funny when you think about it, and it feels weird saying it but his green eyes don't look hurt by any fallacy on my behalf and it bothers me so I tell him what he wants to hear so that maybe he'll shut up and leave, or so that maybe I can at least get some reaction. I don't know why he's here to begin with. I didn't invite him.

Then it dawns on me that maybe he likes the lies better. Reality's not a pretty place. People disappear under headlines and girls fall in love with other men. Maybe he needs the escape of spending the night inside somebody that doesn't really exist. Maybe he knew the truth all along.

Fuck. What is wrong with people these days?

"You're a bitch." And he says it like I should be offended, but he sat there moments ago asking who I am, and now he thinks telling me the answer solves the problem. Truth is, he's probably right. Lot of good it does the both of us now.

Me and him, we dated for about a month. It was fun at first, but only because it was wrong. I met him at a busy bar and grill on game night and had noticed he was married. I inquired about the ring and he said, "Yeah, what about it?"

So I asked him, "How married?"

Twenty minutes later we were fucking in the bathroom stall and the manager was knocking on the door telling us we needed to leave or he'd call the police. And it was supposed to be a one night thing. Nothing that lasted. Just, for one night in my life I wanted to be a whore like everyone else. It sounds silly now. Four weeks later he was talking about divorce and I was getting ready to graduate and didn't have time to deal with that shit. Half way through the fifth week he found a picture of me in the local paper with a couple of girls from the track team at a fundraiser for our school. The caption listed us by our first initial, last name, and age. The picture was of my profile, so it wouldn't have been a problem if I wasn't wearing the same thing in the picture as what I had left his house in the morning it was taken. His hoodie. With his last name. I could have tried to lie, say it wasn't me, but it would have been useless. I was caught, with red letters and scarlet hands.

Nobody's who they say they are. At least not for long.

And now he sat in front of me wanting to be able to distinguish fantasy from reality, facts from fiction. Unfortunately, that ship had sailed weeks ago. Somewhere along the lines I probably messed this man's life up something good. Down the road a while, maybe even tonight, when he looks at his wife he'll see a lie where truth used to be. Eventually he'll have to decide which realm he wants to exist in, and both are going to suck.

He says, "Just tell me your name. Tell me you're real name. Just, please?" And he pauses for a moment. "Tell me who you really are."

I felt bad then, for this guy. It was too easy for me to steal him from his world, and for no reason. "I'm Julia." And this time, when I told him who I was, I wasn't lying.

Dear Los Angeles

2008-12-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago, when I learned I was going to be moving from my childhood home in Minneapolis to a new home in Kansas, I was slightly stunned. I was a bright child, but for one reason or another it had never quite struck me that Kansas was a real state. It's like when you're a child it's easy to accept that animals can talk, even though you know somewhere in the back of your mind that they can't really talk, but they do in the animated movies so you just accept it without a second thought. I was 13 at the time and it never came up in my daydreams, so the idea was never addressed with proper reasoning. It was one of those things I had accepted as reality, but accepted it didn't exist in my reality. Then I was moving there. Oz or Kansas it didn't matter; somewhere sepia toned with tornadoes and little green men and fucking rainbows. After all those geography tests and memorized state capitals, Kansas never felt real to me until I lived there.

A decade later, I sit here counting down the days I have left living in a place that truly never existed. Maybe at one time it did. But like I originally assumed about Kansas, Los Angeles is truly a creation of the cinematic world. It isn't real. The people who walk the streets here aren't real. They are a composite of scenes and poses and scripted dialogue. The lives they lead are make-believe, the truths they promise usually prove false. They're rockstars with drug addictions, soccer mom's with politically destructive secret lives, teenage girls with huge vaginas and too many boyfriends, and little boys who drink too much cognac on a good day. It's a beautiful dreamland in which nobody ever wakes up. And it's nice, until you reach out to touch someone and your hand goes straight through them. They push strollers and worship aliens and celebrate every holiday the world could come up with. They've got the longing glances and the memorable monologues down pat. The people here are everybody and nobody all at once.

In a city on the beach, all the shells live in houses and drive top-down on Sunset.

They tell you stories about how the West was won, but nobody ever talks about how we lost it again. Self entitlement is the root of all evil.

And don't even get me started on the traffic.

LA, you were beautiful when you were black and white. A city shrouded in glowing lost souls; spirits looking to make a life in the bright lights a and on the silver screens. Fur coats and cigarettes and champagne and falling in love a million times with fake names and scripted soliloquies. LA, you used to be about entertaining the masses. Filling a solemn people with hope for a better life, or at least a true romance. Now, now it's just about profit. Who's tits and ass are worth more on an insurance check. Who's Jag compensates for their lack of genitals better.

Oh, but it hasn't all been bad. I don't mean to be a cynic. I did meet some fascinating people during my stay here. Most of them were the equivalent to the picture that comes with the frame. They look and act like somebody you could know. Somebody you do know. But it's all appearances. Deep down, everybody is exactly what you already knew they were. They're readable. They're all books. Just educated guesses and research, no experience. But some of them were beautiful. I mean really. Some of them showed me a brilliant world outside my own, some even showed me a world inside myself I wasn't sure really existed.

I guess there were plenty of people like me, too. People who came out here looking for something new, some escape from a world that closes in on you too fast. A place big enough to get lost in. A place where nobody knows your name. A place to prove yourself. The non-natives from New York and Ohio and Pennsylvania. I talked with some of them and, like me, they all smile politely and say, "It's taken some getting used to, but it's nice..." And we're all lying. Most of us. Some of them found a place outside the people. I never found that. I don't think I ever looked.

Most of the people out here, most of them have lived here their whole lives. And, these people, when they leave the rest of the city says, "They'll be back. You can leave L.A., but L.A. never leaves you." And I feel bad for them because it's true. In other cities, assholes are assholes, not softies pretending to play hardball. In other cities, nobody's trying to impress an invisible casting director- just the girl at the end of the bar, or the guy holding that girl's hand. In other cities, people come out of character. In other cities, when you crack the shell, or open the book, there's someone inside.

Oh L.A. I used you. I took advantage of you and your numbingly warm latitude and I used you to prove to myself that I didn't need anybody, and I was proved wrong. Without people there is no story line. Constant quiet kills the muse, and while they've said happiness writes white, boredom doesn't write at all. I need to witness life happening in the mirror and in the streets and in the alleys and between the rows at the grocery store. Real life. Real beautiful life. But not to the point where it's overwhelming and I shut down and loose it all. Too many people. Too much nothing happening all the time. Everyone's just waiting for their turn to talk. They watch you constantly. They aren't judging, they just want to see how they measure up. Now I'm growing backwards and into myself. I'm tired. I've shut up a lot since leaving. Maybe I'm just an outsider, but I can't live in an overcrowded city where everybody is alone.

It's bittersweet. There are a few things I wish I didn't have to leave behind. Things I won't say...
But I think, for the most part, the only thing I'll miss when I finally depart is how wonderful it felt to deeply miss home.

Goodbye L.A.

Love,

Carrot

Single Black Wine Rack: Likes Long Walks On Beachs And Cozying Up To The Fire

2008-12-21T12:54:00.000-08:00

I'm getting ready to move into a beautiful loft in downtown Kansas City here in about a week, and I'm absolutely thrilled. For the first time in my life I'm going to be living completely on my own, especially given my growing disgust for the human population in general. I think this is the best situation for my health and wellbeing, and that of those around me. I've known for about a month or two now that I'd soon be moving out of my dad's place, since he recently lost his job at Mattel and is going to be moving soon as well. With this knowledge, I began to stock up on basic essentials like things I can use to store and display my wine. After spending an entire work shift digging through the various ads on Craigslist offering multitudes of useless shit people have left out on the curb, I came upon an ad offering a lovely mod-looking hanging wine holder. The hanging display dangles from the ceiling and comes down in various spiraling tendrils which hold the wine bottles. I had to have it. After noticing that the ad had been running for a couple days, I called the woman up and offered her half her asking price. Sold.

Now, I'm especially excited because the loft I have waiting for me back in K.C. has cement floors, raised cement ceilings, and partial walls which give it a very industrial feel that will be easy to decorate in a very clean but cozy style. If I've ever wanted to achieve anything in my life, this is it. Learning shit, living in a badass loft, and laying in the middle of the floor drinking a glass of Reisling and listening to my Sinatra records. You people don't understand how huge this is for me. Unfortunately, cement ceilings means my funky wine rack will be entirely useless, as I am only one woman and cannot fathom any possible way of drilling something into concrete. Especially since the thing I would be hanging would be holding my precious bottles of wine, and I don't see any of my handywork being stable enough to risk using it to dangle glass bottles over a cement floor.

