The Angry Wife Blog

Eff me running

I'm already not ready for this week and now I've had a halfway-blazing row with Will over the stupidest thing. We're walking down the street this morning and in front of us I see a woman pass two men. One of the men goes "sexy! damn!" and turns around to stare at her. No response from the woman.

Response, however, from me. "OMG, did you see that, that was awful, rage rage etc." Will goes "huh?"  I splutter at him "that guy just called that woman out and stared at her like she was on display and FEMINIST RAGE" and the first thing out of his mouth is "was she dressed like she wanted to be on display?"

NO

Now I know Will prooobably doesn't mean it that way and he has a terrible tendency to shoot his mouth off without thinking and say something stupid.  So I tell him to abandon that line of reasoning at once, that is not relevant, the issue is that this guy behaved like a pig.  But then he keeps going -- he didn't see what happened, he wants more information before he judges both sides, etc. etc.  So I'm trying to explain to him how I'm angry because he said something stupid and offensive and he's angry because I'm a rabid humorless feminist just like some girls at Bryn Mawr he knew who were extremists that used to sneer at him whenever he held a door for a woman.  I try again to explain that I am angry <em>because he used a stupid argument without realizing it</em> and he interrupts me three words in to demand if a guy wears a skirt in public and a woman gives him a dirty look is it her fault.

STILL NO

There's a "derail the argument" spot on my bingo card, right?

By this point we're practically screaming at each other in the subway.  He insists not everything can conform to my black-and-white worldview and nothing is 100% wrong and I insist right back that street harassment is always 100% wrong and 100% the fault of the harasser and for god's sake why did I marry this idiot and at the same time why am I futilely arguing this point.  I know I spend too much time on Jezebel -- I hang out in groupthink all day at work because my friends all abandoned AIM and blogs and I'm so damn lonely all the time and it's the only way I feel connected to something but now I'm a humorless feminazi outraged at every little thing and making him look and feel bad for being a guy so he can't talk to me about anything ever anymore.

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS

Don't say another Goddamn word. Up until now, I've been polite. If you say anything else - word one - I will kill Myself. And when my tainted spirit finds its destination, I will topple the Master of that dark place. From my black throne, I will lash together a machine of bone and blood, and fueled by my hatred for you this fear engine will bore a hole between this world and that one.

When it begins, you will hear the sound of children screaming - as though from a great distance. a smoking orb of nothing will grow above your bed, and from it will emerge a thousand starving crows. As I slip through the widening maw in my new form, you will only catch a glimpse of my radiance before you are incinerated. Then, as tears of bubbling pitch stream down my face, my dark work will begin. I will open one of my six mouths, and I will sing the song that ends the Earth.

It goes like this:

"Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy..."

So you've got a product to sell, and you want to get the word out. Great! But before you start making your ads, please ask yourselves the following questions:

1) Is this product a creative work (book, movie, etc.) with a woman in a leading role?

2) Is this product meant to be worn by a woman (clothing, accessories, beauty products)?

3) Is this product/service/event targeted specifically to women or a particular group of women (e.g.: breast cancer walk, girls-only scholarship, pregnancy care)?

If the answer to all three questions is no, then what need do you have to use a woman's body to advertise your product?

( This is only funny if you know anything about BleachCollapse )

RANT TIME, or, why I don't want to buy or play BlazBlue: Continuum Shift.

( I just want to play a video game without boobs in my faceCollapse )

( This post is about underwear.Collapse )

Today I found the pie video. I've been waiting half my life for this.

It starts, as so many of my sense of humor's formative experiences do, with my dad.

The pie video is a legend from when my dad was somewhere in the vicinity of my age. He was living with some guys and the local library system rented 8mm (or 34mm, or whatever it was) films and they had a projector and they used to check out these completely random films -- like one was a documentary on Texas cheerleaders, I think, called Beauty is Pain, and involved a kickline up against thorn bushes, and which my dad would continually reference by saying "beauty is pain, pumpkin" whenever I was involved in some bizarre teenage girl self-improvement ritual. But I digress. My dad and his friends would do this and watch them cause it was Awesome, and Because They Could, and to my young mind there was no better reason to do anything.

