i finally had to do it.
i had to cancel the mysterious US magazine i've been receiving over the past 5 months. at first i thought one of my friends signed me up as a joke. then i thought i got automatically signed up when we bought something at best buy.

who fracking cares now? thumbing through this crap has made my brain shrink!

so i wrote them a strongly worded email asking them to STOP DELIVERING IT, for the love of god, or my head would pop off.

they're so incredibly gross, you know what they give you when you click on FAQ, on their subscriber services page, wanting to know how to cancel your effing magazine? this crap.

What Happens When There Is No Plan B?

did anybody see this??
where was i when this came out?

below is a story about real-life consequences when Plan B isn't available to normal, everyday women. unbelievable.

who is still thinking that women shouldn't be able to retain *full* control of their reproductive lives??

Dana L. What Happens When There Is No Plan B?

senate to telecom: do me, baby.

more news on how big business wants to screw the little guy and our government says 'sounds fine to me!'

Senate Panel Defeats Net Neutrality - 6/28/2006 4:29:00 PM - Multichannel News - CA6348259

the very long 4th of july weekend is almost here and, thankfully, i will be with girlfriends on a road trip to michigan to invade a parental home and sit by the lake. my goals will be to sleep in the sun, not catch west nile, and read serial killer novels, comics and such while getting so brown i will eventually resemble a jimmy dean sausage patty.

i emailed B- to say hi (can't think of anything else to say over the phone...) and to tell him i'm out of town this weekend, though (in our past) this would have been the perfect weekend to Get it On. it's at these crucial boy-junctures in my life that i wish my life coaching sessions about intimacy hadn't ended quite so abruptly when i got this job.

oh, well. must muddle through somehow.
...
in other news, over on my churchgal blog, i've been asked to be the new thursday blogger for a coalition of progressive church folk on their site. when the post is up, i'll point y'all to it. apparently, my technical lack-wittedness is slowing down the process...

i'm sorry, but i don't know what you mean when you say 'post it on Movable Type'! how? where? why? just post it randomly? somewhere specific? huh?

if anyone knows how these weekly contributor things usually work, please clue me in.

and i have other technical questions: how does that whole blogrolling thing work when you sign up with blogroller - so i don't have to keep futzing and endangering my template when i wanna add something? and how can i set up a site meter thing? and how can i put a hyperlink in comments that actually works when you click on it? again, please clue me in.

jp's already making fun of me down below.
...
and has anyone read the new linda hirshman book? i've been getting questions about it and i'm curious.

this 'n that

here's a cranky tip to the bands and djs on myspace music: please leave me alone. i don't know you, i don't want to be your 'friend.' if i wanted your friendship, i'd already be listening to you.
thanks.
...
this was a very good pride weekend.
saturday evening my friends and i went to a pride-warming up in boystown and we had a marvelous time. there is something to be said, once again, for adult parties: parties where there's plenty of seating (absolutely necessary when you're in party shoes), plenty of drink that doesn't come out of a keg or bottles that have the word -meister in it, wonderful food made by actual human hands and laid out beautifully on a well-appointed table, and plenty of interesting, funny, regular people who just want to make funny conversations and have a good time, even if it's just for the night.

no drunk girls crying in the bathroom, no couples fighting in the hallway and no one calling the police. (or having the police called on them.) and not a single drug in sight!

toward the end of the night, i checked my mobile to see if anyone had called and who do i see but B-. it was his second message that day, gamefully trying out that 'friendship' thing i demanded. i wonder if he realizes that 'friendship' at this juncture means 'no sex.' hm. probably not.
...
it's weird, this no sex feeling i'm having. it sort of snuck up on me. i don't mean that i'm not feeling the Urge. oh, the Urge is there. the Urge to snuggle up to someone and feel desired and desiring - that's all there. i'm not saying that, if offered an appropriate opportunity, i wouldn't immediately jump on a boy for a really great makeout session. (kissing is the BEST.)

but the sex. meh. not so much.

this isn't the same as restlessness when no one is paying attention to me. this isn't the same as the cagey feeling i have when i just want to get laid and no one's around. this isn't that. this feels like the pause that exists between exhale and inhale.
...
speaking of which, did you know tomorrow is HIV Testing Day? you should do that. i should do that.

the best bj in town: a follow up and summary

over here you'll find a handy wrap up to all the hullaballoo started by the I Hate the Patriarchy post about giving head i mentioned below. i have no particular thoughts on the inherent politics of giving head.

i do have some thoughts about the phallocentric chauvinism shown in the partners i've had when they effing *expect* it. now, whether their expectation is a sign of the patriarchy, i have nary a clue (though i have suspicions) but it's of our continued acquiescence to that expectation that perhaps Twisty is speaking. nothing turns me off more than some guy who leans back and tries to force my head down into his lap. i remember the incident with 5-Fingered Tom who, while we were in the middle of a very nice snog session on his lumpy couch, whispered raggedly in my ear, 'Can I ask you something?'

and i whispered back, just as raggedly, 'The answer is No, I will not suck your dick.'