About a week ago I went and put an ad on Craigslist offering the wine rack at the same price the woman I bought it from had originally offered it. I can't use it, so I figured I might as well attempt to make a profit. Given the current status of the economy I'm sure boxed wines are probably selling a bit better than the glass bottles I typically buy, and they tend to stack just fine in the fridge without needing a fancy piece of art to display them in. Needless to say, I haven't received any responses for the holder.

Still, I have received two emails requesting dates and one requesting a "casual encounter". At first I couldn't imagine why I was getting these emails. I had shown a coworker the joys and entertainment of perusing the Craigslist Personals, and thought maybe she had used my email to post a prank ad, but she would never have been able to log into my email and complete the confirmation required in order to post an ad, so I decided that couldn't be the case. Besides, nothing these men were requesting was too out of the ordinary. A simple dinner with a good bottle of wine, or a good fuck with wine as a parting gift. Nobody was asking I show up with midgets and a cattle prod, or wear a strap-on and bring a female ostrich who prefers swiss cheese to cheddar. So, if it were a prank it would have been poorly executed. All three of these gentlemen had somehow found me on the For Sale section of the site though the listing I had created to rid myself of this useless wine thing. Apparently men like a women who drinks.

I know what you're thinking, but I had simply posted the picture shown at the beginning of this post, very clean and non-sexual, and said "Perfect Condition. Holds 6 Bottles. Hangs From Ceiling. Black. $25 OBO". I wasn't straddling the wine rack in fishnets with my tits falling out everywhere. I wasn't sucking on a lollipop in lingerie while holding the thing up or licking the metal curls in a seductive manner while pouring bottles of Chardonnay or Merlot all over my white t-shirt, no bra. Sex sells, but not that well.

Apparently my wrought iron curves, thin appendages, ability to hang from the ceiling, and fact that I can hold 6 bottles of wine without breaking a sweat, are simply traits that single men find very appealing.

Good to know.

X

A Day In The Life...

2008-12-20T08:38:00.000-08:00

I'm not a demanding person by any means, but I don't understand how the general population of greater Los Angeles can't find a way to merge into traffic without causing a two mile back up. And to be honest, traffic wouldn't be quite as unbearable as it is if the morons in SUVs didn't decide that they own the square footage immediately in front of my vehicle and then decide act on this notion. Don't pull into my lane and expect me to stop. If I'm not texting or PMSing, and you're not an asshole, I might slow down and allow you to creep in, but don't ever just expect this of me. I don't think I'm being unreasonable.

Okay, so maybe it was out of line to play Pacman with the on ramp so as to prevent people from driving up a couple car lengths then causing even more of a back up by trying to merge at the last minute in front of a bunch of people who are too stubborn to allow it to go smoothly. Maybe I did deserve the barrage of horn honking from angry little fat people in their angry little clown cars, but at 6 o'clock in the afternoon my stomach was grumbling and it was beginning to look like a scene from The Incredible Hulk. It was too much to handle, all this confined rage, so I resigned from the freeway and pulled off the next exit looking for a quick appetite fix. As anti-fast food as I tend to be, when I haven't eaten since the previous night Taco Bell begins to appeal to my senses much like gourmet pasta w/foie gras in a truffle Marsala sauce might. Unfortunately, the only things available off that exit at that time were a Von's and Burger King, and while I used to be a fan of the Whopper, the thought of being the victim of one of "The King's" televised hijinks didn't sit well.

I had plenty of time to kill, since traffic wouldn't be dying down until at least next week, so I took my time wandering up and down the aisles of my least favorite grocery store, scanning for a quick meal and a couple attractive men to sexually abuse in the meat cooler. Long story. Anyway, apparently when there's traffic on the 10, only elderly women go grocery shopping. Prospects for male suitors were looking thin, and my stress levels had dropped taking my appetite with it, so I decided to head over to the frozen foods section and pick up a bag of cheese Pizza Rolls as it's been almost 6 months since the last time I enjoyed the greasy succulence of my ultimate in edible vices and I figured I could avoid starvation at least until I got home and could cook them. I grabbed the frosty bag, adjusted my cleavage, and headed to the cashier to sweet talk my way out of having to sign up for a Von's Club card in order to get the discount I felt entitled to. I didn't care so much about saving the fifty cents, so much as successfully getting what I wanted the wrong way.

Once back in my car, emotionally stabilized and secure in the company of frozen pizza snacks, I approached the on ramp, sped to the very end of the merge lane, and slipped right in front of some guy talking on his cell phone. He was visibly upset, but it served him right as far as I was concerned. I remained calm for the first couple minutes, determined to maintain control over my road rage and not go Chuck Norris on some bitch's minivan. Things were moving pretty slow, at a rate of about 20-25 miles per hour, but at least they were moving. I couldn't really complain. This is Los Angeles, after all; the world headquarters for idiots in Beemers. Then suddenly everyone in front of me hit their brakes at once. And I hit mine. And the asshole on his cell phone behind me who had been riding my ass the whole time hit his. I could hear his tires squeal and I squeezed my eyes closed and braced for impact, reaching across the seat and holding the Pizza Rolls to prevent them from shattering against the dashboard upon impact.

Nothing.

He managed to miss me by what I imagined to be millimeters. In my mind I cursed loudly and stabbed him with an ink pen in his penisular region for driving so unsafely as to endanger my life, and the lives of the uncooked Pizza Rolls in the seat next to me. Ho ho, nobody is safe from my pretend wrath.

Traffic. Again. It's about 7 now, and I'm hungrier than ever. It's stress. Emotional eating. I'm not really starving at this point, not even hungry, although I probably should be. The pizza rolls are beginning to thaw in the seat next to me despite the fact that it's about 60 degrees below zero outside, in Californian terms. I'm cold and I reach out and turn the nob on my dash until hot air is shooting from my air vents. And then I get an idea. A brilliant, brilliant idea.

I'm moving back to Kansas City in a week, and I've got my car pretty packed with a portion of my belongings already. There was a bag of silverware in the back seat and with my knee wedged against the wheel, my foot on the break, I reached back and pulled a fork out of the plastic bag that holds my utensils. Still parked on the freeway between a flat bed Chevy and some sporty silver thing, I grab the bag of processed pizza goodies and tear open the plastic, then jam a fork into one of the cheesy rolls. This is my first attempt at cooking frozen Pizza Rolls using the heat from my vents, but already I feel like a pro. The air from my car's conditioning system is probably not of the best quality, but I'm hungry and the air was really hot so I figured this approach just might work well enough to hold me over until I get home.

The lane I'm in starts to inch forward slowly, and I hold my speared snack up to the vent and turn the heat full blast. I can feel the fork warm, and my fingers start to sting, but I'm hungry now and I don't let it affect me.

I managed to cook about 4 pizza rolls in the span of something like 40 minutes. I mean, it worked, but they lacked the crispiness you would achieve if you chose to use an oven instead, and they were still a little slushy on the inside, which is never good when dealing with a cheesy product. Furthermore, it should be noted to any novice cook that the cook time is outrageous. It's something like 10-15 minutes per roll, depending on your patience and attention span, and unless you have a really big fork the turn out rate is pretty low. On the bright side I'm sure I managed to burn a few calories by sweating because the car gets really hot in this sort of situation, but I worried that if I rolled down the windows it might ruin the convection effect and negatively impact the already obscene cooking time.

On an unrelated note, at one point while driving I happened to look over and notice a black kid about my age eating a banana and found myself a bit surprised. Of course, if he looked over and saw me roasting Pizza Rolls over my air conditioning vent, he might have felt a similar sense of surprise, but I guess given the stereotypes I would have perhaps expected the banana he was eating to be deep fried? I suppose that's a good indicator of how racist I am.

You learn something new everyday...

Sharing Is Not Optional

2008-12-04T00:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just want the whole fucking world to myself.

Five hours north of Los Angeles and I'm sitting shotgun in the front seat of a Lexus next to anybody. A million trees jut up from the side of the road spotted with crisp autumn leaves clinging to near-barren branches, their trunks encompassed by weak shades of green and orange weeds and bushes. It's like the northern countryside, and the air smells like pine when we roll down the windows and pretend to choke on the fresh air as though our bodies aren't used to taking in anything pure. We're headed to Yosemite National Park and I'm still under the impression that I'm going to get to see Ol' Faithful, the geyser that I later find out is at Yellowstone, somewhere in Wyoming. It also later dawns on me that the reason Yosemite sounds so familiar is because it's the name of the cartoon midget cowboy who always tried to kill Bugs Bunny. I should have paid better attention in geography class.

