good bye, fare thee well.

The Curly Haired Husband and I are unplugging ourselves and road tripping out to his uncle's hunting cabin in the mountains of West Virginia. Farewell, farewell. I intend to immerse myself in reading and writing, with hiking, open fire cooking and white water rafting thrown in between. Most excellent.

I had a drink after work with a girlfriend and some of her friends...

... and I have never been so intellectually insulted by such brazen stupidity in all of my freaking life.

I will never be returning to that bar. And I will never, drunk or sober, go out of my way to hang out with some of those people again.

Jeez.


More on my sober perceptions of campus bar life after the Amaretto wears off a bit.

I hate this fucking rabbit. "Happy Bunny" or some such thing. These stupid cute bunny toons that have such sarcastic and annoying comments like "I'm having a great day, don't screw it up." Or, "Let's not bore each other, you talk first."

I don't know what it is about this rabbit that gets all of the bitter women all worked up and sassy. Sure, little girls with their snotty attitudes and tutus, but grown women? Quoting this dumb bunny to one another? Seriously now.

I actually had a co-worker snap something that sounded suspiciously of a Happy Bunny quote seen on a daily calendar paper to me, maybe in jest, maybe in anger (at 12:30 am, sometimes it is hard to tell with some people). I retorted, wondering whether she memorized the whole damn calendar.

I mean, how is it that grown women, with very keen and clever brains, have to rely on the rude and not very funny lines of a fucking cartoon character? It begs the question: how did I come to the idea that these people were witty and intelligent? Did I mis-judge them?

So fuck you, Happy Bunny. Go climb back into the bitter brain that you crawled out of. Take your Swag with you. You're not wanted here.



* this has been yet another work related rant, sponsored today by the One Stuck In the Middle of Angry People (that's me) and the Where Has All the Respect Gone? Foundation, which is not associated with Focus on the Family, but has a similar mindset that if you don't give your children snotty stuck up stupid toys, they probably won't memorize ass-hole lines from calendars when they are older.

A New Spin On My Old Joke

I am not a funny-ha-ha person. My jokes fail to impress and my punchlines fall flat. I usually carried one or two jokes around in my pocket for the longest time. The most overused joke?

Q: What did the snail say while riding on the turtle's back?



A: WHEEEEEEEEE!!!

[ source ]

HAH HAH HAH!

who knew that seester and i's random flop-dance was actually a contemporary dance move?

Independence

I am joining the Curly Haired Husband in his home town for the rest of this long weekend. There, I will snack on food-stuffs and watch the gang of pyro-s shoot off fire crackers. I probably will roll my eyes at the silly Americanized propoganda that the media thrusts in my face and think of a more noble time when freedom was not placed on a cheap and tacky pedestal and wars were not fought for a masked and mysterious reason.

While contemplating independence, whether it is a woman, as an individual, as a religious person, as a state or country or nation or world, I realized how little I know my own beliefs - what is worth killing for? What is worth fighting a war for? What is worth breaking connections and networks for? How very small a world that we live in. And how very small that we feel in the face of the future's tidal wave.

Here is a very profound excerpt from Maria Kalman's Time Wastes Too Fast, which I like to call a blog-umentary of Thomas Jefferson's individuality, battles, connections and networks, and his home. I strongly recommend reading through the blog-umentary.

For me, this panel speaks volumes about my feelings of this year's celebration of my country's independence. How great people, founding fathers and all, have such strong internal conflict and rifts between morals and actions. It makes the rest of us down below feel like we actually have a chance.

[ source ]

Have a wonderful holiday weekend, a momentous holiday, and may your independance, whether it is individual, religious or national (be that American, American living in Kinmen, Iranian, Mexican...) be recognized.

Hey, Speaking of Reality.

"Pantomime Diseases"
by Dannie Abse

The lies of Once Upon a Time
appall.
Cinderella, seeing white mice grow into horses,
shrank to the wall -
An even so ominous,
she didn't go to the Armed Forces Ball,
but phoned up Alcoholics Anonymous.