(in vain, he tried to change my mind. he said, pointing to his lap, 'But I need to take care of this.'
'So you take care of it,' i said, getting up and taking a chair in the corner across the room.
so i smoked a cigarette and watched poor 5-Fingered Tom wank off awkwardly on the couch and when he finished into a crumpled paper towel, he had a funny look on his face, like 'euww'.

i said, 'not exactly what you had in mind, huh? do not blame me for whatever feelings you might be having right now. that was all you. now take me home.')

and perhaps it's correct to protest the primacy of the blow job in our sexual narratives. though we may feel pleasure in giving them (i have) to the people we care for, there's no doubt that the blow job exists as a sign of masculine privilege and sexual dominance. (don't get me started on the fucking asshats who demand we swallow and the dumb girls who actually do it.)

if you don't like spitting out short and curlies or that slightly musky bj breath afterward, then avoid it. but for those of us who give them, there's nothing wrong with a little bit more introspection to examine why we seem to be getting really defensive about this when the questions about sexual politics should be directed at the guy who's getting blown.

now, i have more thoughts on this but i'm now officially late for work.

noooooo!

to my fellow battlestar galactickers (galacticians?):
the 2nd half of season two won't be released until fracking september 19!

give Big Business the finger: net neutrality now

over near the bottom of my sidebar you'll notice that little Save the Internet thing.

if the scenario below pisses you off, then click on that button and keep abreast of what's going on with net neutrality. i hate it when people tell me what i can or can't do (unreasonably):
...

Take Action Before Your Internet Sucks!

Ok, it's March, 2008.
You go to your computer and open your Verizon-supertier browser, and everything comes at you with blazing speed. You access your bank, NBC news, Andrew Sullivan's blog through Time.com, and check your email. You watch the last five minutes of Scary Movie 7, which you fell asleep watching the night before. Pretty cool.

Then you remember your best friend set up a new blog about her band and asked you to check it out. It's kind of irritating, because she set it up on the slow tier. You minimize the Verizon browser, open up Firefox, and type in the web address. It takes thirty seconds to load. Ugh. The site's fine, and there are some cute pictures of her band performing in a dive bar. You click on a song, and the browser begins loading the first minute of the song. After twenty seconds, you curse the fact that she didn't pay to be on Verizon's internet, and you close the browser.

You're even thinking of canceling your slow-tier internet account, since shelling out the $45/month for that plus the $29/month for Verizon super-tier isn't worth it. Welcome to a non-neutral internet.

The net neutrality fight is coming to the Senate this week, with the Commerce Committee set to mark up the bill on Thursday.

click on that button and see what can be done.

because of something i read over at I Blame the Patriarchy, i'm now in the process of reevaluating my talent for and, heretofore-thought, pleasure at giving oral.

not quite apathetic. yet.

y'all may have noticed that it's been a while since i've gotten all riled up about anything i've read in the papers or heard on the news. it's been months since i've parsed an op-ed column, longer since i've quoted anything from president 'numbers in the toilet' bush.

some possible reasons for this political lack:
my job is taking up alot of my time, only leaving me enough time to grab a few cocktails with girl friends when i get home
i'm distracted by the FIFA World Cup
i've forgotten how to read
or...

i just don't give a rat's ass what our president does anymore.

i find myself utterly indifferent to the rest of his term and the destruction he and his people are still wreaking on this country and every oil-rich nation within reach. the news coming from the white house becomes ever more absurd. the news from elsewhere is just exhausting. i think my brain switched off when that guy said the suicides at Gitmo were an act of warfare against america.

it's wrong and dangerous to feel this indifference toward my country and government. when a person no longer feels anything, when the mind and the heart retreats, it permits the outside world to do all sorts of things a person never thought the world could do. then we become the bystander, purposefully blind while a mugging takes place right in front of them.

misc.

i'm listening to The Roots (ha! gonna get that black card back, yet!) and reading stuff on the internets. thanks to Bitch, who points to Rootless Cosmopolitan, the personal blog from a south african journalist/editor from Time. check it out.
...
speaking of music, i just have to hand it to dave chappelle's Block Party for getting me curious enough to go to virgin and actually go into the rap/hip hop section - for the very first time ever. i am now the proud owner of Homegrown! The Beginner's Guide to Understanding The Roots Volume One and Blackstar's first cd.

