he's back. and this time...

no. way.

i open my email and who do i see?

(wait for it.)

B-!

he wants to have a drink. ('drink'=sex)

i can't believe he wants to do all this again!

How Pregnancy Happens: educational video of the week

how can we go whole days without saying 'vagina cam'?

it's great and, uh, disturbing all at the same time.
send it to your nieces and nephews; your sibling will really appreciate it.

How Pregnancy Happens (thanks to feministing.com)

squeaked under the deadline

just finished my piece for Geez.
another all nighter.

when will i learn? when?

on the other hand: YAY! another piece for Geez!

a blessed day off

and what am i doing with it?

well so far, i showered and washed my hair and used my new ginger scented body lotion from roger & gallet. love it. (though i kind of have that tangy ginger thing going on now.)

then i put on my big girl panties and a t-shirt and began to email, filled out a questionnaire from my church, compiled a luncheon list for an organization i volunteer for (trying to decide which of my acquaintances to hit up for money is hard) and called an old friend i hadn't heard from in a while.

i have more phone calls to make (to dad, to Professor L-, to my sis) but i think i want to go outside. i can see the cafe from my window and i need to say hi.
...
so i went to the cafe and hung out for a couple hours while taking the X-Man quiz in my roomie's Time Out and realized something:

my neighborhood needs a bookstore. even if it's a chain. a mini-borders. a tiny b. dalton's. there is nothing here to stimulate the brain, even if you wanted it stimulated. this is what you can do on my street: drink, eat, get spanked. we need a bookstore or we're all going to end up heart attack- stricken alcoholics. (i think it's already too late for some of the guys who hang out across the street at S-'s.)

with all the disillusioned Gen X-ers, boomers and the hipsters moving in, you'd think there'd be some enterprising young thing who decided, 'hey, let's sell comic books!' god, how cool would that be? a comic book store within walking distance. or some retired professor who decided, 'hm, i want to sell all my old books.' that would be great. my landlord even has a couple of neat store fronts available for just the thing - solid wood floors and moldings! i mean, over on craptastic , ugly ashland they have a communist book store - in the middle of Latin King gang territory!

who is reading all the greatest hits of communism on ashland, huh?

so, really. if there's some retail-minded person out there who wants to get in on a fast growing neighborhood, drop me a line. we're dyin' over here. we need a bookstore.

you know you're old when...

i was having a really great, disturbing dream about hugh laurie last night when, around 3 am, voices woke me up. deep in loud, enthusiastic conversation, the 4 people on the rooftop deck across the street from my open bedroom windows laughed, opened beer bottles, smoked, told jokes, related stories about someone's crazy uncle and a drunk girl screeched like she'd never had fun before.

their voices boomed across the empty, quiet, sleepy street. i knew my roomie was useless in joining me in exasperation - she sleeps like a hibernating bear. there would be no support from her room. so i laid there, listening to them for 15 minutes, hoping one of them would realize that their noise was bouncing off my apartment building like great big bowling balls. but, no. they got louder. their stories became more exciting. and the drunk screechy girl wouldn't shut up.

so i had no choice.

'911 emergency.'
'hi. i have a noise complaint.'
'where are you, maam?'
'i'm at [boop], on the corner of [boop] and [beep]. they're across the street from me on the [beep] side and they're having some kind of party and they're loud and it's 3 am. i'm sorry.'
'no problem. we'll send a unit to check it out.'
'thank you.'

and so i snuggled back into my bed and listened to more of their stories. soon, a unit pulled up and a cop-like voice called out 'hey, your neighbors are complaining. keep the noise down.'

one of them said, 'will do.'

and it was quiet for a while, like 10 minutes. i was drifting back to sleep when the stories started again. i waited for 45 minutes. they were still going at it! i shut my windows, but i could still hear them, they were that loud.

all i could think was, 'maybe they're speed freaks. maybe that's why, on a school day, they're on their roof chatting like it's an italian cafe. or maybe they're all waitstaff and this is their after hours gabfest. or maybe they're just inconsiderate art institute students who are pissing me off!'

i called 911 again.
'i'm sorry. i'm calling for a noise complaint.' i repeated my information. 'if this was the weekend, i wouldn't care, but i have to get up in three hours and they aren't stopping.'
'we'll send someone.'
'thanks.'

15 minutes later, a cop car rumbled up. 'hey! pack it in - your neighbors have called about the noise!' there was the slam of a screen door and then blessed silence.

and then the trucks started to come off the highway.
i almost cried.

STILL AT THE OFFICE

there once was a worker named ding-er
whose job once made her sing-er.
then along came the Model,
her brain went to lard...el
-and to the PM? hey, look! here's my finger.


