merry prankster

new englanders are stereotyped as taciturn, with that laughter-free puritan image just not dying. yet our weather has a sense of "ha-ha" like no place else i know.

many nights last week were down in the 40's and cold raw rain pelted my face just like march or november. october is close. i put away all the summer clothes and started mending the winter garb. "fooled you! haha!!" it's sunny and 80 and i'm about to get a nice big dose of fresh air and sunshine while it's out there.

every year, without fail, that box goes back and forth a few times before it finally rests, lol. every year, no matter how late i wait. maybe it's personal?

well-done

my italian grandfather taught my irish mother to cook. she was clueless in the kitchen, coming from a mother who was mostly out whoring around at dinner time and a father who, i think, boiled steak. the lessons took well and my mother learned to enjoy it.

except for one thing: meat. no matter what it was, it was well-done. cooked through and then some. beef was grey in the center and as chewy as chaplin's shoe. when it was corned beef brisket for dinner, no prob, but filet mignon made me want to cry. when my stepfather leapt several income ladders in a single bound, we had beef more nights than not. yuk. chicken too was cooked to dust and we were not a gravy house, so abandon hope and look forward to fridays which were catholicly meat-free.

when i left home, i sort of passively decided to "give up meat". more out of overkill and dislike than anything else. besides, freshman year dorm "meat" wasn't exactly julia's bouef bourgignon. over the years, i went through various stages of being "vegetarian", getting anemic, getting "save the world" fever, and finally, well, i'll have fish.

which quickly led to trying 2 new foods. the first was oysters. in nyc on a girls' trip i ordered a dozen and was blown away by the burst of salinity, the fresh icy piece of the sea in those rough grey shells.

shortly after was sushi. a date took me, a slightly older, very wealthy man (who got weirdly instantly stalker-y on me, but not germane here, lol) and i suggested he do the ordering, but to not be afraid for me. the one bite that instantly staggered me and became me favorite food evah in the world always, was sea urchin -- uni. again, it gives that slight resist before you bite down, and it's briny minerality slides down your throat in a cold swallow of ocean velvet.

as i became more adept at cooking, entertaining and eating, i was very aware of the play of not just colors on a plate, but of texture too. if you're having pasta, put something crunchy on, like toasted pine nuts, so you don't get bored to death before you are full.

now a few weeks into my new eating habits, i've been having to tread back out to meaty waters. not long ago, i had my first hamburger in maybe decades. it was sooooooooo incredibly good. granted, from prime beef at a steak house, but still. i've had a few since, and while none were at that pinnacle of beef grade, they all were really good. how had i been denying myself all these years?

so, another food light bulb for noodle. i don't dislike meat. i hate badly cooked meat. bring me medium rare with a nice sear on the outside and a barely warm moist juicy inside. what's not to like? add crispy bacon to kill it, lol.

what kind of eater does that make me? a textural one? is that a thing?

more god gobbledygook

no secret that the born-again george bush had a penchant for invoking god (who told him personally and specifically) both to run for office and to invade iraq, as well mixing up religion with real stuff, ya know like evolution, or the fierce fundy battle to keep the so-called "morning after pill" off the market.

also no secret my personal impatience with ALL the superstitious nonsense that the world calls religion. reading baboon entrails or telling me that man has only been on the planet 6000 years cuz that's the bible math is all the same mumbo-jumbo to me.

rest assured the face-palm moments will continue even though he's out of office, because some of bush's crankier and disgruntled former staff are putting out books.

here's a snip from a speech writer's forthcoming tome, on why j.k. rowling did not receive the presidential medal of freedom:

This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged witchcraft.

just so we're clear: guys like paul bremer and george tenet, who were instrumental in invading iraq and afghanistan, oh yeah, and endorsing torture, got the snazzy medallions but a woman who encouraged a generation of geeky kids to read books and enjoy imagination was too subversive. all that backyard pretend quidditch was a step away from the glamor that is devil-worship fer sure.

i hate women, redux.

lucky-linky and i found myself reading the sordid saga of a young woman who got involved with an older man. nothing new under the sun, eh?

in the second sentence (!) she admits, "i liked to think i was different." so does every 22-year-old ever, honey. she met him as an intern at the magazine of which he was editor. they stayed in touch, he mentored her with her freelance writing and a few years later, she landed a paid gig at his rag.

things end badly with the editor's long-time g/f, and they start bonking. rebound nookie not in her vocab, i guess?

she is hurt because around the office, he keeps his distance. she is hurt because she does not meet his friends nor his parents. she is hurt because he never introduces her to anyone as his "girlfriend". she is hurt when her mother voices her disapproval of this may-december fling and when girlie tells this to the editor, he freaks out, which makes her feel hurt. they had been fucking for 2 months and she says: "In my mind, we should be openly dating as boyfriend and girlfriend, and we’d marry and have children together."