The park itself made me homesick for my childhood. It felt, for a while, like I was back in Minnesota; a little freckle faced five year old girl buried under a pile of leaves with an orange face from a Flintstone's push-pop. Back in the days where you could smell the snow weeks before it fell, and people didn't bitch about it when it finally did. I missed the lakes and the pine trees, the cabins, the cold air and bonfires. In California people wear mittens and scarves and big puffy jackets with earmuffs because it's winter, not because it's cold. It's was November and there was no snow on the mountains yet and there was a vague scent of smokiness in the air. Beautiful streams of what remained of the summer waterfalls were still flowing down the steep cliffs that lined the park, and in some places even the grass was still green. A couple times throughout the day the temperature would drop a couple degrees and for a couple of moments I would be able to see my breathe and feel real again, somewhere between lost and at peace.

I miss this place. I miss the fragrant bountiful wilderness where things were spectacular and nothing had meaning or method. This place isn't a piece of art or a product of somebody's creativity and inspiration. There's no retail value or translation to it. No critic would dare dispute the texture of the leaves, or the hue of the clouds just before sunset. It just is what it is. And if you want to learn a lesson from it than it's this; accept natural things as they are because they're good that way. But learning a lesson out here isn't required for the experience to be breathtaking and worth the drive, for at least the first half hour.

And then there are people. Everywhere. Crowds on the bridges, people outside of their Camrys and Yukons with their digital cameras and sandwiches. Gift shops, quaint restaurants, tourist information.

In front of us there's a caravan of Middle Eastern tourists backing up and turning around, creating a sort of gridlock you'd find in the busy cities. Four or five of them do this in front of our car, and a couple people start trying to U-turn out of line behind us. Reverse, turn, back up, inch forward, reverse, turn, drive. Behind us somewhere somebody honks. We're in the middle of the forest, and people are yelling out their cars. And I turn to him and say, "Don't you just love California?" And we force a laugh, because it isn't true. What's funny is people settle for this cramped campground as the great outdoors. This is what they call "getting back to nature," this line of RV's and vans making U-turns next to rows of large heated cabins and novelty shops that sell fresh brewed coffee and maps in the middle of a national park. And then I tell him sometimes I hate people, and I'd probably make a good lawyer except I'm a hypocrite and can't listen to petty people bitch about each other for a living. "I'd rather just do what I do." I say. "I'm perfectly content being the deviant who gives people the karmic ass-kicking they deserve. I'd rather just methodically persuade bad people into being good, and convince good people to be a little bit bad once in a while. Maybe I've just lost faith."

We're backing up and following the caravan, and, looking straight ahead he says, "You know, if you're looking for perfection in people, you're never going to find it."

"I'm not looking for perfection," I tell him, "I'm looking for people who don't cheat on their girlfriends, sleep with my boyfriends, use me for sex, manipulate the public, or lie to my face. But... apparently my standards are unrealistic." The conversation ends and I'm a cynic again and there are too many people and I can't get away from any of them. They're in the cars in front and behind me, in the cabins and the diners and on the picnic benches. They're on the bridges, the sidewalks, the trees, the leaves, the weeds, the wind, and underneath the dirt. They're everywhere. Honking. And I'm just want to be alone with my world.

Craigslist

2008-12-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I'm lost in my head and find myself standing in a parking lot in downtown LA twenty miles from where I had been headed wondering how I got there. The thing about routine is you don't have time to detour, and maybe I didn't have time to detour, but I went with it. Life is a discovery, a blank page, not a to-do list. Six o'clock shower. Eight o'clock 2nd coffee. Noon meeting. Three o'clock dry-cleaning. Five o'clock dinner. I was born 2 weeks late. I've never been on time to anything in my entire life.

There was a quiet little cafe across the street and I found myself inside after spending a few moments on the hood of my Camry, sprawled out and conflicted.

Me: Quizzical look. I was impressed by the selection of scones but questioned the integrity of some squishy looking muffins. I was hungry, but I settled for hot tea.

You: Sexually confused brute in a purple apron. You were frustrated by my indecisive tendencies and desperately needed to get a hold of some Neutrogena acne cleanser. Your whiteheads could have produced enough milky goo to substitute as creamer had I ordered coffee. Still, you smiled politely like we all expect you to.

I'm not a difficult person, but if I find myself in a state of confusion as to how I got where I currently am, I tend to exude an air of resistance towards anything with lips stuck in the ongoing process of pulling words from a corroded mind. Forgive me if I come off as arrogant, but I'm desperately trying to make sure the next few decisions, however minuet they may be in the grand scheme of things, are correct ones in the hopes that I might realign myself with the cobblestone path of fate I should have been following. I'm not where I should be and I don't have time to waste being unpleasant, so can the remarks about how I look lost. The career negligence that has placed you into the title of "barista" is not my fault, though I humbly salute your service, so keep your roach-like attitude to yourself evil apron-man. Now, pour the hot water into that recyclable cardboard cup so my Hoo Ha Peppermint Dragon Bitch Citrus Tea can steep, you commiserable social peon. Thanks.

Me: Tousled hair, drunk on caffeinated tea and in an obvious hurry to get nowhere. I was wearing mismatched socks and a black t-shirt with a few contrasting deodorant stains.

You: Middle-aged, sitting at the table outside reading the Wall Street journal. We didn't make eye contact, but you looked at me like I was a mess. You were obviously jealous.

And you should be. I'm resilient. Fresh. I can fall apart with the stock market a million times without loosing track. I'm not worried about being overqualified for a job at Borders in case my company tanks and my corporate ass can't find a job I would be qualified for because the economy has left the conglomerates of the world in a hiring freeze. I can live in an apartment comfortably and eat a box of single serving Pizza Rolls in the break room without feeling like my professional integrity has been compromised. I don't have another heart or career to consider if I want to jump across a few states and set up shop. I don't have to pimp my psychological well-being out to the communal heap in order to pay my mortgage, or my auto lease. I'm not yet concerned about funding my spoiled and inconsiderate offspring's college education. I can still wake up late on Saturday mornings and watch cartoon with a bowl of Fruit Loops and feed my poor decrepit snob of a cat without feeling like a failure. You have a newspaper telling you to buy or sell and a triple latte that will help you stay awake during the next soul-sucking meeting with HR. I have the whole world in front of me. I can be lost. I don't have to be found.

I'd be jealous too.

Ok, Dante

2008-11-28T00:10:00.000-08:00

What am I doing here, when you're all the way up there? I should be in town cutting through the dark knight with stilettos and swaying hips that together could crack cement. (With flashes of lightening and thunder and such and so-forth.) But we both know, Romeo, if I ever came back I'd be in the girl in black in the far corner of the bar with a vodka tonic as I watch for you and wonder why you won't look at me like you did that one night when you were drunk and I was in love. I should be prepared next time. I should attend your bed with a blunt object in hand so I can put you out of your misery because goddamn this must be so hard on you. Bravo, you fool. What a pity to have me like this, falling all over myself with broken stilts and a mutilated mind. I know what this looks like. We both know I'm wearing the cone in this classroom. I wilt and whither and babble like a desperate drying brook. How elegant! What class! But, Casanova, come on! It's not like this is about appreciating admiration or even following through. It's about turn the lights back on and say something you mute fuck. The only reason I'm the fool here is because I opened my mouth. I'm sorry, I thought that's what we were there for. Just so you know, this is your fault. I never took the blame, but I gladly accept the consequences. Thank you sir, may I have another? MMmm yes. It's about how I can spend 8 months and only remember an orgasm and Beefaroni, but two nights with you and I can remember every single moment that you attempted to sleep through. Jesus, it's like I just fucked the monster under the bed and now I'm begging for him to not spit me out.

Closure means don't bite me to begin with.

This will require years of therapy.

I'll be sending you the bill.

Flight 5194 To Memphis

2008-11-25T21:33:00.000-08:00

Flight 5194 to Memphis, scheduled to depart at 2:30, and I'm 30000 feet in the air, floating through in a new idea of reality. From this altitude, the world looks entirely fragile, made of tiny bits and pieces rolling lightly along without rhythm or form. From this perspective, it's no wonder the planet is falling apart at the seams, no wonder our little webs and complex skeletal structures of parliment and society crumble under something so simple as words, breaths, changes in the air waves. Parts of the world, at this height, resemble the internal workings of a computer, viruses and infostructures, wires and chips, metal and plastic. The rest of the planet looks like a collage of first grade art projects, some parts filled with blotches and blobs of color, greens blues, burnt reds, vibrant oranges. Other parts geometric, with varying shades of brown and green, some with the trails of fingertips, raked across the paint. The trees and the utility poles and the cars look breakable, much less real, as though they should exist behind plexiglass in the middle of a mall; thepint size plans for a new real estate development to be approved by voters. Roller coasters and shopping centers and parking lots and little ant cars. Things that are vaguely recognizable, but not possibly functioning. All these things, so familiar, become impossible to imagine as lifesize. You imagine yourself standing next to a giant plastic house, with a painted-on door and plastic pole people standing outside for good measure. The grass feels like turf, the trees are dried foam. Seran wrapped lakes. It's like having your nose pressed to a snowglobe, except you get to worry about how it would feel to bob around in the middle of the ocean with your seat cushion, should the situation arise. For a moment, outside the bubble, you are bigger than everything. Power. Control. Simplicity.

