Do they make Xanax pills for horses? Because I need one after watching the Iron Bowl game, my God. What a stressful event, you have no idea. Unless you are from Alabama, and then you do have an idea.

It’s really great, this football tradition in the state. It’s like the only religion in the world where you’re not only allowed to yell “GODDAMN IT!” or “RUN, MOTHERFUCKER, RUN!” during the service, but no one even blinks when you do. In fact, if you don’t yell and jump up and down, but instead sit quietly in the pew (couch) during this game, you will be excommunicated as a non-believer.

Yes, football is one fine, fun southern religion.

The state of Alabama has a long and strong tradition of intolerance. At the top of the state’s List of Intolerable Things is the inability to pledge your allegiance to one team or the other. Down here in ‘Bama, that’s worse than interracial marriage! You must choose a side in order to get a Social Security Card.

For the most part, the allegiance is passed down from generation to generation, however you do get a few freaks. Like me and Wally.

I, a born and raised Alabama fan, actually graduated from Auburn. And I will cheer for Auburn during the other games, which is a practice exonerated only because when it comes down to The Game, the Auburn/Alabama game, heredity rules out. I still full-heartedly pull for Alabama.

And then there’s Wally, also a born and raised Alabama fan who actually graduate from Auburn and then *gasp* full-heartedly switched his allegiance to Auburn. As far as I’m concerned, Auburn can have a yellow-bellied fan like that. I mean, there’s education and bettering yourself, and then there’s college football. Come on.

I know for any of you Northerners, all of this may seem odd and extreme to you. But believe me, I do not exaggerate.

Here is something else I’m not exaggerating: Alabama won in Beards-Eaves stadium (finally!) because of me and you can thank me via comments.

I’m at least 85% responsible for the win because, when the going got tough for Bama and the other Bama fans in my house were yelling at my husband (the only Auburn fan in the room) to leave, I decide to do just the opposite of the inbreed ingrained redneck beliefs.

I decided to love that Auburn fan, bless his heart.

When it looked its worse, that Auburn would actually pull off an upset, I got down on the floor with him and snuggled and loved that fan, and just let my heart fill with love for him.

John Lennon said it best: All you need is love.

Or maybe the Bible said it better: Love thy enemy.

Whichever, John Lennon, the Bible, it’s all the same to me.

But yes, I loved the only Auburn fan in the room and do you know what happened after I began that process? No sooner than a commercial time-out, Alabama began their game-winning drive and won the game.

So you Alabama fans and Nick Saban, you’re welcome.

Love is all you need.

Seriously.

Now all I have to do is find a Florida fan, bless their heart, and love them next Saturday during the SEC Championship.

Shit, real quick! Everyone email me with Bible and John Lennon quotes! I’m going to need a lot of spiritual help to pull that off. Unless the Florida fan looks something like Stephen Colbert, then it would be pretty easy. (But don’t tell the poor Auburn fan I said that.)

People, I have an editor who intellectually kicks my ass, like every time I communicate with him.

It’s like a scene out of You’ve Got Mail, only take out all of the romance and cloying love moments and rewrite it as a slasher spoof where a giant dictionary eats me alive through my email.

I’m already terrified.

The editor’s lines are in red because I felt like I did in 11^th grade English when my paper was returned, covered entirely in red marks. I flunked a personal essay paper, y’all, because it was full of run-on sentences and the teacher used my paper as an example of utter stupidity to the ENTIRE CLASS but I survived the horror and never failed a writing assignment again and haven’t had a run-on sentence since.

Also, this is the same editor who won’t allow me to curse in my writing, so there will be a lot of cursing in this post to make up for it.

Fuck.

(That one’s just for good measure.)

So! Without further ado…

You’ve Got Mail! From Your Editor.
Subtitle: Heather is a Dumbass.

Hi, Heather, we really need to aoie nfsdhio oiffhi ufnnvgd llnvgfgj kk in the second paragraph because oiuijvfbiu rg oiuhn iobgft mcvkfbs bhdo bvbstfj erudition. And after you do that, look up hjhoip[n and iohkh, which will ioumngt anr nn fgr ll wpokit and nbniy aih iodfh. All of the above is predicated on the latest revision hio bjibb oibmdftr klhnvbdfdkjghbn, of course.