what's next?

things i did today:

read a couple green arrow comic books; ollie is mayor of star city!
saw 'nacho libre' because jack black is adorable and makes me laugh till i fart; best line - 'i ate bugs, i ate grass/With my hands i wiped my tears.' heh.
walked to the taste of randolph where i ate 4 tacos, drank 2 beers, met our friend T-, and saw The Bellrays (who did a kickass set and will be at the Empty Bottle on the 22nd.)
got a tan
got a little sticky and stinky
walked back home with roomie and T- for recuperative drinks at our local until, 5 hours later, we left.

summer is the best.
(oh, and B- called while i was out. have yet to decide if i'll check his message.)

sister 'neath the skin: new blog found!

while frustratedly trying to fix the effing template of our new work blog (heh - i convinced them that blogging at work is a good thing!) i took a break and stumbled across this blog.

she's cute, she's in la and she's recording her internet dating. already, i'm hooked.

ok, so now i go back to the Effing Work Blog Template.

maawidge

i was busy last week so didn't have a chance to say Yay over the Senate giving the House the finger over the Marriage Protection Act. So i'm doing it now. yay!

dare we hope the senate is beginning to jerk that leash a little? perhaps, when the house is finished trying to paint the sky purple, our government can actually try passing some laws that mean something.

madigan's 'modest proposal' approach is rather obvious but effective. and while he says that marriage is the 'best way' to raise a family and nourish values, i like seeing it as the 'most efficient.'

And now, FEMA fixes marriage Chicago Tribune

back when tv was good

my roomie is sometimes amazed at the tv that i know. in our apartment, i have the uncanny ability to stumble upon some gem of 1970s or 80s schlock that she has never seen before but i remember from my childhood and can't shake.

like, The Fury, with Kirk Douglas and Andrew Stevens. so good. or, Baron Blood with Elke Sommer. or either of those Hell House movies (the one with Roddy MacDowall is my favorite). or even that movie with bette davis about the house that was alive. (the scene where it starts replacing its own wood framing scared my hair straight.)

well, roomie will be glad to know that i'm not the only one! author scott heim's list of what scared the crap out of him is a list that could have been written by my own hand. i remember every single one of these shows. (and, yeah, that Trilogy of Terror? that's nothing compared to The Manitou.)

Scott Heim's Noise: Scary, Part II: Television

working backwards

my mild freak out over my father has run its course; i should just cop to the fact that i love my dad madly but he drives me nuts, all at the same time. there will always be anxiety and frustration and cross-purposed communication between us.

the Mild Freak Out (MFO) being over, i just feel drained. last week was mentally exhausting, physically draining and just a pile of poo. love my job. love. it. but i snapped at a coworker and i never do that. i never lose my temper. (ok, once i lost my temper.) and i did. i got snippy. thankfully the object of my ire has skin thicker than calloused feet so my bad manners bounced off him like a toothpick off a tank. but work and no vacation, plus having a bedroom that makes me want to crawl into a pit and die, AND not having practiced yoga for months (and now my knees are acting up again) - all this makes me want to rent a dumpster, put it under a window and throw everything out so i can start all over with nothing.

how totally cool that would be. to start over. clean slate. scratch.
...
my roomie's family was in town over the weekend and i realized that my apartment is not child friendly. it is a death trap of exposed outlets, wires, open cupboards, chairs leading to wide windows, barware, sharp edges, carpentry and adult comic books with images far too disturbing for youthful eyes. i found myself 'reading' a catwoman comic book to roomie's niece, turning a violent bank heist into a rather mundane day at the office where selena has to put up with some mild harrassment and i actually ended with a tidy little moral about the need for unions in the workplace.

we felt some mild anxiety about the absolute Adult-ness of our home, but whatever. when we were kids we didn't have baby seats and we survived just fine. on the edge, baby!
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sunday i finished reading a thriller (must start going back to the library) and spent 3 hours at the church, setting up the dining hall for the supper we feed the homeless. (or is the new social agency term 'under-domiciled'?) People of the Bag, i'll call them. it...wasn't so bad. everyone was sorta cool; there were even a few, if they were totally cleaned up and didn't have meth mouth, would be kinda hot.