This must be how God feels.

And then the plane lands, and suddenly you are swallowed by everything that was, only moments before, to small to touch. Insignificant, now prominent. Same objects, greater impacts, different perspectives.

This is your reality check.
Just another proof positive that nothing is anything more than how you see it.

To Catch A Cougar

2008-11-18T20:46:00.000-08:00

So I neglected to mention in my past few posts that I got canned from my nanny job due to the family's financial problems. The economy has left everybody slowly becoming unemployed, and quickly headed for the phone to call the unemployment line, which explains my inability to get through to an operator rather than just getting disconnected.

So I've been looking into new jobs online and somehow managed to stumble upon a youtube video of a scene from To Catch A Predator.

Really the only thing I ever learned from watching that show is that men like cookies. Trust me, this knowledge comes in handy as I have seduced many a man by using my own secret recipe for the chocolate chip variety which I will include below. For the most part I'm too old to worry about men who get their socks rocked by the prospect of boning underage girls. But it did get me thinking...

How come you never hear about older women preying on young boys? Those hyenas, or cougars, whatever, licking their lips at the posters of boys like Zac Efron or Joe Jonas.

And then I realized, THAT's what I want to be when I grow up. A cougar. An elderly slut. I'm going to be the only 90 year old woman in jail who still requests conjugal visits and swears "he said he was 18!"

In another 50 years, I'll be chatting up a twinkish looking boy in some online chat room and sending him pictures of my sagging breasts. And he'll be all "Ooh, you're so hot! I'm 18 and my parents aren't home. Want to come over for some cookies?" and I'll be all, "Hell yeah! I love cookies!"

And I'll walk in through the back door and sit down at the table and munch on some cookies, and Chris Hansen's grandson, the new host, will bust out of the living room and I'll whisper under my breath just loud enough for the mic to pick up, "Dude, I didn't know this was a threesome..." He'll say, "Well well, Ms. Carrot. What exactly are you here for? You knew this boy was only 17."

I'll start walking up to him, wrinkly finger twirling the string of gum hanging from my overly lined lips, thin grey hair framing my hollow wax paper cheeks. I'll get up really close, so close he can smell my White Diamonds perfume, and say, "Baby, I only came here for the cookies. But since you walked in the room I've been craving some thick juicy sausage..."

Then I'll pull out my dentures, slap them on the table, grab him by the belt, and pull him in for a slobbery wet granny kiss....

And the producers cut to commercial....

fin.

Secret Recipe For Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Ingredients:
1 package of store bought chocolate chip cookies.

Directions:
Throw package on kitchen counter.
Get naked and go wait in the bedroom.

Concrete Answers Limit Possibilities

2008-11-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

Complicated things like this shouldn't have such easy answers to the questions they force. It shouldn't be so simple, and I suppose in a sense it's not. But really, it is. Its that I'm too stubborn to "just go with it." Having hope drained from your heart is like being raped. It makes idle and removes pleasure out of something that's sheer design is to be exciting and productive. It's having your hands bound behind your back, able to see what's happening but entirely incapable of making any sort of difference. I've learned the only control you have in both of these situations is how you react during after the fact. You can put up a good fight, but if it fails (and often times it does), you can move on. Every moment of life is not painful. I think we've adapted to the comfort we find when we suffer.

Old Stuff

2008-11-16T03:20:00.000-08:00

At night, I write, With my eyes closed....

It's 3am and I'm much less than wide awake. I don't see black when I look at the backs of my eyelids anymore, but moving pictures, vintage but fresh. My body is lacking in nutrition and I'm suffering from a case of cotton mouth but neither state has convinced myself it's entirely nessecary to take the simple steps to resolve these matters. Lack of motivation and I'm in a daze, which, when you think about it too hard, defines the past week of my life. Big suprise. I'm wasted, I'm such a waste that I'm just wasting away here in my psudo-dream state. I'm tired.

The stars don't have to tell me to have a good night. The mere fact that they're kind enough to come out tonite makes it such. It's nice to know something out there cares, but sometimes loneliness is it's own comfort. I don't know why people fear it.

I think my life is beautiful. I smile about sweet things, I revel in the spectrum, and I'm certainly in such a love affair with this journey that I don't mind if I ever arrive at my destination.

That in mind, I just don't care enough to finish writing whatever this was going to be.

If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere.

2008-11-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

I am Jessica Rabbit.

Hips and tits everywhere.

I'm not dumb.. I get it.

But I swear it's not all on purpose.

There's something here that I don't control.

It's not always a good thing.

Remember that time that guy wanted you to be his escort? That $200 you made just by interviewing? Just by sitting at a table listening to him make a fool of himself?

Or that time you were offered $500 in a Target parking lot to suck some guy off.

Or how about the times that creep followed you home from the beach, the bass ackwards way, in, and back out of the underground parking garage.

Remember that guy at Barnes and Nobel who was standing next to you while you sat in the corner. Remember how it felt when you realized his hand had been digging for something in his pocket for an unreasonably long period of time?

Then there was that time that the guys brought you to the strip club and you walked out with ten bucks in tips from people you had never met and a free lap dance and all you did was lay down on the stage with a five in your mouth.

Of course you remember. This kind of shit happens to everyone.

How bout that time the tattoo artist cornered you and pulled you away from drinking with Drowning Pool to push you up against the shower wall and attempt to rip off your shirt.

All those times you used to wake up in the middle of the night to somebody random crawling into your bed during the parties your roommates threw.

All those times you crawled into bed and somebody was already there, pretending to sleep, and so you slept in your car instead.

Remember that time the guy broke the newly installed lock on your bedroom door while you were sleeping. That night was hard to forget. You both ended up crying.

Some of you know about Valentines day. The first one. The shame and fear, and the ironic holiday you have to remember it all by.

Some of you know about that married guy who brought a dozen red roses and a box of $20 chocolates when he came to visit you for the third time that week.

Or the other married guy who's children he claimed he didn't have were sleeping upstairs.

Or the guy who's pick up line was, "You're pro-choice, right?'

There's that guy who was masturbating next to you at the stop light, or next to you at the park.

There was the guy standing by me at a Starbucks who whispered in my ear "I'd love to rip that skirt off you and fuck you sideways," then disappeared into the bathroom with his coffee.

There's the "Have you ever thought about stripping?" or "Have you ever thought about modeling?" And both probably mean the same thing.

Remember S.F. picking you off the street while you were smoking a cigarette and bringing you onto the tour bus?

Then there was the time when you were 18 and your roommate had to come outside and bring you in because some guy was trying to convince you to get into his car...

Rock Kills Kid?
The firefighter?

The guy from church camp?

And every damned time they say, "Come over. I swear, I won't try anything." And you know they will. And you go anyway, because by now it's just fun to fuck with them.

Remember every time you smiled at someone and it was interpreted as "Let's fuck?"
All the upskirt feels, ass grabs, waist holds from strangers at the bars late at night.

And remember, "Ok, now I want you to imagine that you just lost your job, and you're willing to do *anything* to get it back. And I'm the boss you're begging. Okay.... go."

Remember Dustin, and the roses, 11 real, 1 fake, and the card that said "Some things never die..." or that black goldfish he left in the front seat of my car with the note that said, "Learn to lock your doors," but I suppose that's what a girl gets when she's nice to somebody.

Remember every hand. Every mouth. Every fingertip. Every tongue.

Every bite mark, bruise, cut, scratch.

Remember the first real camera you ever owned? Yeah. Let that one sink in.

Too many I Love You's. After a while you don't care if they mean them anymore.

Too many lines. You don't care if they're being honest. After a while it's just an accomplishment to make somebody love you. After a while you stop loving them back.

For fuck's sake. Sometimes it's just too much to ask a certain type of person to look at you and see a human. I guess maybe sometimes you deserve that, because sometimes maybe you're not.

Oh hush. Relax.

No really, because remember the snowball fight and the red cheeks, and the warm mittens?

And don't forget the night in the pool in the rain.

How about that long afternoon laying against one of them on the log that balanced across the ravine with his arms around you promising you the world.