(not one of my best but it's how i feel.)

a writing gig!

so my favorite canadian post modern faith-based-like mag has given me an assignment - a piece on 'shelter porn'.
i'm excited.

fork and spoon! fork and spoon!

pinays of the world unite - a little canadian boy is being persecuted because he used a fork and spoon at the lunch table!

down with single utensil hegemony! down with it, i say!

you don't have to read: Luc Cagadoc: The DoubleSpeak (jp is all over this like a fork over a spoon)

why fork/spoon eating is good:
it is more efficient
you don't have to chase your food around your plate
you don't have to switch hands
it's perfect for scooping the meat with the rice
my mommy taught me to eat like this

AKBAYAN!

afternoon at the movies

i love scary movies. love them. haunted houses, creepy japanese ghosts, serial killers on the loose, children who give you the heebie-jeebies - i love all the old chestnuts, some better than others . (zombies? not so much.)

today i went to see silent hill and while i was generally pleased, i have one complaint: i kept wanting to yell, 'shut the frack up!' everytime rose ran off in search of her daughter, sharon. god, was she annoying. AND she ran like phoebe. but overall, i liked the movie - the ending was a little phooey and sean bean was totally wasted (when will he have his OWN movie, please??) but it was creepy and satisfyingly resolved. i guess since it's based on a game, there was symmetry to the story, to the scary parts. it had religious cults, murder, madness, witch-burning and even a little roasted child. (excellent). i even liked the little story of 'truth' the dangerous little witch girl gave rose after rose followed all the clues to the bottom of the hospital. a happy $7 spent.

then, i snuck into MI3. i excused this little bit of sneakery by saying to myself that at least i wasn't contributing to the cruise box office. it was...feh. i mean, it's saying something that you never know whatever the Object is that everyone is running after. we don't even see ethan hawke steal it!! it all happens off-screen. it's meaningless. instead, we get the reconstitution of the cruise Crate & Barrell relationship (oh, how i wished they'd shot her, sending ethan hawke into trauma forever.) no pattern, just random running around.

so that was my afternoon.

the hypocrite as housewife

i read this essay in the back of my roomie's latest Time mag while taking a morning constitutional and i had a suspicion that something was wrong.

1. the whiny victim tone. sweetie, you're not a victim. the image of ms. flanagan, homey homemaker, being marched back to the protective arms of the GOP while the mean girls of the Dem party hoot bad names and vulgar gestures because ms. flanagan is a nice girl who'd rather stay home than hold a picket sign is ridiculous. from all reports, ms. flanagan is just as privileged as her husband; she is an accomplished writer who earns money with her writing, and has a staff to help her do it. how many traditional housewives get that? (and, frankly, the notion that only SHE gets to have a dead mother whom she misses desperately is sickening and offensive.)

2. the sticking up for the white male. does the White Male (as signifier) really need another apologist? really? is it stigmatizing the WM to reveal the existence of those on the outside, rather than to always cater to those on the inside with ultimate cultural privilege? (like any other upper middle class white woman, she's uncomfortable with having privilege revealed and being called out on it.) i think it's interesting that she chooses to frame her argument like this, rather than say that the Dem party has abandoned the working man - which it hasn't and she'd be hard pressed to show that it has.

or perhaps her allegation would ring truer if she wrote that the 'beer-guzzling, union-dues paying' white guy got the shit scared out of him by the GOP when 9/11 hit. rather, flanagan makes the WM a victim like herself and we all know how much they suffer, don't we?

3. she's wrong. perhaps i'm watching the wrong Democratic party but i've always felt that the party has been abject in its pursuit of the Housewife. it's women like me the party's abandoned - single women, single women of color, single working men and women. in my particular case, the post-election backpedaling on the choice issue is one such example; discussion abounded that perhaps the language of reproductive choice was too scary for those housewives living in places like naperville; it was too angry. and where are the policies that look out for the interests of the people like me in the party - people who don't live in a subdivision, people without children, but still people who work hard and believe heartily in progressive causes? instead we watch as the party fumbles for its nerve and makes concessions to those easily upset.

so if anyone is being alienated by the Dems, it's not a housewife. and it's certainly not because of contempt. to muster contempt, a party must have vast stores of anger and the GOP spits it continuously while we swallow ours and hope no one notices.

TIME.com: We're Here, We're Square, Get Used to It -- May. 08, 2006 -- Page 1
Joan Walsh about Flanagan on the Huffington Post

cheesy confession as i lounge on the couch while the roomie is away:

the end of 'music of the heart' always gets me.
it never fails.

of course, it would be harder to get me if i wasn't also menstrual.

what game? the game of 'crazy'?? (and other matters)

the briskly acerbic manola says tom 'alien' cruise "turns a perfectly good franchise into a seriously strange vanity project, as the simpering brunette is swept into a new world by a dashing operative for a clandestine organization." i only wish i could be sure said brunette wasn't tom.
Mission: Impossible III - Review - Movies - New York Times
...

so my father sends me an email of all the shows on broadway the other day: "help me pick a play! what should i go see??"

i call him immediately. 'you're going to new york? and since when do you like theater??'
perhaps my father's new, mid-life crisis convertible lexus is only the beginning of my father's incipient slide into metrosexuality.

