That’s One Hell Of A Flower You’ve Got There…. September 18, 2008

Pardon me if this is your manifesto or something, but I totally don’t get the whole remain “pure” until you are married thing..

I mean, good for you if you choose to remain a virgin until you are married. Really, I do mean that, I think it is admirable. (Edit: I think it’s admirable but much ado about nothing if you REALLY want my point of view.)

What really gives me the creeps (serious, serious creeps) is the whole “promise ring” concept. Apparently a dad gives his daughter a ring in exchange for her agreeing to remain “pure” until marriage. Then, when she gets married, he takes it off and gives it to her future husband.  Whoa. Back up. Am I not the only one who sees this as more than a little demeaning? This to me says that women are stupid creatures that can be bought with a few stupid trinkets. I am not a commodity. I cannot be traded from one person to another.  Plus, I am a grown woman, as I hope anyone getting married is. What I do in my private life is no one’s business but mine.  These people also have something called “purity balls” where a father and daughter attend, dressed to the nines (like a prom), and the father gives the girl a ring and the girl signs a “purity covenant”. Read all about it in this article from \”Glamour\” magazine

I’m sorry, but I honestly just find this whole thing sickening. It is so disconcerting to me that these girls seem to be leaving decisions about THEIR bodies up to men.  Apparently, they aren’t allowed to have dates until they are “courted” by someone. Oh, ok, so it is wrong to ask a man for a date? What is this? 1808? I am sorry, I thought it was 2008, do forgive my dreadful manners.

Of course, maybe I’m just too much of a liberal femnist bitch to understand the whole thing.

What do you think?

Frozen Pop September 17, 2008

Over the course of the last several months, I’ve been hearing a lot of stories about people suing sperm donors for child support, or children trying to find their biological sperm donor fathers, etc.  These people seem to feel like the sperm donors have done them a great injustice, they claim that they “owe” them something.

And my response is: “HUHHH?”

Ok, first of all let me explain that this post is about sperm donors, you know, the ones that went to the sperm bank, uh, did what they had to do, and left. Not the men that had sex with a woman, and then skipped out. There is a huge difference. Sex is between two people, it takes two to tango there. A sperm donor, on the other hand, is just someone who was generous enough to give you the DNA to exsist. No more, no less. I mean, it is not as if the donor picks who (if anyone) uses his sperm. The woman who chose to be artificially inseminated did. That is just it. The woman chose to have a child by this route. It’s not two people choosing to do something that they know has the chance of producing a child. This is a woman going out, paying money to have a child with this donor sperm, on the intention of getting pregnant. I mean, this is not something you do for kicks. This is an expensive process. Emotionally and Financially.

Don’t get me wrong though, I am in no way, shape, form, or fashion opposed to sperm donation or artificial insemination. I think that both of these are wonderful things that allow a woman or a couple that wouldn’t otherwise be able to reproduce have what, in my mind, is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) joys in life-children.

Maybe I am wrong, after all, I don’t know that much about this.  I am just a bystander. I just don’t think that you can expect someone who DONATED something (yes, I am well aware that sperm donors are compensated finanically, but to me that does not change anything) to have to support what came of their donation. In my mind, this is sort of the same as if someone donated you a kidney and you expected them to pay your water bill because hey, the kidney they gave you enabled you to pee in the toilet, and flushing that toilet uses water, which costs money.

I just don’t get it.

What do you think?

Can mothers of sperm donor offspring ask for child support?

Should the biological children of a sperm donor be allowed to seek out their biological father?

You Are Crunchy and Good With Ketchup. September 15, 2008

I saw a funny bumper sticker this morning. It said “Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup. Funny stuff.

It made my day. I was kind of in a shitty mood until I saw that. Then I smiled. Then I giggled a little. Shitty mood mostly gone.

I might add that my shitty mood was mostly brought on by the fact that it’s Monday, and I am the worst person ever for letting Monday get me down.

Every Monday I will bitch and moan until about 5:00. Then Monday is over. Tuesdays are better, Wednesdays are superior to Tuesdays, Thursdays are pretty damn good, and then FRIDAY the most wonderful day ever invented. And Saturday and Sunday? Well, they are pretty much heaven on earth!

So I guess I just need to get over it. It is Monday. It will be Monday for several more hours. But it is a pretty day outside. And there are only 3 days between now and Friday.

Bad Cat! September 13, 2008

I really love animals. I really do. I even love the creepy crawly ones that usually freak people out. I think snakes are cute. (Provided they aren’t skulking poisonously around my yard that is.) I will feed every stray I encounter. I don’t believe in buying dogs or cats from the pet store, only adopting them from shelters or taking in strays.  And I don’t believe that we “own” dogs or cats (they are family members!), because I don’t think that you can “own” another living thing. So, I think I am officially qualified to be an animal lover.

So this is why I am so embarrassed about what happened yesterday.

