"you seemed tiny. your posture is shockingly bad. your voice is timid when there's no microphone. it was painfully obvious that you are shockingly insecure."

Jeannette Somebody Disses Madonna. gratuitous overuse of the word "shockingly".

on one hand, i can see where this person has a point-- the whole "Mrs. Ritchie" thing is getting old, and guns and domestic violence aren't cool. otherwise, this bint needs to take her oh-so-witty "open letter", shove it where the sun don't shine and get a life.

let me put it this way, Ms. Walls: she's Madonna, and uh, you're not. and she looks totally cute in her little Great Britain track jacket, and you don't. get over it.

tonite let's all make love in london

to celebrate the summer solstice.

i wish i could have been at Stonehenge this morning. there's always next year, i suppose.

i'm normally easy-going when it comes to tuneage, but i absolutely, positively cannot stand that song "What Would You Do" by City High. the chorus is whiny and annoying; the lyrics are just goddamn horrible and depressing, talking about a stripper who ran away from home so her daddy wouldn't rape her, turning tricks to feed her kid, blah blah blah... uh, yeah-- this should be a top 10 hit.

but my friends just love it. when it comes on over the radio they turn it up and sing along. notice i didn't say "if" it comes on, but "when". this crap gets so much airplay that i can't hit the scan button fast enough.

what would i do? er, get a real job... stop dating crackheads? just a suggestion, since you happen to ask OVER AND OVER.

ugh. this aural assault is fast overtaking "One Week" as one of my all time most hated songs ever.

chalk

ah, from the mouths of babes.

Eeksy-Peeksy has spotted me on the bus.

it has to be me. i'm the only person i know who actually uses the hood on my zippered sweatshirts.

years ago, when i was a far less sociable creature than i am now, i was quite fond of blocking out polite society by putting on my headphones and pulling the hood up over my head. i would do this everywhere i went, not just on the bus. i was never without my CD player and dark blue hoodie; i developed something of a reputation in my neighborhood.

one day, i was on the bus and i got too hot, so i took off my hoodie and tied it around my waist, and the whole bus fell silent.

sunday mornings

some people ask, what is the secret to a long-lasting relationship? what keeps the spice alive after years and years together? is it respect? communication? a sense of obligation? well, that might work for some people. when it comes to forging a healthy, devoted relationship, i swear by porn.

it's what Sunday mornings were made for. sleep in til about 9 or 10, have a bowl of Raisin Bran, hop back into bed, throw a tape on, snuggle and get your freak on for another couple of hours. start the week off the right way.

the problem with porn, however, is that it was taken over by women. that was effectively the downfall of good porn. now we have to have all this talking and shit, to appeal to the chicks. somewhere along the line, the women decided they were being "exploited" and "degraded". i'll tell you what's degrading-- the assumption that females can't possibly enjoy some serious, hair-pullin', ass-slappin' sex; that they have to have all this pattycake-ass romantic caress by candlelight crap the whole time. you can't have just a good old-fashioned wank for the hell of it anymore, oh no. nowadays they call it "erotica".

well, there's nothing erotic about it. if i have to fast forward through the first twenty minutes of "plot" and "dialogue", then it's wasting my time where i could have my fingers in the cookie jar, not on the remote buttons. listen, i didn't part with my hard-earned money for storytime-- so shut up and get it on, bitch. damn.

one of my favorite tapes that we have opens with a lovely Latina girl pleasuring herself on a bed, and ends pretty much the same way, with plenty of various action in between. yes, more like this please. no bullshit. there is one scene with a few minutes of dialogue, where her boyfriend comes over and says something like, "so when will your parents be home?" and "wanna call your friend over?" but that's imperative to the action, anyway, and at least he has her bent over his lap with two fingers in her twat for the duration of the scene.

this is why i often stick to amateur, since they don't tend to waste any time cutting to the chase, and the tits are usually real.