Or that night we spent in the hammock in the back of that stranger's mansion?

Then there was the time you showed up at the beach and he had wine and we fed the ducks and dipped our toes in the water.

The way he didn't care if you loved him back, as long as he could just lay next to you on the nights you were lonely, "It's enough."

The night in his basement when he got mad and yelled at you, but he stuck around for another three months because after a while it stopped mattering whether or not we fucked. That night changed your life.

The Eskimo kisses, and butterfly kisses, and secret kisses and I love yous when he thought you were sleeping.

The time you went driving through the city together to look at Christmas lights and it started to snow.
The time we crashed the car on the way home from the show, and then your dad had to come get us, and he ended up crashing into the ditch on the way home too.

That walk you took in the rain when he pressed you up against the car and kissed you so hard he could have taken you on the hood right there in the middle of the parking lot.

Remember your boss at the bar, the one who pushed you up against the front door, hand around your neck and breathing in your ear, or the way he'd pull your hair just to tease.

Remember the letters they sent, how much they cared, how they made it all worth it and taught you to never give up because sometimes there are real good people out there, and sometimes they're only disguised as assholes.

The night at the wedding when one of them finally broke down and screamed across the room the three words for the first time, "I still give a damn because I FUCKING LOVE YOU, OK? I love you."

Laying next to one of them in bed and listening to the rain. And beating him with a pillow because his alarm clock is SO FUCKING ANNOYING.

The 7 months where you fell asleep every night you weren't together on the phone with him and didn't hang up until he had to get up for work.

Sneaking out at midnight through the basement window, with your black sports car parked, lights off, waiting for me, then parking the car two blocks away and just sleeping together.

The accidental "I love you's" when they'd hang up the phone.

And that time he threw you in the fountain with your clothes on and you pulled him in with you, then went to Dairy Queen soaking wet and getting ice cream cones.

That Chicken Helper dinner he cooked on movie night.

The many chicken soup deliveries when you was sick in bed...

The way he held your hand in front of his mom.

The way their moms all loved you, and still ask about you sometimes.

Watching every episode of Family Guy on Sundays when you'd eat Chinese food together and then lay in bed all day in a food coma.

The daisies, roses, tulips, and wildflowers.

That time you wrote about how you missed the sunflowers in Kansas, and he showed up at work with a bouquet of them.

The ten minute love affair with boy on the cruise in New York that got you chastised by the entire choir group.

That time he lifted you up onto the railing and kissed you in front of everybody at the theme park.

That time he threw rocks at your window.

The poem he wrote you.

The song he wrote you.

The way he held your hand all the way up the ski lift on your vacation together.

Remember how some of them used to wake you up by playing guitar and singing quietly?
Every time a boy you had never met before held your hair back when you drank too much.

Or the one who texted you while you were dating his best friend that he left the party early because when you smiled you lit up the room and he thinks he's in love with you.

That date you had where you stayed up talking until the cafe closed, then the rest of the night talking in his car.
The time you spent all night making out and cuddling on the wet grass in the middle of the park in Lawrence while the cards drove by and honked.

The guy who, flustered, told you he was saving himself for his true love, and that he thought you might be her.

The night you spent on the dock under that giant moon and talked until the sun came up about the dumbest shit.

There were the nights he spent listening to you make excuses for spending time with somebody worthless, and how he told you flat out that you needed to stop because he cared to much to watch you get hurt again.

There was that crazy road trip you took with the boy you never met before to Saint Louis, and you never made it because he pulled over and wanted to dance in the rain, and you slept together in the parking lot on a blanket, and laid in the shade the whole next day and ate donuts and drank rum from the bottle.
Remember when you came to that stopped train, and you fell asleep parked in front of it and were woken up by people knocking on the glass?
And you spent the night cuddling on the grass under the big Oak tree.
It didn't always end well, but it was always beautiful.

There was that time on top of the elementary school after he left you for her, but you stole him back, even if only for one night.

The night you saw him across the bar, and you chased each other for hours across town. And the night you finally spent together, the way he held you so tight, and the way his fingertips felt on your hips.

Remember the morning you woke up next to him and thought it would be the last time you saw him, so you never went into work and ended up forfeiting your bartending gig just to spent another couple hours with him?

God, see? It's not all bad. Some of it's breathtaking.

Maybe Disney fairytales aren't destroying young girl's views of reality, maybe they're just keeping the hope alive.

Because all the bad stuff? It's always been worth all the good stuff.

So you ask me to explain why I've done the the things I've done? Explain the nude photographs?

It's because somewhere between love, and laughter, and lust, and perversion falls nudity. And there are obviously many reasons woman seek to have this perspective of themselves captured. Granted, I haven't always approached the idea in the best of ways or been responsible about my actions. But I have always had a strong, valid reasoning behind them.

Is it a side effect of one to many wrong hands too far down my pants?

Do I thrive off the attention?

Neither.

I've heard a million reasons why girls want to do it.

You're only young once, right?

You've got a good body, so no shame in flaunting it.

You're just expressing your sexuality.

No no and no.

Ever since puberty I've been followed by an automatic tag-line of sex. It's not intentional, though I've certainly learned how to play it up and use it to my advantage. I don't usually dress especially provocative. I've been told I carry myself well, not that I "walk like I want to be fucked" as I've heard it put. Nobody who knows me well considers me promiscuous. Still, it's difficult, when you're a girl, to live in an oversexed world where female sexuality is at it's peak in the media and women everywhere are having more and more sex. Which is fabulous. Fantastic. I'm all for it. Seriously. I love sex. Nothin' better. Everyone loves sex. Go have lots of it. Don't misinterpret me here.

But sometimes I want to look at my body and see it for what it really is. I want my confidence and my persona and my curves to be the center of beauty, not sexuality. I want nudity to be seen as the core of the human body. What's beneath it all. The foundation to love, sex, procreation, life. The sculpters, the painters, the artists, they all saw something there and it wasn't just sex.

And when you look at old carved marble, vintage canvases, various works of timeless artists, you see the female form as something of grace and presence, not fetish or horny interpretation.

So maybe in a sense nude photographs are a sort of rebellion against what the unclothed human body represents by today's standards as well as resistance against what I, as a woman, represent by today's society's standards.

It's my way of saying, fine. Go ahead and look at me with your own eyes. Take what you will from it, but this body, these curves, this mind... they are all mine. And you don't get to have them unless you see what I see when I look at them.

Image Credits:

Underwater Female Nude - Ed Freeman

Red Hair - Some photographer

Industrial Nude - StefanoLevi

Nude - Tribianni

"Do you come here often?"

2008-11-10T00:39:00.000-08:00

It's abrasive in here, the kind of place one goes to when they realize they need another shot, without necessarily remembering when they took their last. It might have been days, weeks ago, but times like this renew that bitter taste of bourbon or whisky on the tongue. It's sick and sweaty and refreshingly dishonest. The sun won't break for another 5 hours and we'll be liars at least until then. Surrounded by steep walls and deep wallets, I don't plan on leaving until I have to. Anywhere I could go at this hour would only lead me to self loathing at the caustic end of a cigarette or the rock bottom of a shit glass bottle. Anyway, both are easily accessible from my current coordinates, and I intend to take full advantage of this. Walking hangovers and camera whores are scattered like spilled sardines under sexual lighting, setting the mood for a fishy fuck fest nobody truly intends on participating in, and I wait for my turn to snap at someone for bumping my beer. This isn't where people go if they want to be distant, but I hold myself to a different standard and I'm here anyway. The air is thick- it has a warm flavor- inhaled and exhaled a time too many by people I'd rather not share the process of respiration with, even less bodily fluids. Empty inqiries and bland attempts at faking futures interupt the first few sips of Boulevard. What a waste. They wade into my bubble with insecurities and egos, scarps demanding reverence in destroying what is and what could be. I'm not interested in pretending I want any of them, but I do it anyway out of habit. Each delivers a charming a alcoholic oratory with classic oaths, testaments to the confidence they have in their own size and faculty. People find love in these dingy holes. They find society here. I only find solitude amidst the voices. An empty room with wandering eyes watching a hand on my ass or a mouth on my neck and boredom in my gaze. I am unaffected.

"Buy me a drink."