Of course.

What the fuck is he even saying? I don’t know either! Predicated? Erudition? I didn't know people actually spoke in Vulcan.

And so I say...

“Oh, hahaha! Did you know the Jewish hunt for crumbs by candlelight? Like God cares about crumbs. That’s so insane!”

(crickets)

“Um, Editor, are you Jewish?”

Oh yes, I laughed at the customs of his religion and called them insane. I am awesome.

“Heather, everything in your article must be 100% accurate.”

“Fuck, you mean I can’t make up shit about the Chinese? Thank god there’s Wikipedia.”

“Wikipedia isn’t a valid source for fact-checking, Heather.”

The hell? Dude, it's on the internet and rhymes with encyclopedia, of course it's valid.

I considered starting a philosophical debate on Truth. You know, one of those I can't prove I exist/how would anyone prove these Chinese facts are false/no one can define absolute Truth type debates. But before I could do that, the editor sent me another email with more five-syllable words in it, so I got scared and just did what he told me.

And then he and I had a battle of wills over Mr. Clean. I fucking lost, people. LOST! I still can’t believe it. I have shamed my ancestors. Everything I believed about myself is in shambles. I lost a battle of wills. My god.

“…say something about patriarchal values or sexism, maybe paternalism.”

Hmm. Paternalism. What the hell is that?

The dictionary attacked me yet again.

The policy or practice on the part of the people in positions of authority of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to them in the subordinates’ best interest.

Of those subordinate to them in the subordinates’ best interest.

What does that even mean? My reading comprehension is limited to no more than 3 prepositional phrases in a row.

Clearly I am in over my head.

And then came the pictures for the article. Ugh. There was another battle of wills since I hate (HATE!) having my picture taken. Unless I've had a couple of drinks and can do something ridiculous, then I'm okay with it. Otherwise, I hate it. But I forced myself to take some, completely sober, and sent him two.

He wanted more photos, I'm sure so he could post them in seedy public bathrooms with notes like, "To drive yourself insane, email this woman. Trust me."

The idea of setting up more photos and actually look at myself in pictures - oh hell no. So I sent him this photo, letting him know what I thought of the idea:

I am SO professional.

But I did it! The article is finished, though not before the editor and I had another email stand off.  We were on the brink of writer contract ultimatums – aka literary nuclear war. It was like my own personal Cuban Missile Crisis, how did you people go about your regular day?!

Oddly enough, no nuclear ultimatums were thrown at one another, which proves that I can actually be mature when I want. I just don’t want to very often.

So I’ll be, like, for real published. On paper. But not until this spring, which is an odd experience for a blogger.

You mean it won’t be tomorrow? I don’t understand.

It’s a two-page spread with pictures, which sounds sort of kinky. I wonder if it’s in the center of the magazine? I should ask him if I’m the centerfold. I bet that would make him squirm.

Shit, people, he outsmarts me ALL THE TIME, I have to do something to get back at him. I tried to get back at him by asking people (in the article) to write housewife fantasy suggestions to him, but he edited that out. Apparently editors have that kind of power.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and I discovered many things about myself, such as I was never that smart to begin with. But with the right editor, I can sound brilliant and cultivated. Amazing.

(Seriously, he made me sound fantastically smart, more so than I think I deserve.)

Now I wonder if I ever was an intellectual, despite my honor degree saying so. Was that Heather a figment of my imagination? I’m sure we discussed paternalism in Gender Psychology and I was able to fully participate in the dialogue.

But the combined force of play date cocktails and reading Goodnight Moon 100 million times has permanently damaged my IQ. I can’t recall any words beyond three syllables.

This reintroduction into the adult world after nine years living in the mommy world is more difficult on my ego than I expected.

A few months ago, an editor for an organization of extra smart people approached me through my blog, asking for an interview.  I know I’ve been out of the corporate office realm for almost a decade, but it seems as if times have really changed and it’s now acceptable to drop acid while at work.

Actually though, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a member of this extra smart people organization.

I’ll wait while you recover from this shock.

..

..

..

..

With my invisible sidebar integrity badge, you can be assured this is the truth and I am in no way making up the fact that I at one time had a highly-tuned academic mind. Thinking back to my scholarships and dean’s list certificates and fancy Latin words on my degree in no way makes me depressed while I sit here, a 9-year stay-at-home mom, with no idea of the direction of her life.