One day when I was about twelve my dad told me about this, and about one in particular -- a skit by comedian Marshall Efron about Making Pie Through Science. He had my full attention, because at this point in my life I'd just become fast friends with stayawaystars (after, oddly enough, she threw up on my notebook), and she'd introduced me to Monty Python, and everybody else we hung out with at Eastern was all into random, absurdist humor (seriously, one summer we mailed slices of processed cheese in perfumed envelopes to boys we knew at camp. A fair amount of the awesome stuff in my life from ages 12 to 20 is connected in some way to this woman). So it's like six-thirty in the morning in the car on the way to middle school and my dad's explaining this sketch, about how this guy's on camera putting chemical after chemical into a bowl and stirring it up, and he comes to the conclusion where he announces that when you're done you have Pie. No lemons. No eggs. No cream. Just Pie.

Naturally I think this is hilarious, but as this is a story from my father's youth, I assume with great disappointment that the film has been lost to time. At school I immediately find my friends and go around repeating "No lemons. No eggs. No cream. Just Pie." They think I'm weird. I don't care. It sticks with me.

Half a lifetime later God has made the intartoobz and YouTube and we come to this afternoon where my dad randomly sends me this ... thing on YouTube with a fictional scientist explaining a fictional technological development in the most impenetrable wall of text-speak possible and I suddenly go “oh hey, the Internet has everything now, I wonder if I could find that pie video somewhere deep in the couch cushions of YouTube.” So I type in “Marshall Efron” and scroll down and BAM there is Better Living Through Chemistry: Lemon Cream Pie.

I click. I watch. There is a distant chorus of angels; the skies open above me and light streams down from the heavens. My dad and I exchange a couple rapid-fire emails in all caps.

Factory fresh.
Factory approved.
No lemons.
No eggs.
No cream.
Just.
PIE.

As of April 1, I've officially moved! For obvious reasons, I'm not going to post it, so if you want my new address and landline, send me an email or a Facebook message, and I'll update you.

...that was a lot of commas

Every morning I fantasize about starting one of those single-issue-wonk sites documenting the local wildlife in the subway. I will call it I Hate Your Panflute.

My local station, the 5th Ave./53rd St. E/V station, drops me about a building away from work (as opposed to my local-to-home station, Bay Ridge Avenue, which is thankfully rather dull). Unlike 34th Street and other stations with high tourist flow, it does not have a panflute infestation (seriously guys, if The Sound of Silence and My Heart Will Go On were banned from your repertoire, you'd have nothing left to go on), but it's got plenty who suffer from delusions of being in some way entertaining. The most common is Douche With A Guitar, who comes in all ages, races, and varieties (the older guy who yelps rather than sings, some young hipster, the other older guy who knows about two songs) but really only one level of musical talent, but there is also Creepy Gospel Family and the occasional troll-tastic stylings of The Vociferous Coot. Everyone's gotta be famous these days.

At least they aren't on the train proper. I've started to wonder lately if people who get on trains to "perform" (read: generally be pains in the ass to everyone) do so because they can get away with it. It's supposed to be illegal, what with the whole no-soliciting-money thing, but the usual crowd response in New York is to just ignore anything and everything angling for your attention. After being chased through three train cars last weekend by another Douche With A Guitar, I've started to wonder what would happen if someone just went up to them and asked, as politely as possible, if they would please just for the love of god stop.

I did have a dream wherein I tried it. They just ignored me and kept going. Such is New York.

I hate wedding planning. No one ever trusts you to know what you want, and when you do find something you know you'll love, everyone's waiting to steer you away from it or let you know how poorly you've chosen. I wish this were all over.

ETA: ...buuut then once in a while you get someone who realizes they've said something obnoxious to you, and before you know it they've apologized, and then, well, you have no choice but to forgive them and forget the whole thing ever happened.