QueerBall

I have a new cat.

Right now his name is Peabody.

I don't like that name.

Suggestions?

1.)  Cassidy got John Green to say hi to me.
2.)  Howie scratched the motherfucking shit out of my motherfucking face, so now I look like the Joker when I don't have my makeup on.  Why so serious?

Number two, I don't really understand.  He's so soft, so cuddly.  His paws are like little velvet rabbit paws.  Which is why I have all four hanging from my keychain right now.

Yeah, that's right--try scratching me with no feet, cat.  Pwned.

There is a mentally ill squirrel making mentally ill squirrel noises outside my boyfriend's apartment.

He sounds kind of like a bird.  He's probably trying to lure a bluejay over so that he can EAT IT.

That is all.

I just blew my hair dry for the first time in my adult life.

...no human being needs this much hair, people.

However, it does cut down on that "tragic white girl" hair cut I've been sporting for the last few months.

Wavy guido hair + shoulder-length cut + DC summer = unfortunate

Thank you, blow dryer.  You are my friend, even if you kill the environment and steam up my glasses.

Particularly since it assures me that I will like jazz.  Oh, internet personality test:  YOU ARE SO WRONG ABOUT THAT ONE.

<a href="http://www.ipersonic.com/type/IT.h…" target="blank" title ="My personality type: the independent thinker. Take the free iPersonic personality test!"><img src="http://i280.photobucket.com/albums…" border="0" alt="My personality type: the independent thinker" /></a><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire…" /> 

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I will be twenty three.

Can you imagine how the earth has withstood twenty three years of UNRELENTING AWESOME in the form of me?  I can't.  

Anyhow!  I made cupcakes and brought them into work, but people have been slow to eat them.  Silly people and their silly diets...

I hate to break this to you, but saying that you believe marriage is something very special that should only happen between a man and a woman is not less prejudiced than saying that you are just plain squicked out by gay people.  Because guess what?  Marriage is not just something that happens between a man and a woman who love each other very much.  Historically speaking, marriage has been:

A financial transaction between two families having little or nothing to do with the emotions of the man and woman actually getting married.
A pact between a man and several women.
A pact between a woman and several men.  
Largely a means through which dynasties are consolidated and bloodlines are preserved.
An arrangement in which the wife was unable to leave her husband unless he gave her permission to do so.
An arrangement in which "Man and wife are one person under the law, and that person is the man."
An institution so sexist that no one thought it was weird that the preacher was supposed to say, "I now pronounce you man and wife."
The only viable "career" for women.
Something that could take place before you hit puberty.
Something you couldn't get out of without an act of Parliament.

It is only since the Victorian era that we have viewed marriage as something taking place between two people--one male, one female--who vow to love one another for the rest of their lives.  Your historical argument for heterosexual love matches?  Yeah, it goes back less than two hundred years.  This is not to say that love matches between men and women suck or anything; my parents just celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary yesterday and they seem perfectly happy about it.  But if you are arguing for restricting marriage to heterosexual couples only on the basis of "this is how it has always been," or even "this is what the Bible tells us to do"--quit being a giant fucking dumbass.  The definition of what constitutes "marriage" has shifted from culture to culture and from century to century:  the examples I listed had a really strongly Western slant, and even there you can see the extraordinary variation over time.  And as for the Biblical argument...I'm sorry, but weren't Leah and Rachel two SISTERS married to the same man?  Isn't the Bible littered with examples of polygyny?  

Historical arguments don't wash.  Biblical arguments don't wash.  What it boils down to is that this takes you out of your comfort zone, and frankly?  That's a completely pathetic reason to deny someone basic civil rights. 

Two weeks ago, my doctor gave me a twenty-day prescription for Ambien.  After fourteen days of pretty much continuous usage, I’ve come to the conclusion that while it’s no wonder drug, it sure as hell beats being dead because I cannot sleep LIKE SOME PETTY HUMAN.

 

There have been some hiccups.  There was the night that I hallucinated bookcases because, well, that just kind of goes with the territory.  There were the weekend mornings when I woke up because I had to pee, or because the early morning sun was shining RIGHT IN MY FUCKING FACE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.  I’ve woken up at two and not been able to go back to sleep; I’ve woken up at five and called my bartender friend, because she’s cool and also, who else in their right mind is going to be awake at that hour?  Besides my parents, of course, and I only call them on Sundays.  It’s the rule.

 

Last night, though, was the first night that I took my slightly-less-than-miraculous drug and still experienced that full-bore panic that comes when you’re not going to sleep, holy shit, you are NOT GOING TO SLEEP AND IT WILL BE SO FUCKING BAD.  I mean, I actually did sleep, but it was touch and go and I stumbled around trying not to fall into walls before it happened.  Not to mention that I was so high (legally, but still), that I managed to freak myself out by staring at my own eyes in the mirror. 