I better move on from that thought before I actually do get depressed.

Anyway, I agreed to the interview and the editor almost fucking killed me. He wouldn’t let me cuss AT ALL. In fact, I couldn’t even say “crap” in the answers so right now I feel like throwing in a bunch of random F bombs in this post.

Except I’m kind of scared of Peter (the editor) and if he finds out I did cuss while talking about this interview, he’ll probably send me an email using words I have to look up in the dictionary, which really puts me in my place.

Here’s the interview.

Unfortunately there’s no way you can comment on the interview. I guess you could always email Peter directly, expressing your amazement at his ability to get me to write without dropping the F bomb.  He lost a battle of wits with me just this morning, so it might soothe his ego if you did.

Since mommy blogger critics have nothing better to do with their time than accuse us of exploiting our children, I decided to give them more ammunition.  It’s all part of my spiritual lessons of Fake Lent – I’m sacrificing things in order to give to others.

Of course, I don’t even know if I’m a mommy blogger. What does that mean anyway?  I have kids, I have a blog.  And?

Maybe I should post the video of Parker playing his guitar, singing a song he made up just for me and that will confirm my status as a mommy blogger.

Or maybe I should post the draft I’m holding about Brazilian wax jobs and my denuded hoo-haa and confirm myself as an…uncouth blogger?

Shit, you know how I feel about labels. It’s part of the problem I have with drinking the Brand Your Blog kool-aid.  I don’t like being boxed into this type of blog or that.  I don’t know how my readers can come to expect a certain anything from my blog when I never know what the hell will come out of my fingers.  Will it be funny?  Introspective? Shallow? Boring? Vulgar?  Or will I be introspectively shallow and funny all at the same time just to see if you can catch the hidden moral of the story? Who knows!

But they do say if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, so here’s a post, specifically written to exploit my children, so much so that I’m going to plagiarize* Payton.  (I hope I’m keeping you on your toes with this utter mommyblog entry.)

The following is Payton’s journal entry, dated February 4, 2009:

I hate everything

I want to go home! I want to do my homework here! Please…badly! Very badly! Very very badly! I want to play games and go outside. I want to pet Gabby.  I want to watch the birds. I hate everything at school that’s what I mean.

Is it me, or do you get the feeling Payton hates everything at school?

I’m relieved he added going outside and birds and stuff after he mentioned playing games.  I’d hate for everyone to know how many video games I actually let that kid play.

I’m proud of his use of ellipses, which I believe goes to show video games will not make you dumb.  Ellipses are such a…useful writing tool, even if you aren’t…sure how to properly use it. Hmm…it sorta, reminds me, of commas.

While I find this journal entry, um, interesting and just a tad bit discerning, I quite frankly think it’s much more tame than what we’ve seen in the past.  No broken glass symbolism or dead on the inside analogies this time.  Or is it broken glass analogies and dead on the inside symbolism?  Oh, like anyone cares.

Given the toned-down drama of this most recent journal entry, at least in comparison to the past, I wonder if Payton is beginning to lose some of his dramatic flair.

I sure as hell hope so, though I bet the liquor store is crying over their loss in sales revenue.

*I realize since I gave Payton credit for the work, it isn’t really plagiarism, but whatever, you damn grammar police. What are you doing on my blog anyway?

It is Wednesday, right?  Ugh, I’m still recovering from the overindulgence of Mardi Gras and thank god fake Lent is here because now I’m on a strict healthy diet of raw broccoli and carrot sticks and celery and, oh my god, non-processed foods never tasted so damn good!  I’m coming out of a carb-induced brain fog and yes, I think it is Wednesday, so I’m stealing the Commentless Wednesday idea of my blogging idol, Marinka from Motherhood in NYC. Because she can’t stop me.

My close friend, Jennifer from Playgroups are No Place for Children, wrote a recent post about some struggles she is having with her 3-year-old son starting preschool.

Oh boy.  Three. What a un-fucking-believably hard age.

I remember that stage, the longest and most aging years of my life to date, when Payton was 3-5 and Parker was 1-3. I swear those two years felt like 20, only I wasn’t blessed like Rip Van Winkle and slept through it all.  I had to live that shit, day in and day out.