on the phone, she tells him "she loves him". he admits he does not feel the same and they should end "this". he is seeing somebody else and it looks like it may become serious. someone his own age. she is beside herself that he doesn't feel emotionally the same, even though he gave every indication that was the case, and feels sucker-punched about the "other woman", even though they never discussed being monogamous.

he no longer takes her calls or answers her e-mails. it's OVER.

heartbreak hurts, no matter how young or foolish be the one feeling the pain. yet years later, she continues to blame him. "that he should have known better" than to "allow" someone so young to fall in love with him. um, which part of him coming to her with a broken heart does she refuse to accept? that perhaps he wasn't thinking clearly? that he wasn't in control of his own emotions, so how could he be expected to be responsible for hers too?

a year later, through facebook (oh, the joys made possible by social media!), she discovers he is engaged to *that* woman. she is furious and demands to see him. he accepts. she is hurt he didn't tell her in person. they no longer SPEAK so why does he *owe* her that? because he quickly moved on from a fuck-toy and she had not yet accepted that's all she was?

lastly, what really steamed me about this whole baring of her soul, is she gives enough personal details for anybody who worked at that mag to easily deduce the editor she was banging. nice discretion, lady. it's one thing to write about personal experience, but it's possible to do so without harming others. unless that's your intent.

as seen here

walking with purpose (which i do, even when i don't have one, and this will show why) yesterday, i was all dressed up for an interview.

giant black man: you an actress?
me: no

i do not break stride and he starts following me. the sidewalk is crowded with people, both walking and sitting at cafés.

gbm: you in one of them movies they makin' round here?
me: no
gbm: you should be
me: thank you
gbm: why you walkin' so fast? you afraid of black men?
me: no, i have someplace to be and my husband is black
gbm: you married to a brother and he lets you out alone and you so fine?
me: yes
gbm: you ax him if you can have a boyfriend -- i keep you safe when he ain't around.
me: please. leave me alone.
gbm: (yelling) i told you, you afraid of black men!

other black man: leave the lady alone.

and just like that, he finally went away.

one way to win an argument

a kansas couple had been arguing about his cross-dressing. one might likely think not for the first time. he was the father of her two children. the eldest, aged 18, came home to find her mother shot dead on the kitchen floor. her father, dressed in women's' clothing, was also on the floor, with a self-inflicted flesh wound, smoking. i'm guessing a post-murder smoke is even better than a post-coital one.

he appeared in court to plead not guilty, wearing make-up and a baby blue jumpsuit. (hey, we know kansas ain't exactly fashion-forward and even the frugalistas are shopping at the good will these days. just ask the ny times.)
eye bleach is in aisle 5.

good advice

anna rapaport, who is an actuary out of chicago and leads the society of actuaries' committee on post-retirement needs, was interviewed by "florida today":

reporter: if people can't bolster their savings, what can they do either before or in retirement to better deal with high costs?

rapaport: try to stay healthy.

this is the woman who knows how and when we are all going to die. see, america? health care crisis SOLVED! yo, get barry on the horn!

pray for us

there are certain republiclowns i am coming to depend upon to bring me the face-palm moments (except they also bring night terrors) and one of those is sen. tom coburn from oklahoma. you remember tom, right? another member of the extreme fundy group "the family", who, as an ob/gyn, claimed doctor/patient privilege in his counseling of slutty sen. ensign who was outted for fucking his not-wife and most definitely does not have a uterus.

this weekend was a "values voter" summit in d.c., with all sorts of loonies to bring the lulz: baby farmer michele bachmann, mike huckabee (i guess god stopped helping sway his voters?), actor stephen baldwin, phyllis schlafly (she's not dead and jello-wrestling with anita bryant in hell? wtf), and windswept former beauty queen carrie prejean. mormon mitt romney was there as a centrist. (and, no lie, a very bright white hope for 2012.)

as a direct paste from their site, here are the titles for the break-out sessions:

• SPEECHLESS - SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS
• THUGOCRACY - FIGHTING THE VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY
• DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD
• ACTIVISM AND CONSERVATISM: FIT TO A TEA (PARTY)
• TRUE TOLERANCE: COUNTERING THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
• THE THREAT OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
• OBAMACARE: RATIONING YOUR LIFE AWAY
• MARRIAGE: WHY IT'S WORTH DEFENDING AND HOW REDEFINING IT THREATENS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
• THE NEW MASCULINITY
• WAIT NO MORE: FINDING FAMILIES FOR WAITING KIDS
• TURNING THE TIDE IN YOUR GENERATION
• GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA: THE NEW FACE OF THE "PRO-DEATH" AGENDA

and here are some juicy cherry picks from the sessions deets, in order to continue the tide of fear, other-bashing and hysterical lying:

Ultimately, climate change hysteria rests on an unbiblical view of God, mankind, and the environment.