[ source ]

"The Handsome Prince"
from Cinderella by Roger Miller

He was not a prince. He was not even rich.
He was a woodcutter. And he drank.

There was not a ball, and there was no slipper,
and the clock had not even been invented.

a very bitchy confession.

The Dedhead tells me that some of my high school classmates need to have a five year reunion this summer.

O rly?

Honestly, I ask myself, do I need to see the bratty harems that these girls have produced in the past five years?

No. No I do not.

Chick-Flicks Lie. Doesn't Take a Brain Surgeon To Figure It Out

I don't get Chick Flicks. So says the lady that has a loud laugh in response to many things said in Sex and the City. I can't really justify why raunchy jokes made on HBO by middle aged women is somewhat more bearable than skinny girls going all gooey over love and relationships. Perhaps it is because that a lot of the jokes made at the expense of sex, intimacy and relationships on Sex and the City are really actually quite true to a degree - albeit very perverted and exacerbated situations. Whereas, the leading ladies of main stream chick flicks resort to feelings, emotions and dating rules to find the perfect guy. (Which doesn't exist, hate to break your funny bone - haha)

I know I am preaching to the choir, because surely the readers of this blog - few and far between - aren't dingy teenagers or hopeless romantics (because surely they can't handle gross cockroaches, random preaching, bluegrass muzak and random jabs at Twilight), and I realize that it has all been said before but this hatred for the chick flick seems to be burbling to the surface quite suddenly. All with the release of the Ugly Truth, starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. Heigl stars as a successful television producer with anal-retentive qualities about her dating life that immediately turn off possible suitors. Butler plays the part of the typical Mr. Wrong, who claims he knows that every man is only looking for one thing when it comes to women.



What I can't my head around with the Ugly Truth, and many of the other movies aimed towards women, is how they try to boil the complexity of relationships - dating, singledom, exclusiveness and marriage - into a slurry of cliche plot lines: girl meets boys, all the boys suck, especially one boy who really sucks because he's a poo-head and picks on her and tells her like it is, girl is tragically dumped by the One and the Jerk is There For Her, girl likes boy, girl screws it up, girl goes through angst-y period of "self-discovery", make it up to the boy, boy and girl fall In Love and Get Married, The End. Throw in a oh-so-romantical-sex-scene and there you have it.

All of this happens within the span of one month. Maybe.

Moreover, these movies fall so heavily on creating characters that fit into compartments that we classify so easily, which only reinforces gender stereotypes and gives us a false perception of reality. The female characters act in such ways that believe that the end of their pain and fear is found in finding the Right Guy. Worse off, many of these stories end Happily Ever After with the Perfect Couple engaging in Holy Matrimony, as if marriage really IS the end all be all, and all of the world's woes are erased after getting married.

Oh, right, right, what about the Elizabeth Bennetts of the world? How could I forget such big independent women, who don't need a man to lean on and are so bull headed that they exasperate every single option? Except, my inner feminist puked the entire way through Pride and Prejudice, at least for the 100 pages I was able to stomach before I had to put the book down (worst book I've read in a long time). Because, lo and behold, the concept of the woman at her finest (strong, sharp minded and independant) is tarnished as she is conveyed as being dowdy or butch. Perhaps undesirable until she is "shown the light." In the case of the Ugly Truth, it appears the leading lady is independent to the point of being anal retentive. Frankly, I find it a bit droll and maybe even offensive.

AND either way that you analyze these movies, whether it is women damaged to disrepair or the Ms. Bennetts, always, always, the same lie is told time and time again: you will find no happiness, no contentment, no purpose in your life until you have reached that end game of True Love and Marriage.

I know, I know, what's the harm in a little bit of fantasy and fun now and then? There's not! There is absolutely nothing wrong with eating cookie dough and watching Sex and the City (or, for instance, I was trying to find He's Not That Into You the other night). But there is something disheartening when I see some of my fellow sisters dreaming to the point of disillutionment of Prince Charming.