and what about these porn flicks that are made to appeal to old ugly married couples? like all that Marilyn Chambers shit? oh. god. occasionally, no matter what you try to avoid, you're gonna run into one of these. they mask themselves pretty well sometimes. i DON'T want to see it. i want to see naked, shaved, 18-year-old cootchie in my face, immediately.

the absolute worst are these hardcore films that they try to make into comedies. who the fuck does this appeal to? there should be nothing funny about anal invasion, thank you very much.

heh, let's see how many hits i get after Google indexes this post.

self-checkout

if you want a laugh, go to the Shop 'N Save supermarket on a crowded Friday evening and spend a few minutes watching people try to figure out the new "self-checkout" machines.

at first, you really start to wonder about the general population as you stand and observe normal, healthy-looking people appear to become absolutely flummoxed, shrugging, flapping their hands, looking around quizzically, pressing random parts of the machine that look like they might be buttons but in fact aren't-- all the while, the patient machine repeats the simple instructions: "please scan the item." "place the item in the bag." "please collect your change." meanwhile, you stand silently mouthing the various names of God and shifting a 24-pack of soda from one hand to another. eventually, you give up and come to the realization that something about this must be amusing.

the lines, even for the express lanes, stretched almost into the cereal aisle, yet only three experimental souls dared to brave the self-checkout, myself included. there are two self-checkout stations, which are supposed to be monitored by an employee, but of course they weren't. the first lady i stood behind was experiencing technical difficulties-- the machine ate her credit card or something, to which the machine politely responded, "please wait for assistance". when it became apparent that no assistance would ever be coming, i hopped over to the next self-checkout behind two middle age ladies with a package of butter. they took fucking forever, but realizing that two brains are better than one in situations such as this, they finally figured it out and i was shortly on my way.

on the way out the door, a small sign says, "DID YOU FORGET YOUR PRESCRIPTIONS?" this is presumably supposed to be a friendly reminder that the supermarket also boasts excellent pharmaceutical facilities, but at first i interpreted it to mean "did you remember to take your medications today?" and had visions of sad-looking, disheveled folk, bereft of their Prozac or Zoloft and shuffling about aimlessly through the aisles until apprehended by alert supermarket staff who gently take them by the arm and courteously but firmly ask them to leave and come back when they've taken their meds.

on the way home, i stopped by BK to pick up our nutritious dinner. it was hella busy inside, and the drive-thru was backed up, so after ordering at the box i idled patiently in a line of cars while this crazy lady in the car behind me kept shouting out of her window, "it's supposed to be FAST FOOD! FAST FOOD!" that was weird.

we don't know and we don't care

several years ago, i renounced organized religion. there will never be a religion organized enough for me, i thought.

then i became a Darwinist and devoted my life to natural selection. at first, it all made such perfect sense to me. it all 'clicked', as they say, in a way that no other philosophy had before. it had an attractive catchphrase: "if you snooze, you lose"-- which seemed to echo my entire life's motivation, having been practically born in survival mode. it offered me consistency and methodical function, which i desperately craved, and proved to make order from chaos-- the one thing i feared the most. it was ancient, yet strangely modern and refreshing, all at the same time. it seemed to have none of the trappings that plague the more prominent religions; there was no sexism or racism or the like, no hypocrisy or wilful oppression. my mind, primed by years of rabid fascination with the scientific world, was more than ready to ask Uncle Chuck into my heart.

my new faith ushered a profound change within me. i delved into books concerning molecular biology, genetic engineering, evolutionary psychology, anthropology. i began to see myself as an entirely organic being. i took long walks in the woods and discovered a new appreciation for the things i found there. when i walked on the beach, i let the water splash over my toes, imagining the myriad of organisms that make up just one drop of seawater, and felt an amazing sense of comfort overwhelm me. having always loved animals, i now had a newfound appreciation for them, and a special affinity with them. and yet, even with all this, the one thing i wished for the most continued to elude me.