'yeah, girl,' he says. 'new york! whoo!'
'uh, when? and why?'

my father has been talking about visiting new york for years. he's never been and, until now, never had a chance to go. but, you see, my dad has the travel skills of mr. magoo; when he took a cruise to alaska, my sister and i worried he'd get stuck in vancouver or fall overboard. we worry that being a widower for the past 5 years has rendered him incapable of dealing with the big, bad world. and what is new york other than the biggest and the baddest the world has to offer?

my dad says, 'oh, somewhere during the summer. i'm going to the monterrey jazz fest in september so maybe august.'

'who are you going with?' a suspicion has begun to niggle.
'well, i was thinking of seeing [a family friend] while i was here. i thought he and i could go together. maybe catch some jazz.'
'uh-huh. so, you like musicals?' my father wouldn't know the difference between 'bali hai' or a mai tai.
'well, no, but see - this woman...'
'i knew it! you are going to new york for a date!'

let's break for a moment. technically, i am not against traveling to meet an online, uh, fling. my entire dating history between 2001 and 2004 was all about nerve.com-inspired travel. but my 62-year old father last had a date in 1967 - with my mom.

i say, 'dad, you are in NO shape to fend off the advances of an aggressive, older, divorced jamaican woman.' for some reason, jamaican and african women looove my dad.
and my father just laughs which forces me to say, 'she IS older, right?'
he just laughs again.

eventually, my father confesses: an older, divorced african (ha!) woman contacted him over email; a friend of hers had told her about my father's website (don't ask) and she thought his posted photo was attractive. so, they begin an email correspondence and then she offers to pay for a couple of broadway tickets if he comes to visit. he says she offered to buy a pair of tickets for my dad and 'a friend' and then suggested that perhaps the two of them could have dinner - at the ritz, maybe.

all the alarms in my head are sounding. no woman offers to pay for theater tickets for two without imagining herself as one of the two. i was totally right: a woman on the make for my dad! and my father has no idea where he's going to stay, how he's going to get around. i'm worried. my dad - wandering around new york, like a west coast country mouse, chased by a hungry cat!

so long story short: i'm planning a father/daughter trip to new york in the fall. i know. it's weird. i'm sacrificing a really good time in new york to make sure my dad doesn't get roofied, mugged, or married.

who's traveled with their parents before? and where should we stay? i was thinking about a few B&B's in harlem.

missing the good stuff

this is what happens when you spend the whole weekend catching up on season 1 of Battlestar Galactica - you miss stephen colbert ripping the president a new one. to his face.

the transcript of his speech is at the end. it rocks.

The Blog Chris Durang: Ignoring Colbert, Part Two The Huffington Post

ok, i probably shouldn't have called him an idiot

but i couldn't help it. over on my other blog, i've been driven slowly insane by one of the most crazy, mysoginistic commenters EVER. it's strange. i can't even say that i'm angry. i'm not angry at him. he's just nuts. he actually asks to be called Patriarch Verlch.

think i'm exaggerating? read him here:

ChurchGal: Ask your rep to Vote no on S.1955: why? because it's not 1955

or read him here.

and if your head doesn't pop off, i envy you.

alert!

this planned parenthood alert could be important to you if:
you have a uterus
you enjoy having a uterus
you enjoy knowing your health care covers anything/everything uterus related

...
Women in every state will lose benefits. It sounds like a bad joke, but it couldn't be more serious. S. 1955 would allow insurance plans to ignore important state laws that protect patients, directly affecting more than 90 million Americans.

Chances are you're one of them. That's why I'm asking you to write to your senator today anddemand that the federal government protect your health coverage:http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/benefits

You may have heard about this "Lose Your Benefits Bill" before,but now it has passed out of committee and the full Senate willvote on it. It's an insidious attempt by hardline senators to chip away at our basic rights. These lawmakers have tried before to restrict access to birth control and other health care you need.

Their latest strategy? Force women to pay for these benefits out of pocket. We've worked for decades to pass state laws that require insurance companies to cover birth control just like other medicines. This bill would trample those laws, but it doesn't stop there. Besides fair coverage for contraception, here are some of the other benefits that women could lose:

• cancer screenings
• mammograms
• maternity care
• the ability to go straight to your OB/GYN when you have aproblem
• the ability to stay with the same doctor throughout apregnancy
• infertility treatment
• osteoporosis screenings

And it's not just women who will be affected - the bill guts state protections for coverage for prostate cancer screenings, ambulatory surgery, emergency services, and more.

To makematters worse, it will likely also increase the costs of health insurance for older and sicker people who need health insurance most. Please take two minutes to speak out against this dangerous bill- the Senate could vote as early as next week. Contact your senator now:http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/benefits

Think of it as an investment - two minutes of activism now vs. hundreds or thousands of dollars in extra health costs for you and your family.