I frequently wondered who in the hell thought it was be a good idea to have children just two years apart.  Whoever convinced me of it (my sister) was obviously criminally insane because I was in THE WORST KIND OF HELL I’D EVER EXPERIENCED!

I love my children beyond all existence and wouldn’t trade them for anything. Of course. OF COURSE I WOULDN’T.  But let me tell you, I wouldn’t have two kids two years apart again.  Payton was an extremely difficult toddler, and I didn’t even get through his toddler years before the next kid started on them.   Granted, Parker was a much easier toddler, but in comparison to Payton, raising Hell Boy would have been easier.

But in our society nowadays, I dunno, it seems the idea that toddlerhood may sometimes be harder for some kids than others; that some kids are vastly more stubborn, tenacious, and strong-willed, is falling by the wayside.

Suddenly, the toddler years, or childhood for that matter, are no longer allowed variance.  If your child is not a model, typical, malleable 3-year-old who sits contentedly and quietly during K-3 circle time, then by god, that must be a sign of an array of development disorders.

If your toddler has a difficult time transitioning to preschool, there must be a problem. In this modern day of two-income families, are we forgetting stay-at-home children may adjust differently and not quite so smoothly?

If your child doesn’t like crowds or loud places, or, god-forbid, the HOLY COMMUNION OF CIRCLE TIME, there must be a problem. I don’t like crowd noises or the idea of sitting in close proximity to strangers, knee-to-knee, elbow-to-elbow, until I’ve been around them for a few months and feel more comfortable with them. I’m an adult, so that’s ok, but children are somehow given less respect as individuals.

If your child is more stubborn than you and can outlast you in a battle of wills, there must be a problem.  It can’t be he/she has simply learned how to outsmart adults at such a young age.  (because we are the grown-ups and how dare they!)

Dare to mention any sensory issues on top of these other “symptoms”, well, just sit back and watch the rabid pack go wild with the scent of fresh meat.

What the fuck? Have we totally lost our perspective?

There are times, even now, when I’m afraid to tell the transparent truth of what it was (and still is) like raising an out-of-the-box child.  I’m afraid I’ll come face-to-face with that rabid pack of naysayers who tell me I’m in denial, that I can’t be objective, and blah, blah, blah.  (It’s hard to remember what else the rabid naysayers actually say when you’re distracted by all the foam in their mouths.)

Their mind has apparently been infected with the disease of two-way thinking — it’s either this way or that.  It’s either normal or abnormal. There is no in between, there are no other paths.

Ok, so fine. Parents aren’t always objective. I’ll give the rabid pack that, though I think it’s pretty damn objective when a parent can admit their child can be a raging asshole at times.   I admit while I can totally see how my kids act like assholes sometimes, perhaps I myself am not always objective when it comes to judging Payton’s behavior.

But exactly who is objective?

A doctor?  An outside SLP?  An OT? A psychologist? A neurologist?

Do you honestly believe they are objective?  I hate to tell you, but they are just as far from objectivity as the informed parent.

Do you think they paid good money for their educational training, that they spent years of hard work so they can be objective about their profession and question the belief system they are taught? For cripes sake, physicians can’t even get breastfeeding information straight because they receive their “education” from formula companies.

Do you think they are not influenced by the research they read, their contemporaries, by the APA, by the media? By the very fact they are in the business of tending sick people.  Come on, they are kinda trained to look for something wrong.

Is this what we are calling “objective”?

Quite frankly, objectivity doesn’t exist, just like control over your children doesn’t exist either.  It’s all an illusion, we’re making this shit up as we go.

When did three-year-olds become required to act like six-year olds?

Do I dare admit my eight-year-old still acts like a six-year-old?

Oops, I just did.

Thank god I’ve had a rabies vaccine.

disclaimer: the opinions in this blog post are in no way associated with anyone whose blog is not Queen of Shake Shake

I watched the inauguration on Tuesday.  For an apoliticalist like myself, that’s a testament to my boredom to just how big of a historic moment this inauguration was.  It’s such a testament, in fact, that I hope you are sitting down and prepared to be amazed at my forthcoming political commentary and analysis of President Obama’s inaugural address.