Carrot, The Evil Spider Slayer

2008-11-09T20:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how it happened. I had to have been about 9 years old because I was still in pretty tight with some of the girls at my church in Maple Grove, MN and hadn't yet begun to stray from the idea that if I was bad I would go to Hell. My parents sent me off to some week long retreat with a couple of the kids at a camp where we were to stay in teepees and have bonfires and talk about God and worship and a whole bunch of other stuff I wasn't really interested in. I don't remember much as I've never been good with details, but I was certainly not happy being there. My stomach hurt, I was anxious, the boys weren't cute, and I wasn't familiar with any of the girls in my teepee. Eventually they allowed the entire camp to integrate and I was reunited with a couple of my friends and the tensions I was experiencing started to ease slightly until I woke up on the last morning to a series of terrorizing shrieks coming from within our tent. At sometime during my sleep, somebody had emptied a jar of Daddy Long-leg spiders into our teepee, most of which were making their way across our sleeping bags, and the little freaks had caused the uproar from the girls I was shacked up with. For those of you who don't know, Daddy Long-legs are large thin wirey spiders that are de facto harmless. But when you're an already anxious 9 years old and you wake up to one walking it's 8 tiny little legs up one arm, another tip toeing it's way up your cheek, and a bunch of high pitched screams, a sense of intense imminent danger is inevitable. I'm not sure if I had screamed or not, but I remember feeling frozen, as though all my muscles had suddenly turned into planks of wood. I was flexing so hard that actually it hurt. Next thing I remember I was crying outside my tent and begging to go home. That's the first time I remember ever having a fear of spiders, but I have never since gotten over the experience.

As a child, I grew up outdoors and both my mother and aunt taught me that I could pluck the legs off daddy long-legs and their legs would still continue to move. I remember, for a time, being fascinated by this. I had no feelings of animosity towards spiders until after that incident, and even up to present I will cry if I come across one of these miniscule eight-legged monsters. I will still refuse to sleep in my bedroom if I find one lurking, will not touch anything that has come in contact with a spider, and have been known to call over neighbors or roommates to dispose of the hideous creatures. While I know, logically, that spiders aren't much of a threat, physically, for whatever reason, I can't handle being in their presence. My pantries are usually well stocked with windex, hairspray, and Raid; all three of which make a perfectly suitable weapon, though not altogether effective, in any attempt to defeat one of these leggy little critters from a great distance, often the other side of the room.

Then, I was sitting in the park the other day, minding my own business and texting somebody on my cell phone, when I happened to look over and notice that there was a spider web about a foot from the side of my face with the fattest grey spider I'd ever laid eyes on. Suddenly paralyzed by the creepy crawlies, my petrified face turned pouty and I did the only thing I could think to do. I blew at it really hard. The web began to shake and I shrieked and backed away as it bounced back and forth at me, certain that the thing was about to jump out, latch onto my face, and begin to suck blood from my skin. But then I witnessed the most blessed thing I had ever seen. The little spider scurried up to the top of his web and behind a piece of bark, leaving a long trail of sticky web string behind him as he moved up across the little white grid. I blew at it, and the stupid little thing shit himself all the way into hiding. That's how scared of me he was. Him and his big bulbously ass. That'll show him who's the queen of the animal kingdom. HA!

I was terribly amused by his display, and felt an overwhelming sense of pride, which was immediately followed by panic and I quickly backed away, dusting myself off and carefully checking my exposed areas for more spiders.

Still doing the icky spider dance, I whispered at the tree where my victim was hiding. "Yeah, that'll teach you to mess with me."

In the end, I'm still terrified of spiders. One small victory wasn't going to change that. Just, now I think I'll be able to deal with them myself instead of having to call maintenance sobbing, or soak 3 square feet of carpeting in Suave Super Hold Hairspray. After this experience I'm certain that a simple hairdryer will do the trick.

Dear America,

2008-11-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

This blog is going to sound a bit scatterd because my family just received some really shitty news, but more important issues are at hand and I will set aside personal matters to address you, just as Obama did last night. Today was a day full of much rejoicing and excitement. Last night we whitnessed the first time in history that America has elected an African American president. Personally, I wish we didn't place so much emphasis on this fact because it's truly a victory for the whole United States, not simply minorities. Those of us who made calls and spoke out and donated know that this was truly done by the American people as a whole, black or white.

All of my faithful readers know by now that I had no intention of voting for Barack Obama. Though I originally was an adamant supporter of his cause, I quickly lost faith due in most part to what I attribute to be the influence of his advisors. I still hold this belief and while I am proud of our country, at the same time I am very conflicted and hesitant to celebrate quite yet. I stood at that ballot box for a good 5 minutes debating on how I ultimately would "waste my vote," until one of the volunteers approached me and asked if I needed any help, or if it was my first time voting. I didn't and it wasn't and I assured him I was fine. When it finally came down to it, holding that pen, pressing that ink into the paper ballot, leaving my mark, I felt my soul plummet. It wasn't because I was voting for somebody I thought was bad, or because I didn't believe he wasn't the right candidate for our country, because in a way I did. It was the fact that I finally realized the weight that we as Americans face. Obama will be a good president, I hope. If he does nothing but open up a portal to allow transparency of the government, I will consider his term a success. Furthermore, he inspires people. He asks for their involvement in our government, which is truly what we need. What good is transparency if nobody's paying attention? This is a HUGE step, but it, he, is not yet the answer. Certainly, he's part of the equation. But we aren't there yet. Last night was epic, that's undeniable. It was a victory for minorities, and majorities alike. Still, until we can look outside the bubble of Demo-Publican views and stop settling for what the media presents to us as issues, news, candidates, we don't stand a chance at true government reform. This isn't done with Obama. And while next term I swear to put severe effort into supporting a third party candidate and trying to steer our country away from this bullshit bi-partisanship that has done none but bloody our hands for the past umpteen years, that isn't the real answer either. WE are the answer.

What I saw today in people was a sense of relief. As though it was all over. That is terrifying. Why? Because it's not over. Not by a long shot. Obama is not the miracle pill, and he was serious when he said that this is not going to be easy. We still need to pay attention. We still need to be involved. And that scares people. Responsibility for this country is something we've been brainwashed into thinking isn't our duty. We've been brought up to believe that we aren't qualified to take part in the goings-on of our government, or that our part is complete with the simple act of voting. NO! We can't go back to our happy lives now and wait for him to fix everything. That isn't how it works. And I thank God for all the McCain supports out there who really believe this guy is an Arab because they're going to be watching him with the meticulously critical eye that I, as an Obama supporter, would not have had. When I supported him he could do no wrong, and it's dangerous to put that much faith in somebody. Obama is no different than the rest of us. He is as human as the Iraqi civilians, and the soldiers over there fighting on either side. He is you and me, albeit with an undoubtedly more substantial education, but even that holds setbacks that I won't even get into right now. And while I thought his speech was brilliant and sincere, and at times it even brought a tear to my eye, part of my heart wrenched when he asked for continuing support. If I ever run for president I will replace those words with the following, "I am only one (wo)man. I am not always right. Please, support me, but don't do it blindly. Remember, I am not just your leader, but also your servant. I work for you, and we work together."

We are equals. Don't forget that. Please.

I will end this with the words of the man who's victory we are celebrating today.

"What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you."

Please Vote

2008-11-04T09:01:00.000-08:00

Today we fornicate with our political ideals and get knocked up in the ballot box. And while I don't believe the outcome in 4 years will be much different with whichever candidate that gets elected, I do believe our leaders need to see the symbolism, see the devotion we have to our country. And I've been preaching a lot lately. I still don't like the fact that people have accepted bi-partisan politics as inevitable, but I think right now it's more important that we still stand up for the few rights we have left and show the government that we still want a say, even if most of us are not quite sure how to effectively raise our voice and have that say...

There will be lines. Long lines.

And there will be lost votes, probably some chaos.

And some people will nix the idea of voting altogether.

And it's going to suck, and it's probably going to be cold in some places.

And your dog will probably pee on the carpet while you're gone.

But be assured, this country will be ours again someday.

And that's what today is about.

PS. NO ON PROP 8

News Flash: Bitch, Get Yo Tubes Tied.

2008-11-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Financial Guru/Bitch/Psuedo-Mother,

Now, admittedly I'm probably no mother of the year. But if it were a contest, I would beat your sorry blonde ass out of the ball park. And I don't even have kids. First off, it doesn't take a high IQ to see that you had this poor child for the sole purpose of making yourself look like a successful working mother. Why else would you parade around a 15 month old that you see for less than an hour a day like it's a trophy? You obviously didn't plan on making room for Baby as you haven't sufficiently child-proofed your house, except for that doggie gate you put up so he can't get into the kitchen which is the only part of your house you ever enter except for the bathroom. "Yes, dear, Mommy can see you. Mommy's waving. Mommy's leaving. Bye Bye." You do realize it's not safe to leave plugged in electronics, especially a space heater, on the playroom floor or within reach of your crawling infant. Right? Because, he could touch it and burn his flesh off like I almost did. You also shouldn't hang a giant, heavy, floor length mirror up in his bedroom with only two screws for obvious reasons. You didn't get that memo? Oh, that's because God doesn't send parents memos on how to care for their children. It's called commons sense and it doesn't come in the form of an email newsletter. Maybe that's why you didn't get it. And maybe you should address that whole bathtub situation. Your kid likes to feel the water under the faucet, and it's a good learning experience and something he should be encouraged to explore in a safe way. Plus, he's learning to stand. So maybe it would be a good idea to get a faucet guard and a no slip tub mat so your little squirt doesn't knock himself out when he decides to try and climb over that little suction cup net you set up across half the tub so that he can play with the water spout. I get that it's my job to be watching and making sure he doesn't get a concussion while bathing, but if I hold him down in a sitting position he starts screaming and it doesn't look good and you'll come in and yell at me.