Redefining marriage poses serious threats to the religious liberties of people who continue to believe that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman.

Long lines, refusal of care, months waiting for needed surgeries, rationing of treatments, mandates in support of abortion.

Why did the President's science advisor support coerced abortions to protect the planet?

Americans are at a greater risk of losing their basic freedoms today than ever before in the history of this nation.

Feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men. It is time to redress the disorder it has wrought and that must start with getting the principles and ideals for a new "masculinism" right.


sen. coburn had this lil gem as part of a statement read by his chief of staff:

"praising one's parents in nightly prayers could enforce the notion of marriage, and telling children that "all pornography is homosexual pornography" could prevent them from becoming perverted."



because nothing says "homo" quicker to a horny teenage boy than hustler or estonian internet bukake. um, yeah. and seeing a triple-d blonde get trained by 10 bikers will make him want peen. for realz and forever.

as seen here

running errands in my hood today i saw that eyebrow waxing only costs 5 dollah. hollah. in all the joints. cheaper than a pack of smokes. this explains why all the boyz have gypsy moths doing cirque de soleil on their foreheads.

real amurricanz

tomorrow is constitution day, the 222nd anniversary of the completion of the constitutional convention. before y'all run off in your powdered wigs to party consider
this.

an outfit calling itself the oklahoma council of public affairs conducted a survey of 1000 high school students. they asked them 10 questions randomly selected from the current test immigrants take to become citizens. 92% of aspiring americans pass that test on the 1st go. 3% of the students passed. 3%. teens born and bred here, having been taught social studies and history since kindergarten. 75% could not name our first president, and the most commonly given answer to the 10 questions simply was, "i don't know."

oklahoma is not alone in this ignominy. arizona had similarly dismal results.

our founding fathers understood that free public education would be a cornerstone for maintaining the republic. that our citizens would need and have a grasp of civics, history and the ethics required for democracy. thomas jefferson wrote in 1789 that "whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." later still he wrote, "enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."

golly, i hope those local school boards ordered enough intelligent design textbooks. i'm sure the kids are much better at (ahem) science.

oh, no, it's not about race

this was also taken at a 9/12 rally this past weekend, but had so many different kinds of stoopid in it, i felt it deserved its own post.


she seems delighted with her own cleverness, doesn't she? like a toddler who just made a big-girl poo in the potty instead of her pants. if she wasn't receiving medicare benefits for her hormone replacement drugs and high blood pressure meds, would she still be able to afford her fancy-schmancy art supplies?

i'm all for freedom of speech, but this is not dissent, this is hate speech, pure and simple. their white world has been turned upside down and it might as well be satan in the oval office, eating angels for breakfast and sodomizing girl scouts after a big lunch of bbq ribs and watermelon.

scans of the crowds at these rallies show white faces. lots of them. the only browns seem to be carrying press credentials.

freedom of speech

these were taken at a "9/12" rally, promoted by fox news' glenn beck. i don't think commentary from me is really needed.

now i know

why some people are afraid of clowns.

more proof men rule the world

in 8 states, it is legal for insurance companies to refuse coverage to women who have ever been victims of domestic abuse. statistically they are likely to suffer the same again, so ipso facto, are a bad and unacceptable risk.

i stumbled across this doozy today over at huffpo.

in 1994, then-rep. charles schumer (d-ny), now a a senator, had his staff survey 16 insurance companies. eight would not write health, life or disability policies for women who have been abused. in 1995, the boston globe found that nationwide, allstate, state farm, aetna, metropolitan life, the equitable companies, first colony life, the prudential and the principal financial group had all either canceled or denied coverage to women who'd been beaten. "you're in good hands," indeed.

in 2006, democrats tried to end the practice. sen. patty murray (d-wash.), introduced an amendment that split the health education labor & pensions committee 10-10. the measure failed via the tie. all 10 no votes were republicans, including sen. mike enzi (r-wyoming), a member of the "gang of six" on the finance committee who are currently hashing out a bipartisan bill.

at the time, enzi defended his vote by saying that such regulations could increase the price of insurance and make it out of reach for more people. "if you have no insurance, it doesn't matter what services are mandated by the state."

if your husband beats your face in, it will be your fault that granny's lipitor co-pay costs more. if your husband beats your face in, you should know enough to get out beforehand. if your husband beats your face in, you must have deserved it. if not now, for something you'll probably do. eventually.

explain to me, again, slowly, why universal health care is a horrible concept? why private industry should be trusted with the decisions regarding the health and well-being of our most vulnerable citizens? why actuaries and pencil-pushers decide who warrants what treatments?

puts a whole new spin on how to answer that emergency room intake question: "do you live in a safe environment, dear?"