This is what I heard President Obama say:

“Blah, blah, blah, pretty words, blah, blah, blah……We will restore science to its rightful place…”

Now, that right there? Got my attention.  Seems like Obama got himself elected on this idea of change and I hope I can interpret that part of his address to mean he will change the No Child Left Behind Act because is there is anything in this country that does more to displace science than that act of legislation?

Can we put science back in its rightful place while future generations spend almost half of their school day on Language Arts and Reading, and science lessons happen maybe every other week?

I don’t think so.

That needs to change if science is to be restored to its rightful place.  And I’m sure President Obama is going to get on that change straightaway because politicians who make it all the way to the White House are never known for speaking pretty, but empty words.  (i.e. “No new taxes”)

Moving on with the address, President Obama had this to say:

“Blah, blah, blah, more pretty words, blah, blah, great metaphor, blah, blah, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE.”

I picked up on a common thread towards the end of his speech and it seems that PEACE is something he’s excited about.

Yay! Me, too!

Yesterday, as I sat in the school parking lot, waiting for school to dismiss, a big-honking Tahoe parked in the spot right beside me.  The mom in the Tahoe had such a friendly attitude of sharing.  She wanted to share her radio with me because she had it SO DAMN LOUD that I could hear it word-for-word through her rolled-up windows and my own.

There was a talk show on at the time discussing the current mortgage crisis, and how banks are refusing to restructure the terms of loans of homeowners in trouble.  The people on the radio thought the banks should offer low interest rates for these about-to-default people.

I could go off on a tangent here of how I think I should be awarded with a lower interest rate just being smart enough to MORTGAGE ONLY WHAT I CAN AFFORD EVEN THOUGH LENDERS WANTED TO GIVE US ABOUT $50,000 MORE.  Don’t I deserve a low rate just for, like, having prodigious skills with a check register, a paycheck and calculator?

But I won’t go off on that tangent.  Insetad, we’re going to talk about titles.

The show had a caller all afire because a reporter somewhere didn’t use the title of “President” but called Barack Obama, um, Barack Obama.  (Because that’s his name.)

This caller had much to say about respect and earning that title and blah, blah, blah, misplaced righteous anger, blah, and every other President had been referred to with the title.

Suddenly, the show took a very, hmmm, let’s call it racial tone. I read the vibes of the radio waves that this caller was attempting to imply it’s because Obama is a black President, though I still say the man is both black and white, so what the fuck ever.

I wanted to tell this caller that during the Clinton/Bush debates of 1990whenever, that I disctinctly remember Bill Clinton referring to then President George H. W. Bush as “Mr. Bush” and not “Presdient Bush.”

100% true.  (and pretty impressive that a) I watched it, being all apolitical and b) that the alcohol hasn’t killed all my memory. I think this proves all the PSAs telling us alcohol kills brains cells are complete lies made up by the government.  I know you’re shocked to find out the government would actually lie to us citizens, but again, 100% true.)

But the host of this show, well, he said they would find out who this reporter was and “blow him up.”

Well fucking hell, that’s violent, I thought.  I wanted to roll down my window and yell at the mom, “Hey! Do you buy that blowing up shit? Isn’t that, like, totally fucked up?!  What would Jesus do?!”  But I didn’t because she had a preschooler with her and might not appreciate a vocabulary lesson from me.

But then, as the host kept talking about “blowing them up,” (because it was his most favorite solution) I figured out “blow them up” is some new slang for “rip a new one” or “snatch you baldheaded.”

But regardless, isn’t that taking it a bit far, blowing people up for not using the title “President” each and every time we talk about Barack Obama?

How does that fit into Obama’s message of peace?

We’re looking towards Obama to bring about change.  Something tells me we should be looking toward ourselves instead.

Prepare to be amazed.

I watched some of the presidential debate Tuesday night. No, really. I did! Not all of it, but some. Now, if that isn’t enough to impress you, then let me add that I watched some of the vice-presidential debate the other night too.

(and then I heard people make fun of Palin’s lack of the ending ‘g’ sound in -ing words and I totally didn’t even notice she did that. Again, my Southern roots shine bright!)