(cough)
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the night is cool. it's the kind of night i sleep under a sheet, my windows are wide open and the little breeze floating in, making the curtains bell out, makes me feel like i'm somewhere where my language isn't spoken. i'm so going to sleep through my alarm.

traveling with dad: the boomers suck

lately, my friends and i have noticed how much our parents' baby boomer late-life crises make us want to slap them. we're not talking health matters or anything like that - just your run of the mill 'why can't you behave like a normal person?' thing.

so my dad and i are going to new york in august and he and i have been exchanging emails about it in preparation. this is what i pictured: jazz, dinner, great views, lots of walking around, harlem - really kicked back. some urbanity, some coffee shops and bookstores, some music and a little bit of night life (while assiduously ignoring the fact that three of the best nights i've had have ocurred in this city.) the plan was to travel together. as father and daughter. to share experiences and bond as adult parent/child.

well, it was a good dream but all dreams eventually die.

this woman he's meeting, well, she's not divorced or nigerian. actually, she seems like a very nice young woman from a really great, large, extremely friendly barbadian/haitian family. a christian barbadian/haitian family. they loove dad. all of them - the woman's mom, dad, brothers and even a cousin or two. (personally, i think they want to convince my dad to move to new jersey to start a church.) they want to pick me up from the airport and drive me and dad all around new york; they want to be our tour guides, have dinner with us, take us to listen to music. they want dad 24/7.

all of this would have been easier to handle if dad's meeting this woman had been a date. a date ends after a few hours. but no. this is a freaking family reunion.

does this bother my dad, that these people are going to monopolize all of our time? no. his attention-whore tendencies (which i share) blind him to one simple fact: i don't know these people and i don't care.

i don't want to hang out with people who are strangers. i want to hang out with my friends. and my dad. i want to walk through central park and washington square with my dad; i want to sit on the Met steps with my dad; i want to hear wynton marsalis with my dad. i want to eat cake in harlem with my dad. i want to smell the icky hot garbage smell the city has and watch my dad freak out at all the people and the subway. i want to finally meet Sid! and i desperately want to introduce my dad to a good friend and his family. (the friend who has generously offered to put us up!)

friends + dad. dad + friends. no strangers.

i want to slap my dad.

perhaps it's selfish of me to whine that i don't want to hang out with my dad's new faith friends while forcing him to spend time with mine, but i'll accept that. i think my selfishness should trump his. he's staying with my friends! how does that make me look - my dad not even acting like a guest, just a random lodger?

so you know what i think will happen? i think my dad will end up staying with this extended barbadian family (or a hotel) and i will stay with L- and C- (with little e-) and my dad and i will have parallel weekends in new york and perhaps our paths will intersect and we'll have dinner one night while i'm there.

have i mentioned i want to slap my dad? cuz i do.

i've just gotten out of the shower and i can just remember the faint outlines of a dream about the weirdest company picnic ever - it had inter-employee toplessness, football, sausage eating and behavior that, if it actually ocurred in the real world, would border on sexual harrassment.

and we're a women's organization!

Why Can’t They Get Storm Right??

Last weekend, while memorializing those who served our country in the military (including my dad – hi, dad!), and trying to escape the stupendous heat over the weekend, I met some girlfriends up in Evanston for X-Men 3. Two hours later I left the theater with a palpable feeling of dissatisfaction in my gut. No, it was more than dissatisfaction; it was a low burn of disgruntlement.

That’s right. I was disgruntled.

How is it possible for them to get Storm wrong consistently?? I can accept (but only a little!) that, in movies, some things get lost in translation. But this…this…fundamental misreading of Storm’s character!! I am boggled!

And I think I’m going to blame the patriarchy for ruining Storm for millions of little girls all over the world.

The Storm I loved when I was in junior high sported a mohawk, wore leather, kicked ass and was a militant fighter for her rights. She never kowtowed to Charles, thought Cyclops was lame (which he was) and was basically the fiercest friend a crazy, mixed up mutant (ugh, Jean) could ever have. She was scary, wonderful, elemental, angry, gentle, violent, funny, stylish, and could hang with Wolverine – she could hang with the psychotic ninja-trained loner! And she led the Morlocks! She was so cool.

Why do I blame patriarchy? Because it’s typical of a system in which a woman’s unique complexity and potential power gets reduced to something non-threatening, nice and serviceable to the status-quo. Who do they give us? They give us teeny tiny Halley Berry, with her kittenish voice and all the fierceness of a pout.

So thanks, Hollywood. Thanks for sucking the life from one of the strongest female characters in the comic book world and turning her into a lame after-thought. Way to go.

(And don’t even get me started on what they did to Calysto.)

updates:
no, B- did not hit my 'booty potato'. (thanks, jp.) some things are left better to die.
yes, i will be going to new york with my dad at the end of the summer. (and new jersey!)
yes, i've been working my arse off.
no, i don't think i'll ever have fun again.

and my sister, cruel cruel wench that she is, said to me recently, "You might as well get used to saying you're 37 now. It's right around the corner." Thus plunging me into a startling and deep pit of anger. bitch!

off for drinks at NoMi with some presbyterians.