An article by Beth Spraul outlined her article, entitled You've Got Lies, by pointing out three myths that she has found can be taken as truth:

• Lie #1: Men think of romancec and relational intimacy exactly like women do!
• Lie #2: If I marry the right man, all will be right in my life.
• Lie #3: I will know that a man is right for me by feelings I get when I’m with him.
  

I don't normally read what I call "how-to Christian" blogs (i.e. how to be a better Christ-like person in a world full of sinful temptations and feel really, really bad and defensive about the person you are) but I stumbled across one which then lead to this article by Beth Spraul, a female ordained Baptist minister who preaches on the misleading fallacies and sinful temptations that chick flicks provide, going so far as to compare chick flicks to pornography, which I find to be a very blunt way of pointing out how lame chick flicks can be.

Pornography is an extremely destructive industry that has perverted God’s good design for sex within marriage and allowed men to view women as objects for their own selfish pleasure. It also grossly distorts a man’s view of the way normal women approach sex and sexuality... Counselors consistently report that when men indulge such a distorted view of women and their sexuality, they become dissatisfied with their own wives and sex lives, tend to evaluate potential spouses based chiefly on physical attractiveness, or bring impossible expectations for sex into marriage. All of the above lead to sin and heartbreak.

I’d like to suggest that culture attacks women similarly — it is just a bit more subtle. The lies told to women are introduced at the level of women’s emotions, in how they dream about men, and in what they long for relationally. Like pornography, chick-flicks take a good gift from God (romance, relational intimacy)... and distort it by presenting as “normal” an unbiblical and unrealistic picture of men, love and marriage. And just like men who buy into the lies of pornography, women who believe that their husbands and marriages should always be like what they see on the screen will be sinfully dissatisfied with God’s good gift to them of a “normal” husband and marriage.

"You've Got Lies," Beth Spraul

The article makes me kind of squicky in the constant throbbing headache of phrases like "God's design," a general "Go get 'em, ladies!" tone, and, I quote, "I found it a joy to be led by him." (Say what!?) However, all of the squickiness aside, I have known several young women in my short life that would have/might yet find a little but more happiness/contentment in their lives if they would stop trying to live that stupid chick flick life.

To just slow down for a minute, to stop thinking about what should have, would have, might have happened. To stop with the ridiculous expectations set upon men (because what woman in her right mind doesn't get angry when men do the same to them?) and just chill the hell out. To stop making rules up about relationships and setting limitations.

And truthfully, I realize that many things in life that complicate our relationships with one another, whether it is pornography, self-perception or chick flicks. The point is simply this: recognizing reality and the difference between that and simple entertainment. Moderation and all of that.

Single Woman Behavior.

the Curly Haired Husband left a very romantic love note (and probably one of the only ones in our three year relationship) for me on our Caulk/Cork/Cockboard before he left for his hometown for the rest of the week. He's visiting Camp before he meets up with his pack of guys for the 4th of July, where I will eventually meet up with them. It's strange, as I don't think we've spent a night apart since getting hitched, except for the times in which I was pulling a double shift at work - which I didn't think counted because I was so farking tired I didn't notice that I was hogging the entire bed.

In any case, I'll be partaking in my single girl behavior (as outlined by Carrie Bradshaw as the acts that women do when they are alone that they would not admit to in mixed company). This behavior, if you must know, it consuming raw cookie dough, watching Sex and the City and staying up until 4 am.

But, just as an aside, the Curly Haired Husband is privy to this information. I've found I can't keep many secrets from him, as so this one small habit of mine is not so strange to him*.

*although one of my male friends called me pathetic on Facebook**, and then back pedaled by calling it typical woman behavior. Ah, so when a woman eats cookie dough and watches old television episodes, she is pathetic and needs a life? But, how would that comment be received if it were turned against the same man that likes to eat BBW wings at the bars and watch for hot chicks? Please, gag me with double standards and stereotypes.

**you'll find that I don't care if people know about my single woman behavior, since I posted it on Facebook and everything...