I don’t care what people say about Palin’s looks, Biden is pretty smoking for an old stoker, don’t you think? If the Presidential race was won on the candidates’ looks (and it so totally is), then Obama-Biden have it in the bag.

So I watched the debate Tuesday night and I paid very close attention, so close, in fact, that I can tell you what I learned from the candidates that night…

nothing nothing blah my record blah blah not a thing blah if you check my record blah nothing blah my friend blah blah my record blah not a thing blah my friend blah blah my record.

They would not shut up about their record, the other guy’s record, the incorrectness of the other guy’s record, correcting the incorrectness of their record the other guy said, and, for the record, I now understand why people make up word drinking games when watching these debates.

I’m not convinced I should give two shits about either one of their records. Maybe one shit, but definitely not two. Hamilton Inn Airport Briley Parkway The way I see it, there’s a lot about my past “record” where I’m like what the fuck was I thinking? Why did I think that was a good idea at the time? How could I stand for that then when I stand for this now?

Take my stand on white pantyhose in 1993. Remember when we wore white pantyhose with things like black skirts and it was fashionable? What the fuck were we thinking?

Like any normal human, I progress and mature, and I stopped wearing white pantyhose. Or really any pantyhose at all. I took an opposite stand to a previous decision. When you are progressive like me, you wear Spanx.

So are the candidates’ records from 8 years ago or 15 years ago all that important? I think there is plenty going on right now that needs to be talked about and, I dunno, perhaps the thinking from 8 to 15 to 40 years ago that got us into this mess isn’t the thinking we need to get out of it.

Remember, give one shit about the record, but not two.

There is one specific thing I actually do remember from the debate and it was a question from a little old lady. (who had internet! Go little old lady!) She said Americans haven’t been asked to make any sacrifices for our country since WWII other than sacrificing our men in war. She wanted to know what they as President would ask us to sacrifice in order to help get our country back where it belongs.

Do you remember her question? Because out of them all, it’s the only one that stuck with me.

Sen. McCain said he would tell Americans it might mean sacrificing some government programs.

What the fuck kind of answer is that?

He should have said it might mean sacrificing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac former executives to the OPEC gods and then taking back their $100 million severance packages and putting it into our education budget instead.

Because that’s the kind of answer I was looking for.

And just to be fair, since I’m apolitical and all, I would make fun of Obama’s answer except I can’t remember it, which tells me he didn’t say any real shit either. Or maybe he did but I was so lost in my fantasy of volcanoes and lava and human financial exec sacrifices and $200 million added to our education that I didn’t pay attention.

But I thought it raised a good question, especially for us Generation X’ers who have grown up with parental divorce guilt alleviated in the way of gifts and for who hard times meant they didn’t get a Barbie Mansion or a pair of Gap jeans. *ahem*

What have we known of sacrifice? Honest to god, when you can stop on every corner and spend $4 on one fucking cup of Starbucks, on coffee! What do we know?

Maybe some sacrificing would do us some good.

Maybe we would start to appreciate what we do have, and most importantly, the things money can’t buy. Maybe that state of gratitude alone would decrease the rate of depression and thousands of people would come off their meds, which in turn would affect gas because hundreds of thousands of people aren’t driving to the doctor to get the prescription, then to pharmacy to pick it up, and then the companies wouldn’t ship as much medicine, further lower gas consumption, and trickle, trickle, trickle. And that’s just one tiny example.

Maybe if we were asked by our President to sacrifice this, that, or another, we would feel united again as a country because we are all in this together, and instead of being part of the problem, we’re all part of the solution.

Maybe we do need to know some sacrifice.

And I say first up should be those banking execs with $200 million dollars.

I have a little affliction with my brain and fingers. It seems one doesn’t know what the other is doing and this chasm between the two is getting worse.

As I sit and type anything, from this blog to copy for my job to simple emails to other people, my brain is saying one thing and my fingers are typing another. This isn’t a matter of typos or transposing letters or whatnot. My fingers are typing words that my brain isn’t even thinking. Such as my brain thinks the word ‘pain’, but my fingers type something off the wall like ‘Tijuana’ instead.

I’m not sure if this means my brain is super awesome and works faster than my fingers or if my fingers are telling my brain, fuck you, I’ll show you and everyone you try to communicate with through written word how stupid you really are.