i want peace. i want respite from the constant, vibrating mania that is my brain. i want to be free from the constant anxiety. i want to be able to look at another person without deconstructing them. i want to be able to walk into a room, and not have to read every single thing in sight, then count every single thing in sight. i want to be able to sit perfectly still for ten whole minutes, zone out, and not feel guilty about it. i want to know what it is like to relax-- for real-- not just lie down for a few hours. i want mental peace.

natural selection does not offer me this precious thing. it gives me some answers, but, ultimately, it only serves to fill me to the brim with more and more questions; maddening little questions such as, "sis is preggers-- again? why why WHY?" and "shouldn't this person be dead?"

if i had to do it all again, what would i look for in a religion? i always feel a twinge of envy when someone says something like, "i'm going to explore all religions, and figure out who i am, and find my spirituality." it's as if they're off on an exciting vacation or something. i suppose some part of me remembers when i was there, on that threshold of endless possibility-- and knows that i can never go back, i am too jaded now. it's as if i went, saw, came back and said, "you know, it's really not all that mystical-- just a bunch of chromosomes, really."

i believe in God; always have and always will. in fact, i know Him more intrinsically than most people would think i do. i don't believe in Heaven or Hell. i believe in 'Home'. i'm not entirely confident that i know what happens to people when they die; but i tend to subscribe to reincarnation. not reincarnation as in the "Next on Sally: I Was Marie-Antoinette in a Previous Life" or the New Age Angel Therapy Crystal Healing kind of way-- but rather as more of a natural process, inevitable and unassuming, not having as much to do with lofty concepts as much as basic space limitations. i.e. all energy has to go somewhere.

in a sense, i have come full circle, and at this point i have concluded the only direction i can take now is sideways. i don't want to say that i have given up, but i'm certainly ready to give up, which tends to make the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic more and more appealing to me ;-)

Pete linked to this post at Slashdot, which i found deeply interesting, and strangely articulate, despite the coarse language. basically, the poster proposes that the only wife a man will ever need is a "professional" wife.

"I can hear some of you saying, 'I'll never pay for pussy.' Well son, we all pay for it, some more than others. I just would rather pay cash for mine.

"[...] if you must be with a 'imperfect' woman take my advice and don't marry the bitch. Love the bitch, fuck the bitch, and live with the bitch but don't marry her. Marry her and when it turns sourer it costs losts of bucks to divorce the bitch. Even worse she can stick it to you and get half your shit, plus the house, and you will wind up paying the bitch ransom for the rest of you life."

it all sounds terribly sad, but for the most part, i tend to agree. simply put, we all prostitute ourselves, in one way or another.

put on your flame-retardant thinking caps, because i'm about to go cynical on your ass. and, as is usually the case, i'll most likely ramble a bit and end up saying almost nothing of substance. and once again, when it's all over you'll ask yourself, "why do i keep reading this crazy bitch? is she high?"

i used to think that if marriage was to survive into the 21st century, it would have to change, adapt. i don't feel that way anymore, because how could it change? it's so cut and dried to begin with. it is about property, material and human, and thus hardly pliable. people are comfortable with marriage-- not entirely happy, but comfortable with it, because it's a quick fix for basic biology, and the idea of "soulmates" and "til death do us part" and "the ONE" is much easier than exploring one's true feelings and the depth of human complexities. and because people are afraid of being ALONE. people are afraid to get to know themselves; afraid of being stuck with themselves. they are absolutely terrified of the truth: no matter what happens or what comes and goes, you are only left with YOURSELF.

society does nothing to help. society is suspicious of hermits, pities the celibate, and once burned childless spinsters as witches. the message seems to be, "it doesn't matter how confident, independent or spiritually advanced you are; you're nobody without somebody else, and we won't tolerate it."

you're getting married, wow. wow, somebody likes you, congratulations. you're getting laid, wow. and you have a ring on your finger to prove it.

evolve, people, evolve.

let it go, people

Kthxbi has a section called "plz, let it go". i'd like to rip that off for a second or two.