D has 3 cats. A mama cat, Smitty, a baby cat, Peewee, and another baby cat, Termite. Now I just want to interject here that mama cat is at least 10 years old, and the “babies” are somewhere around 7 or 8 years old.

Well, the cats stay in the basement most of the time, but they are allowed to come upstairs if they want. However, since D likes to keep the house at sub-artic temperatures, they often prefer to stay in the nice cozy basement, which is pretty much right at room temperature year round. (And it is a nice basement, not just some dank hole.) D was watching some boring show yesterday, so I decided I would go pay the cats a visit. They were all curled up in a pile together, just generally being cute and snuggly. And as soon as I laid a hand on them, they all started purring like racecar engines.  What could go wrong?

Well, Termite is an odd cat (with a weird ass name).  He is pretty much bipolar cat. One minute he will be purring and being all cute and cuddly, but the next he might hiss and stalk away.  So on to the embarassing part. I had been petting Termite when I stupidly stopped to pet Smitty. Apparently this was unacceptable behavior on my part because I was rewarded with a slash to the hand. Anyone who has ever been scratched by a cat knows that this hurts like a bitch, which explains my following actions. “Ouch! Fucker!” Yes, I called the cat a fucker. Loudly. Then I clapped my hands at him and said “BAD BAD CAT!” He then hissed at me and raised up all the fur on his back, which I think in cat means “OH YEAH? WELL FUCK YOU.” I stomped upstairs.

D: “What are you doing? What was all that noise?”

Me: “Termite scratched me. Little fucker.”

D: “He was probably just playing. Come on, I’ll put some peroxide on it.”

End Scene.

Now, I know that there are worse things I could have done, but I feel really stupid for swearing and yelling at a cat. Mostly because the cat now runs and hides hissing under a table whenever I come near.

Which makes me feel like I am the wicked witch of  catville.

old friends September 12, 2008

I’ve been thinking about my former best friend a lot lately. I haven’t talked to him face to face in nearly two years, and only briefly by email several months ago. We had a very will-and-grace/joey-and-rachel/jack-and-janet /pretty much any stereotypical male-female type of friendship, until the whole thing ended fairly bitterly at the beginning of last year. Well, the old saying is true, time really does heal all wounds, and lo and behold, sometimes I would really like to talk to my old friend.  (It also helps that the last time he contacted me was to apologize.)

I won’t go into all the details here, because it is a long, drawn out complicated story, and honestly, enough time has gone by that I really can’t even remember some of the details of everything that happened; but really, the important thing for those reading this to know is that the friendship ended, and that I can honestly say that it was not my fault. And I just want to mention the fact that when people are around what I call “toxic people” they often do and say things that they would never do otherwise, even though that still does not make it ok.

The last time this friend contacted me, I wrote back and was polite, but it really wasn’t anything overly friendly on my part. The main reason he had contacted me was to apologize and to tell me that he had ditched the “toxic person”.  I appreciated the apology, and it really did end a lot of the somewhat bitter feelings I still harbored.

I guess my point is, damnit, sometimes I just want to tell my old friend something. I have new friends now, and a new best friend, but sometimes you just want to laugh about something with someone that you spent so much time with when you were so young and silly. Sometimes I will think of some of the crazy stunts we pulled and just laugh out loud to myself.  My teenage years were sort of shaky, until I met D, who showed me that no, I wasn’t just being a good friend, I was letting myself turn into a doormat.  And now….well, nobody would ever think of calling me anyone’s doormat.  I am a wholly different person now than when I was friends with this person.  And I am pretty sure that they are too.

And, there is a part of me that just wants to say “See? I am doing great. I have a great life. I am happily with the person that I will spend the rest of my life with, and I’m doing fabulous in school, and I am HAPPY.”  I was sort of going through a rough patch when I was friends with this person, but I am over it! Over it! Everyday I feel like that guy in “It’s A Wonderful Life” when he’s just so happy to be alive and he’s running through the streets. I want to do that everyday. I am cheerful. I am bubbly. I am not moody (well, only moody every 28 days instead of 24/7), I am not sad, I am not so damned complicated and needy.  I am just plain happy. Yes, I have days where I am sad. But it’s not the overwhelming sadness of depression. I can argue about something without my voice going into that register that can break glass. I grew up. I got older and wiser. I evened out.

Phew. I feel better. I know that this is sort of long and rambling, and may not make the most sense (blame it on the headache medicine I took immediately before writing this). So, if you made it this far, thanks for reading and listening. Who needs a shrink when you have the internet?

Well, it smelled like something was burning September 11, 2008

I was just sitting here, innocently eating my lunch, when I thought I smelled something burning. I looked around the room, didn’t see anything, figured that it must have been something outside, shrugged and kept eating. Happily reading “Cold Sassy Tree” for the 1 millionth time.

Then it happened again. This time I decided to give everything a more thorough checking. Still nothing.

Well, this just kept happening. I was really puzzled as to why I would smell the burning smell very strongly for a few seconds, then not at all.