Furthermore, I understand you want me to do some housework while the kid naps. But you have an au pair who takes care of sweeping and wiping down the counters daily. Your house is the size of my apartment and it takes about 30 minutes to clean the whole thing, windows included. How many times are you expecting your floors to get swiffered each day? Twice is apparently not enough, because God forbid I take a moment to stand in your kitchen and have a glass of water. "If you'd like to stand around and relax while the baby sleeps, that's fine, just let us know and we won't pay you for that hour." Cool. I'll just take a walk around the block while your kid sleeps then. Oh, that's not okay? Hmm.

And help myself to lunch? When? While I'm dusting the storage closet shelves? While I'm scrubbing your tile grout with a toothbrush? Your fridge consists of baby food, a frozen ham, 3 frozen pizzas, a block of cheese, some random vegetables, and condiments. Your cupboards have a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips, some rye crackers, and flax seed. And spices. I guess if you really want me to cook a whole ham and eat it by myself I could do that, but I just don't see how I can fit it in between being your bitch and making sure your baby doesn't kill himself on the edges of your coffee table.

Also, your little spawn is 15 months old. Books designed for 3+ are not appropriate learning tools. He isn't walking, or talking yet. You really think he's going to sit and pay attention to a book about the inner workings of a firetruck? Kid can't even tell the difference between his ma-ma and his da-da yet. Buy the kid a ball for fuck's sake. A rattling stuffed animal. A dog toy. Anything that will teach him something about motor skills. He is not going to put a 24 piece Strawberry Shortcake puzzle together or build a cabin out of lincoln logs. He's going to eat the puzzle pieces and beat the cat senseless with the wooden logs. Get real.

And you're pissed off because while I was watching your kid, you didn't want the laundry to sit in the dryer after the buzzer went off because it might get wrinkly. Okay, so don't get mad when I put your sheets on inside-out because the buzzer went off before nap time and your kid found your dildo and a vibrating cock ring in the box under your nightstand while I was putting together your bed.

You want to get pissed off because I didn't call you immediately after your kid got a cut on his lip after slipping in the bathtub? Listen up lady. You gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. He's not the brightest spawn you could possibly produce, but he is an active little boy who is, I promise, going to be a walking bruise by the time he's 5 years old. And if you think that every bump or cut warrants a trip to the emergency room, then you can obviously afford to pay me better. Doctor visits are expensive. Neosporin is cheap. You're a financial expert. You should know this.

And another thing. Sorry, but asking me, your babysitter of 2 days, how he's progressing on his walking abilities, is not what most people would consider actively engaging in the rearing of your child. Since this is about the only way you seem to gather information regarding your child, by second hand accounts I mean, then it's apparent you aren't "most people." And that Baby Einstein DVD collection you have? Haha, nice try. He's 15 months old. Do you really think he gives a shit about the fact that dolphins live in the ocean and horses live on farms?

Um, and you might want to start putting your bathroom/laundry room trash can somewhere your kid can't get into it because if your babysitter just happens to find your precious little rugrat chewing on a used tampon he dug out of the bin while she was folding your clothes, don't expect her to want to bring it up as a concern before she leaves for the day.

Love your ex-sitter,

Carrot

P.S.

Nobody names their fucking kid Thor.

Nanny McFuck This I'm Going Home

2008-11-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

It’s a dark night somewhere on the other side of the world. Some girl has left her apartment for a well-deserved night out on the town with her friends and some Jim Beam. She’s walking down the side streets between buildings waiting to come up on Spruce St. or maybe Maple, or something like that. You know, wherever the bars are. She’s dressed up in a sexy black designer skirt and a top just tight enough to perfectly round out her breasts. Her curves sway with each step onto a pair of high healed Ferragamos.

And then there’s a hand around her mouth, and something sharp against her throat, and she’s thrown to the ground, skirt around her waist and the last thing she feels is a hand slip between her thighs.

Less than an hour later, the cops arrive, and pronounce her dead on the scene. A serious looking man pulls out a piece of chalk and begins to encircle her body in a thin white line.

I should be so lucky.

But nope. I’m laying on concrete in 90 degree heat while bright pink chalk is dragged along the length of my body by a 7 year old who doesn’t have enough sense to avoid allowing the chalk to come in contact with my new jeans and dirty white t-shirt. I haven’t been laid in over a year, and I could use a shot of whiskey twice as bad as the aforementioned dead chick. Right now, I’m this child's new best friend because I picked up a bucket of chalk at the dollar store as a sort of bribe to make her stop bugging me to play her version of soccer. I’m sorry, and maybe I’m stubborn, but I don’t think it’s in her best interests to grow accustomed to playing games in a manner in which the outcome is always in her favor. You can’t change the rules half way through the game, and you can’t stomp your feet, cross your arms, and cry like a fucking river if I score a goal after you make every effort possible to ensure that I won’t, and you will. Life doesn’t work that way kiddo. And if you’re going to get upset and be a bitch every time you loose, you’re in for a sour surprise once the real world hits. And the sad part is, I only scored 1 point. I let her score about 15. So for the next five hours, all I heard was “I like my other nanny better than you. She sucks at sports. She lets me change the rules.“ And in my head all I could think was well then why don’t you marry the bitch. I’m not exaggerating. I don’t have to. Life lugging around two brats is naturally hard, there’s no need for fluffers. Hell, last Thursday I was her worst enemy because I wouldn’t let her have a creamsicle until she had something healthy for dinner. Obviously, I am the devil. You don’t even want to know what happens if I try to turn off Spongebob before the credits start rolling because she has to do her homework. Let’s just say that the tantrum that follows has made me curious just how many Flintstones vitamins I would have to take before needing to be rushed away from this place and to the hospital where they’d pump my stomach and confine me to bed rest for a few days. Another day in the life of a nanny.

This morning, the five year old got a hold of a bottle of liquid soap. He’s autistic, and to him anything that isn’t supposed to be food is, in fact, food. And, like a normal child, if he doesn’t like the food he’s eating, he spits it out. So there ended up being a soapy spit wad trail leading from the back door to his bedroom all the way upstairs. This is less fun to clean up than, say, three pint sized containers of ice cream melted in front of the freezer door, because at least the dogs will help with that one. Dogs won’t touch soap. Another favorite activity of the boy’s is shredding. Paper towels, plastic bags, heads of lettuce, if it will tear, he will tear it. He can rip through a roll of toilet paper in five minutes flat. This is one of the interesting things about this kid and his Autism. I’ve never seen somebody shred the way he does. It’s like he’s turning everything he can find into a Halloween decoration. And he’s very calculated about how he shreds. Its how he regulates himself. He gets really into it, he has a preference for plastic and bubble wrap, and when he’s done turning a five inch piece of garbage into a two foot piece of art, he drops down in front of the nearest foot and uses his masterpiece to measure it. Which means, if you were walking somewhere, and he’s just finished shredding something, you better stop or you’ll kick him in the face. Last time I checked, kicking a kid in the face is child abuse. And last time I checked, child abuse is generally frowned upon. This is an average day. A house covered in shredded material, soap spit, and ice cream, a five year old measuring my feet with what’s left of a sheet of bubble wrap, and a 7 year old who hates me because I expect her to not be a spoiled bitch. Is that harsh? That sounded harsh. I didn’t mean for it to.

She’s a sweet girl. Or at least she makes a conscious effort to be. The effects are frequently not so innocent, but it’s the thought that counts. Everyday she gets home from school and immediately goes and plays with her hamster Cupcake. She’s terrified that he’s horribly lonely and bored in his three level hamster mansion while she’s at school. Now, I’m pretty sure Cupcake is the reincarnate of Hitler, so he/she probably deserves this, but if not, then what takes place in the fifteen minutes of “play” could easily be considered animal abuse by most modern standards. Let’s see if Cupcake can fit into my pocket. Let’s see if Cupcake wants to go on an arctic expedition in the ice cube tray. Let’s see if Cupcake would make a good cowgirl and let her ride the fat Australian Sheppard, Pepper. Let’s see if Cupcake wants to surf down the railing. Let’s see if Cupcake wants to go swimming in the toilet. Luckily, Cupcake has been fortunate enough to avoid going exploring in the mysterious oven, or basking in the warmth of the microwave, or tanning in the George Foreman grill.