these people who are obsessed with Victorian decor-- please, let it go. i'm not talking about tasteful folks who have an eye for a good antique or two, but these nutcases who go the whole nine yards with the doilies and painful-looking stuffed sofas and table clocks and floral sprig wallpaper, and endless acres of other assorted CRAP.

they've been collecting useless shit since the age of ten; the living room looks like something out the fucking V&A; they live in some private fantasy world where there's a washstand in every room-- why? who the fuck is going to use it-- the ghost of Jane Austen? millions and millions of tiny gilded-frame pictures in odd places all over the walls-- you'd gather Victorian artists had but two passions: babies and dogs... neither of which i care for all that much.

oh, and more crap, stuff with ribbons on it. Christ Jesus, so much CRAP.

i bring this up because i visited such a house today. good God.

a maze of a typical Victorian structure, of the type commonly found in New England-- in which the mistress of the home had clearly gone overboard. everywhere i looked around, there was some delicate, tiny, useless little table i was about to knock over. ottomans-- of the upholstered variety-- ran rampant. not a single light switch to be found; electricity was obviously shunned here, or perhaps it simply didn't match the curtains. elsewhere, a mysterious unseen clock chimed incessantly. walking in a straight line for more than two feet at a time was an utter nightmare, and, as is usually the case with these amateur fiends, the overall effect was about as convincing as the Epcot World Showcase.

clutter drives me insane. chaos sends me into orbit. uselessness perplexes me. i nearly had a panic attack. i fled to the only modern oasis to be found for what seemed like miles-- the bathroom, where i spent as many pleasant minutes in there as politeness allowed.

i don't get knick-knacks (or bric-a-brac, or whatever the kids are calling it these days). i don't like them, don't see the point in them, they bore me, get in my way and don't do anything special. i'd rather have one good painting, or a wall-to-wall bookshelf filled with actual books, or an artfully placed table that i can set my orange juice down on. i prefer modern, sparse decor, sleek design, clean lines and white walls. if i ever go to prison, i'll have no problems.

please, let it go. i have nothing but contempt for people who live in the past, much less buy it for $35 a pop. unless you live in the Tower of London, give it up.

i'm fed up

my boyfriend walked out on me today. he said he didn't know if he was coming back tonight. why did he do this? because i said, "take your feet off the bed" in a "tone" that he did not care for.

i have a problem. i can't hear my own tone of voice. i can't hear your tone of voice, either. nor can i read body language or facial expressions all that well. if you are angry at me, for example, i probably won't be aware of it unless you say plainly, "i'm angry at you." if you're screaming or yelling, i might have a clue as to what you're feeling at the moment, but otherwise... well, i'm just oblivious.

this problem of mine has caused me more friction, misunderstanding, confusion, hurt feelings and general pain than anything else; has earned me more spankings, groundings, detentions, punishment and contention than any heinous act i could possibly imagine doing. i've never stolen a car, shoplifted, set an animal on fire, attempted murder or come home from the prom high on PCP-- but i can tell you that i've been whipped within inches of my life because i said something the wrong way or mis-interpreted what someone else has said.

i have explained this to my boyfriend until i am blue in the face.

i realize that other human beings function using this intricate system of tone and inflection. i do my damnedest to compensate and interpret.

ergo, my whole life, my only recourse has been to rely on plain English. if i SAY it in plain English, it is so. if you say it to me in plain English, i will understand. but this is not always enough for other people. and frankly, i'm mystified. and completely out of ideas.

my boyfriend is back now. he is sorry and wants to make amends. he even bought me a gift, but i don't know what it is because i won't come out and see it. i won't even let him into my bedroom.

i'm not sure if i can have a relationship with someone who loses their cotton-picking mind over something so innocuous.

perhaps i should stop speaking altogether. it only serves to get me into trouble. perhaps i should learn sign language. you never see anyone going ballistic because a deaf person said something in the wrong "tone".

i'd really like to meet the person who came up with Comet Cursor. i'd like to shake their hand, give them a nice, comfy chair, offer them a cup of hot tea, then dump a box of live scorpions over their head and see how long it takes them to collect every single one.