lady business

women's bodies are solid proof that evolution has a sense of the absurd. so much going on, all the time, and it's all inside. might as well be discussing the humors and the true location of the soul, ffs. (of course, at a certain point in history, men thought women did not have souls. maybe there was no room because of all that lady biz?)

men have that one thing which they discover during infancy, from whence it instantly becomes a source of pleasure and joy. hours, years, of amusement. granted, as they age, and that one thing becomes less cooperative, it may offer a certain level of frustration, but most healthy males can eventually goad it into action, even if that means a little blue pill before you ballroom dance your wife around the kitchen or sit in separate tubs in the sunset. still, it's one thing and you always know what it's doing.

i've kvetched before about my body betraying me. age is a culprit, fer sure. we lose muscle mass each year, and that accelerates after 40. resistance training can be a huge help there. hormonal changes mean fat decides to disperse itself differently than in younger years. decades of what i'm now confident was a very unbalanced diet did extreme damage to my insulin aptitudes. i flipped over my personal food pyramid, weight came off and i have never felt better. after 3 dry weeks, i went off the wagon and my weight loss stalled, but the number remained in a happy zone, and the same for several days.

so, noodle, all these answers, what's the mystery?

last week, i decided to start adding some foods. slowly. not trusting myself around a bounty of berries, i bought pistachios. in-the-shell, so i'd be less likely to hoover them out of the bag. i ate a few ounces. the next day, i weighed 3 pounds more. grrr. impossible to gain 3 pounds of fat overnight, so ok, must be the salt. gallons of water, a good sweat at the gym. next day -- same. 5 days later, the scale has bounced a few ounces either way, but has not descended past that whole and higher number and i want to SCREAM.

the nut explosion was wednesday morning.

friday i started to feel that weird feeling.

by saturday, it was full-blown, with all my lady bits, inside and the ones oh-so visible to men, all swollen, sore and heavy. my abdomen all crampy, bloated and grumpy. wtf? i am on the pill so pms is not really an issue, and this is not *that* time of the month. what is going on in there? why isn't there some kind of diagnostic/prognosticating periscope that i can snake down? with a timeline to let me know, "oh, you will feel absolutely fine in 3 more days and have lost 5 pounds. all is well."

in the meantime i want to stick a whalebone needle in my gut and let out all the ick. the nuts went immediately in the trash. i have eaten nothing new or weird.

i am so pissed.

men wonder why womynz hate their bodies.

shame on who?

william taylor's wife was snooping into his cell phone and found sexy pix of not her. confronted, he admitted having an affair.

they fought.

as penance she is making him wear a sandwich board that says, "i cheated and this is my punishment", at a busy intersection, by a shopping mall, near their home in virginia. all week.

the story has gone global with video of him and his sign all over the net. over at huffpo an on-line poll has 57% of the readers laughing at the story. really? laughter is your response to this?

when a married person wanders off the one-and-only path, something is not quite right at home. just a guess here, but i'm thinking that he's been waking up to a petty, vindictive bitch who has no qualms airing her dirty laundry in major public oh, just might scratch the surface of what drove this guy away? yes, he did a bad thing. this makes it better? is she 6 years old?

but he wins pussy of the year award for a) wanting back in and b) not telling her to go fuck herself over this horrible scheme.

people suck. ahem.

can't make this stuff up

actual quote from a parent in sedalia, missouri, who also happens to be a teacher in the district:

"I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”

the marching band had designed and worn shirts with the slogan "brass evolution" and used a version of this well-known image, but at each stage he is holding an instrument. all those well-versed in "intelligent design" went nuts and the school is banning the shirts. the assistant superintendent of schools defended the action because they must "remain neutral on religion."

a donor had offered to pay half the cost of the shirts, but withdrew support upon seeing the risqué and controversial image. the band parents now have to eat the $700 and pony up again for new shirts.

"it’s not like we are saying god is bad,” sophomore band member denyel luke said. “we aren’t promoting evolution." no, heaven forbid science is taken as true when the mystery and power of god is so much more verifiable and likely.

now let's hope they burn the offensive tees in the town square to ward off the devil who no doubt was licking his lips and twitching his forked tail at the thought of the the town collapsing into a monkey-fucking haven of sodom and gomorrah.

just... yuk

19.

she is pregnant with her 19th child.

they are conservative christians and all the kids are home-schooled. her last baby was born only 8 months ago. her eldest son, now married, and his wife are expecting a baby too. her grandchild will be older than her own bundle of joy.

she has been pregnant 147 months of her life, with 5 more to go with this latest muffin in the oven. she is only 42, so i'm guessing she still has time and hormones to pop out a couple more? shoot for an even 20 maybe? at the very least?

is her vagina some kind of gaping maw at this point? grand canyon-style echoes when the husband has at her? they don't need a garage for the compact car because they can just parallel park right all up inside her vay-jay?

of course they have a reality show because somehow prolific fertility makes great entertainment.

just... yuk.