I say, “Um, hon, I don’t think Cupcake can swim. Why don’t you try letting her run around in her ball.”

She says,“No! She’s my hamster and she can do whatever I want. Stop trying to tell me what to do. You always try and tell me what to do. I want my other nanny!”

*sigh*

Like, don’t get me wrong, I totally understand how it got to this point. When you have to maintain sanity while your autistic five year old son leaves cookies and cream handprints all over your new sectional, or drops an entire package of strawberries all over the floor because he wanted to shred the plastic bag they were in, putting up with a kid who’s screaming because she wants macaroni and beef instead of tuna salad, and you probably come pretty close to the comfort of a straight-jacket. So I can understand how these temper tantrums are frequently resolved with a “Fine, do whatever. Just stop screaming like that. I even can‘t hear myself contemplate suicide.” I give them credit. The situation could be much worse and I highly doubt I could do a better job.

When I have kids, I’m sure they’ll be little angels at the beginning, but when they’re three years old and start trying on that pre-tween attitude, I’m probably going to end up calling it a draw and having Teletubbies in the DVD player on repeat. I just don’t know if I can have the patience to be one of those “good” parents like the parenting magazines in the bathrooms of the homes I babysit at all tell me I can be. I can be a parent. Getting knocked up is easy. However, I cannot be a 24/7 source of joy and entertainment and la la happy thoughts. Fuck that. Let’s face it. I’m a cynical bitch at least 40 percent of the time, and that’s on the three days of the month when I’m not PMSing. But I guess I’m probably not alone here. I figure most parents eventually give up. I mean only partially, because you never really completely give up on your kid. But eventually you just realize they’re not a limb, and you can’t control them like you want to. So after a while you throw in half of the towel, and hope they don’t make you sound like a bitch when they end up on Dr. Phil. And if they don’t give up, they end up like my mom, which even with the best of intentions can turn pretty ugly at times. I think eventually you just have to trust that you raised them right the first 2 years of their life and that they’ll be okay the next 16.

They are wonderful children, bless their hearts. The girl has her sweet moments, and, let’s be honest, its not every day you find a 5 year old boy who doesn’t talk so much you start to daydream about how far out to sea you could swim before finding an adequate rip current, let alone doesn't talk at all. I love my job. I really do. It’s just, most of the time, I wish it wouldn’t be a bad example to throw a tantrum.

I Don't Support Straight Marriage, FTW

2008-11-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

So I've been seeing an overwhelming number of demonstrations here in California this week regarding Proposition 8. Our nation heads to the voting booth in less than 4 days and people want to get their 10 cents in, so these displays are not surprising in that sense. I do find the issue disturbing however, because to me the right answer seems obvious. This would be a wonderful opportunity to quote Orwell with the usual "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," but I believe the following better encompasses what we are facing...

"All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. "

For those of you who don't live in California, Prop 8 does the following:

-Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.
-Provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Now, I have heard all the arguments for Prop 8. The problem is that the overwhelming majority of them have overtones of religious bias or downright ignorance. Now, I'm okay with churches deciding on their own, separate from the state, to not provide the rites of matrimony to gay couples. What I'm NOT okay with is the government giving special benefits to people who have participated in this religious rite of passage. In my opinion, couples of any nature should be provided the same benefits across the board, or none at all. To not provide basic benefits to a couple based on sexual orientation is unfair treatment through the state based mostly on religious grounds. The constitution prohibits this kind of treatment.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I'd like to see a gay-oriented religion rise up and start demanding that their marriages, separate from your usual organized religions, be recognized under the law as well. I don't think this would fly.

Or for that matter, let's see what would happen if the government stopped recognizing marriage altogether based on the idea that it cannot provide special rights to participants of a religious practice. I mean, marriage isn't blood. You are not a blood relative to your spouse, male or female, so why should you receive benefits for simply entering into a life long agreement, which about 50% of the time isn't actually life long. Take Britney Spears for example...

You think marriage is a sacred institution? Explain the sad statistics of infidelity, the excessive divorce rates, the vegas drive-thru chapels with Elvis or Star Wars weddings.

Or maybe you're an atheist heterosexual and you want to get married. As long as you're straight and you keep your mouth shut in the presence of the minister, it's okay. And I don't think the minister would say no to an atheist anyway, so long as they're straight. So who cares if God says it's wrong? Most Christians I know don't give a shit about what God wants except on Sunday when God wants money. Furthermore, churches aren't forced to marry anybody. The state doesn't have the power to enforce such nonsense.

Then there's that cute idea that people get married to have children. I'm sure even Mrs. Sarah Palin can tell you, despite the fact that her social policies are obviously derived from a rudimentary understanding of American culture, that one does not need to be in wedlock to conceive or birth a child. I think we can all agree that most people do not marry for the sole intention of hatching a brood. I am not aware of any mandatory checklist that forces engaged couples to answer whether or not they plan on spawning children, whereupon a "No." would void their chances of becoming united in this fashion.

Okay, but it's still not natural. Neither is artificial insemination. But you don't see many people arguing against test-tube babies do you?

The beginning of same sex attraction in history is not determined. It likely originated back with the dawn of humanity as there is evidence of homosexuality in many ancient civilizations. If that's not natural, if fetishes and psychological variances are not natural, then explain how this came about? We don't choose what appeals to us or what we understand. I highly doubt it was simple social deviation or even a choice. Trust me, if I had a choice when it came to ADD or being handicapped in the presence of numbers a lot of my current problems would quickly dissolve. If I had a choice regarding the type of person I feel anything for, alot of my previous relationships might have succeeded. I've dated some great guys. But I don't choose who I'm attracted to. I don't choose who I feel compelled to be with. It's just the way my brain works. How can anybody say that sexuality is a choice? What straight person is attracted to people of the same sex and choses to remain straight? That's not how it works.

The biggest argument against Prop 8 presented by the media has so far been that children will be forced to learn about it in schools, ignorantly implying that if the children know about it, they might be swayed to "turn gay," or, at the very least, view homosexuals as deserving of equal treatment. Oh noes!

And if gay marriage is taught in schools, who cares? I mean really? They don't prohibit teaching about divorce. Or infidelity for that matter. Why aren't we worried our children will grow up, cheat, and get divorced? The chances of that happening are already overwhelming. And let's be real here. A no vote is not going to get rid of homosexuality. You are still going to get ads for gay porn when you go to your favorite fetish site. Kids are still going to learn about gays and lesbians regardless of whether or not they're allowed to marry, and regardless of whether or not it's taught in schools. Prop 8 is not going to protect your sexually hyperactive son from learning about golden showers, anal fetishes, bukakke, or glory holes. Chances are good he's still going to end up with Herpes either from a dude or a chick, so relax. Your life isn't going to change, and neither will your child's. Prohibiting mature adults from willfully entering into a legal agreement in an effort to solidify their commitment to one another and gain the sought-after state benefits and sentiments that marriage provides is in no way going to change the fact that your promiscuous teenage daughter is probably headed to a kegger tonight where she'll get drunk and make out with her best friend. Most of the education your children receive at school is not from teachers or textbooks, it's from hearsay and rumor. At least this would be a legitimate attempt at giving your children an education on sexuality that doesn't involve the inappropriate innuendo and offensive gestures they would encounter during such discussions with their peers. Schools are nothing but tools that teach our children to become submissive drones to authority and country. We are not breeding the future generation of inventors and philosophers and mover-shakers. We are, give or take a few genuinely good teachers, ensuring another culture of "listen to your elders, and don't ask questions." If anything, teaching about the civil rights struggle that African Americans, Japanese, women, and homosexuals have faced will teach our children that they can stand up to unfair and immoral treatment and be heard.

Please, step out of your bubble on the 4th of November and understand that you are free to disagree with the practice, but that doesn't mean you should prevent it. Listen, I don't agree with your religiously intoxicated ass heading into the ballot box to vote yes on the prop, but I'm not going to go let the air out of your tires in an attempt to destroy your ability to do so. I'm not biased. I'm straight. Gays having the right to marry has very little effect on me. It's the principle of the matter that I'm fighting for. If it were me in a similar position, I would hope there would be people who would be willing to fight against Stupid whether or not they would be personally affected by it.

In summary, if you don't believe in gay marriage, don't marry somebody of the same sex.