The disease is spreading. My eyes are becoming affected too. I can read something over and over, proofing it several times, and still miss obvious misuse of words. Sometimes the oversight is understandable, such as a recent work email where I announced a special meditation service, only I called it a mediation service. Other times I just look like a fucking idiot from Tijuana.

By the way, can anyone explain to me what Blogger has against contractions? Sometimes it tells me I can’t spell by underlining ‘can’t', but then it will tell me it’s fine, like right now. This inconsistency only makes my grammar affliction worse.

This disease of mine especially flairs up when I’m typing something to people I want to impress. In the blogging world, it never fails that when I finally work up the nerve to comment on a BIG IMPORTANT blogger who intimidates me, I could have the best and wittiest comment ever but I screw it up by thinking one word and typing something completely different.

Instead of looking witty and cool, I look like someone educated in, I don’t know, Alabama.

This is why I’m scared to death to comment on Black Hockey Jesus.

(I’m very hard to intimidated. Do you think he’s flattered?)

I have commented once on his blog, but it took me 30 minutes to do it because I had to step away for a while, then come back to read my comment so I could read it fresh. It’s possible I still fucked it up. I don’t know. I’m too afraid to go back and check. Plus, I’m especially terrified BHJ will comment to my comment, telling me I’m an idiot and how he can’t believe Megan is friends with me when I’m clearly inferior in intellect and she is superior enough to have made his blogroll.

In my mind BHJ is the like the super cool kid in school who is so cool that he disdains coolness and thinks anyone who worships his coolness is a total ass-licking loser. However, you can’t just pretend you’re not an ass-licking loser and feign disdain for coolness and tell BHJ he sucks donkey balls either. He will take a machete to your blog nuts if you do.

(I have no basis for the above assumption other than I fantasize about him the guy runs over pigeons for fun and then blogs about it. Or did he? He’s so mysterious we never know if the story is real or not! Mysterious = intimidation = nervous fingers = commentphobia)

And now I don’t know how to end this blog that started off about my grammatical shortcomings and has now turned into a Black Hockey Jesus stalk-fest.

So – The end.

Usually I pay no mind to the news, especially non-news stories like celebrity gossip. I rarely read the paper, I don’t watch the news, national or local. And for all that is holy in the world (like my sanity), I stay the hell away from the 24 hour sorry excuse for news channels like CNN and MSNBC.

But I’d have to live under a rock to not hear about this Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair photo.

I live in a cave instead. Lalala lala CNN can’t scare me! Lalalala lala

There are people left and right getting their panties in a wad over these provocative photos of sweet, innocent 15 year old Miley.

I understand how uncomfortable that must be because there is nothing worse than having your underwear up your ass crack. I have a 15 year old niece, and let me tell you, if I were to see a picture of her looking naked, wrapped in a bed sheet with hair that has the I’ve-just-had-great-sex tousled look, along with the kiss-swollen lips, well, I wouldn’t like it either.

And I damn sure wouldn’t look at the digital photo at the shoot and call it art. Neither would her daddy.

Is it any wonder though that this type of photo was taken of a fifteen year old?

When the current fashion demands women be so utterly slender that they look like a 15 year, it isn’t that far of a leap to sexualize a true 15 year old, now is it?

Oh no, no! We can lust after the body of a fifteen year old, but it must be on a women of 18 years or older. Give me skinny. Give me shapeless, hipless and titless. Give me size 2, but by god, make it legal.

We’re up in arms over the exploitation of a fifteen year old, shaking our heads at Miley, Dad and Vanity Fair. But have we stopped and wondered how our own beliefs of what constitutes a sexy body for a woman may play into this?

I think of the recent blog buzz of how it’s time for corporate American to take the business of mommybloggers seriously because we make the majority of purchasing decisions. If we’re top dog in the world of consumers, if women mean so damn much to corporate America’s bottom line, then why in the hell do we put up with the body image they sell to us? Why do we keep buying their products or reading their magazines?

I don’t know about you but I’ve had enough thinking I should have the body of a fifteen year old to be considered fashionably attractive.

And I’m not so sure the sexualization of Miley Cyrus is about her as an individual.

I received this in an email from someone and thought it was an interesting article.