 

Yeah, you read that right.  I was frightened of MY OWN EYES.

 

It’s true that I have a cold dead Aryan stare, and that’s pretty frightening, but I’ve also had 22 whole years to get used to said cold dead Aryan stare.  It really shouldn’t freak me out anymore.  Last night, however, I looked into my bluish-greenish freakish half-Scandinavian milkmaid eyes and…nearly crapped my pants.  You know how in movies, when they want to show that someone’s on an acid trip, they flash a bunch of psychedelic colors and put on some stoner music and there’s smoke everywhere and suddenly everyone’s seeing double?  Well, that was happening ON MY FACE.  Which isn’t so frightening, except that I don’t usually bring the cinema all the way home to my body.  And there’s also something about staring deeply into the mirror at night that’s just too Bloody Mary for my comfort.

 

For the record, yes.  I was that girl who always refused to chant “Bloody Mary” in the bathroom at any given slumber party.  AND THE WHOLE IDEA STILL KIND OF FREAKS ME OUT, OKAY?

 

Anyway, to return to the original point, which was that MY EYES ARE SCARY.  So, I spent a minute or so quietly freaking about what was happening to my face.  And then I calmly backed away from the mirror, went back to my room, and struggled to open a fun-size Three Musketeers bar left over from Halloween.  I ate my chocolate, laid down, fell asleep, and…woke up at midnight.

 

This is me medicated, children.

 

For me unmedicated, multiply all that bullshit by a factor of twelve.

 

In conclusion, I hate my body.  A lot.

 

Now, I haven't followed the Mills-McCartney divorce very closely, because hello--like I fucking care.  What I have heard sounds a little cracked, frankly. Paul McCartney managed to live with his first wife for thirty bajillion years with no allegations of abuse or neglect or anything else rotten, and then becomes a monster in his second marriage?  I'm not saying it's impossible; I'm just saying I understand why people are having a hard time buying it.

But this is just mean. 

Look, the poor woman committed PR suicide the second she said ANYTHING other than a sedate, "They are very rotten about me, and it's hurtful, but I try not to let it bother me."  The second she said that they were rotten, mean, horrible, and crushing her self-esteem to the point that she'd thought about killing herself, it was all over.  That's like throwing chum to a shark, really.  "Crazy, scary, unhinged ranting!" was the general consensus in the British press, from what I gather.  And I get it.  I really do.  Someone goes on television and starts sobbing about how the media hates them, and the knee-jerk reaction is to boo, hiss, and make up nasty thousand point headlines about them.

But let's look at this logically for a moment, shall we?

This woman is involved in a hideously nasty divorce.  Whether you think it's her fault or not is beside the point; it's pretty obviously vile.  She's involved in this horrible, soul-destroying legal proceeding in front of the entire world, and...no one is taking her side in it.  In fact, she married a beloved cultural icon, so she gets called all sorts of terrible things and has all sorts of unflattering nicknames (and don't think it's not very telling that one of them is based upon her career as a topless model).  She gets this every day of the week.  Every day.  How could that NOT wear on a person?  How could that NOT make them miserable?  I don't think there's a person alive who could sit there and go, "Oh, it hurts, but I have to focus on what's really important:  my life, my work, my family," and actually mean it.  Having that much shit talked about you WOULD drive a person nuts, whether some of that shit was true or not (and let's face it--it's simply impossible for ALL of it to be true.  The woman has to sleep, although she may be able to continue plotting in her dreams...).  Let's not lie to ourselves and pretend that her reaction is really so abnormal, or not at all understandable.  It's not graceful.  It's not strategic.  But it's very, very human.  

Frankly, it's the reaction of someone who's been driven too far to care if her honesty gets her in trouble.  And I think that's very, very indicative of the mental and emotional state the press has put her in.

I'm not saying she's a poor passive victim--I don't know enough about the situation to judge it like that.  I pity her, obviously, and I'm very sorry that we live in a day and age where it's possible for the entire planet to know the shit that comes out during your divorce.  That's a lot to bear, even if you're a total doucheface.  But that's not really the point here.  What bothers me here is the implication that the representations we see in the media don't matter.  That they don't hurt people, that they have no consequences, that getting angry with them and speaking out against them is immature and illogical and insane.  That getting emotional--really, deeply emotional--about the impact that they've had on your life is nuts.  The implication here is that nothing the media puts out there really matters, so there's no point in a strong criticism or an emotional reaction.

And I hope I don't have to spell out how deeply, deeply dangerous that implication is.