YOUNG WOMEN

By LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@miamiherald.com

Brace yourself. I’m going to use a word that offends folks. I’m talking the ”F” word.

Feminist.

This woman sent me an e-mail Monday, and it got me thinking. See, in describing herself, she assured me she was not ”a `women’s libber” — the late 1960s equivalent of feminist. She also said she was retired from the U.S. Navy. There was, it seemed to me, a disconnect there: She doesn’t believe in women’s liberation, yet she is retired from a position that liberation made possible.

Intrigued, I asked my 17-year-old daughter if she considers herself a feminist. She responded with a mildly horrified No. This, by the way, is the daughter with the 3.75 GPA who is currently pondering possible college majors including political science, psychology and . . . women’s studies. I asked her to define “feminist.”

There began a halting explanation that seemed to suggest shrillness wrapped around obnoxiousness. Abruptly, she stopped. ”It’s hard to explain,” she said.

Actually, it’s not. Jessica Valenti, author of Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters, calls it the I’m-Not-A-Feminist-But syndrome. As in the woman who says, ”I’m not a feminist, but . . . ” and then “goes on to espouse completely feminist values. I think most women believe in access to birth control, they want equal pay for equal work, they want to fight against rape and violence against women.”

A once-useful term
”Feminist,” it seems, has ended up in the same syntactical purgatory as another once-useful, now-reviled term: liberal. Most people endorse what that word has historically stood for — integration, child labor laws, product safety — yet they treat the word itself like anthrax. Similarly, while it’s hard to imagine that any young woman really wants to return to the days of barefoot, pregnant and making meatloaf, many now disdain the banner under which their gender fought for freedom. They scorn feminism even as they feast at a table that feminism prepared.

Says Valenti, “The word has been so effectively misused and so effectively mischaracterized by conservatives for so long that women are afraid to identify with it. They’ll say everything under the sun that’s feminist, but they won’t identify with it because they’ve been taught feminists are anti-men, feminists are ugly.”

Deborah Tannen agrees. She is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and author of a number of books on gender and communication, including: You’re Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation. “The reason, I believe, is that meanings of words come from how they’re used. And since the word feminist is used as a negative term rather than a positive one, people don’t want to be associated with it.”

With apologies to Malcolm X, they’ve been had, they’ve been hoodwinked, they’ve been bamboozled. And it’s sad. I’ve lost track of how many times, visiting high schools or teaching college classes, I have met bright girls juggling options and freedoms that would’ve been unthinkable a generation ago, smart young women preparing for lives and careers their foremothers could not have dreamt, yet if you use the ”F” word, they recoil.

`I am a feminist’
We have lost collective memory of how things were before the F-word. Of the casual beatings. Of the casual rape. Of words like ”old maid” and ”spinster.” Of abortion by coat hanger. Of going to school to find a man. Of getting an allowance and needing a husband’s permission. Of taking all your spirit, all your dreams, all your ambition, aspiration, creativity and pounding them down until they fit a space no larger than a casserole dish.

”I’m not a feminist, but . . . ?” That’s a fraud. It’s intellectually dishonest. And it’s a slap to the feminists who prepared the table at which today’s young women sup.

So for the record, I am a feminist. My daughter is, too.

She doesn’t know it yet.
*********************************************************************************

I admit I am someone who has the I’m-Not-A-Feminist-But syndrome. I’ve always had feminist views, but when asked if I’m one or support it, I didn’t know what to say. After all, I’m not very political. Idiotic, but not political, and ‘feminist’ seems like such a political word.

But I now see it is a word that became contaminated by those who are skeered of the pussy power.

‘Feminist’ brings up images of men-hatin’ women who gnash their teeth while carrying around a chip on their shoulder and braid their arm pit hair at the same time.

I wonder just where we get this image from? cough*drlaura*cough

Oh yes, we’ve been bamboozled alright.

When a best-selling book equates feminism, which essentially is about freedom and equality, with being self-centered, no damn wonder we reject the “F” word.

I always knew Dr. Laura made my ass want to suck a sour lemon. Now I know why.

I know my spirit, dreams, creativity and aspirations are just as important as a man’s, and that’s what feminism boils down to.

So someone who preaches morality, yet had an affair with a married man with three kids, may call that self-centered, but I call it self-worth.

I AM a feminist.