And then, I finally realized it was the smell of the top of my diet sprite bottle. I don’t know why that would smell burnt, but that was what was causing the smell. Everytime I brought it up to my mouth to drink, I would smell it.

I felt pretty silly.

However though, I don’t think I can be blamed for feeling silly, since my neighbors were making a TON of noise last night. I fell asleep to the sounds of them pounding/jumping/screwing or whatever they were doing that caused rythmic LOUD thumping on the connecting wall between them and us…which happens to be the wall by my bed. Now don’t get me wrong, they aren’t horrible neighbors or anything….never any problems out of them until then. Now I guess I could have either gotten up and told them to shut up or called the police, but I chose to do neither because I was already in that stage of stupid-half-asleepness, where had I chose to complain, it would have been useless because I don’t think I would have been able to speak in complete sentences.

Plus, they are a bit to shiny happy to want to bring down. You know, those people that cheerfully greet you when you are fumbling for your keys?

And I really can’t say anything, because at some points in my life, I have probably not been the best neighbor either. I used to live on the top floor of a building, which had it’s high points and it’s low points. The biggest high point was probably either the fact that I didn’t have anyone stomping around on top of me, or the fact that I didn’t really have to worry about people crawling through the window to break in unless they were like catwoman or something. However, I used to jump-rope when I lived there……several months later I ran into someone that lived in the same building and we started talking about it. She said that she loved it except for the fact that whoever lived above her made a lot of noise. She said it sounded like they were jumping rope or something.

Ooops.

That was the end of my jump-roping.

I Just realized I eat like a five-year-old September 10, 2008

Yeah….I just came to an important realization. I eat like a five year old.

For lunch today, I had graham crackers and peanut butter, strawberry-banana applesauce, a 100 calorie pack of wheat thins, and some water.

Now my desk is coated with graham cracker crumbs and little dribbles of applesauce. Not to mention the floor, which now has enough crumbs on it to feed a small nation.

Oh, and I also managed to get peanut butter all over my hands, and on my pants, and crumbs on my laptop.

Actually, the peanut butter that got on my hands was probably more from trying to hurriedly dig it out of the jar with a spoon, so that I could just eat it plain, without bothering to first spread it on a cracker.  I think if I could have just injected the stuff intravenously, I would have.  Love me some peanut butter.

What is the etiquette for something like this? September 9, 2008

I think I may have inadvertantly pissed a friend off.

Now, this is someone that I have known for many years, but don’t really talk to that much anymore, simply because we are both such busy people.

Yesterday, I ran into this friend on the street. I said “hey!” and smiled, but I was on the phone and did not stop and chat.

Now I think that this friend may be a bit ticked, because I sent her a text later explaining why I didn’t stop to chat, and she sort of responded in a way that made me think that she thought I was really rude (she thought that I didn’t know who she was-not true at all!).

Now to me, it would have been more rude if I had started carrying on a conversation with her, because I was on the phone with someone else.  (My Mom) I had called my mom and was trying to explain something that had happened earlier in the day. It wasn’t a major conversation or anything, just chatting, but I feel like my first priority was with the person that I had called.

Long story short, I am not sure if I have anything to feel slightly guilty about or not.

What do you think?

Sprained Ankles and Shots September 8, 2008

Well, this weekend (Sat. night) D sprained his ankle.

He’s on crutches now, not crawling around on the floor, so what an improvement! I finally got him to go to the emergency room last night, because I was convinced that it was broken. He couldn’t stand on it at all, and it was VERY swollen and starting to turn red.

It was actually a pretty painless visit to the ER. I was afraid that we’d be there all night, but no, we were in and out in about an hour and a half. The last time I took him to the ER (someone had rear ended him) it took forever! Thankfully though, his ankle is not broken, but sprained, and they put it an in an immobilizer so he should be feeling better soon. The worst part of the ER visit was the shot, which D HATES! (Imagine if you will, a 6 foot 250lb extremely muscular man eyeing a needle nervously)

To The Girl That Wears Effing Dresses Every Damn Day: September 6, 2008

Dear girl that wears f-ing dresses to the 8am class:

Your attire is completely inappropriate and irritating so early in the morning.  Seeing that I have just rolled out of bed less than an hour before, I do not wish to see your cleavage at such an early hour (actually, I don’t really want to see it at any hour, but please, for the love of pete, it is NOT EVEN NOON!).  Your dresses are very cute (really, I’m not just saying that so I won’t sound like a bitch) and I would totally wear them at night or even in the afternoon-if I was going out. I know that they are pretty casual dresses, but have you looked at the class around you? Mostly chicks. Chicks that are not impressed.  Take a look at what everyone else is wearing: jeans and a tshirt…..shorts and a tshirt…..sweats and a tshirt…..

I am not saying that you have to dress like everyone else and be a lemming. I am totally fine with a little dressing up, but um, a floor length dress seems a little over the top so early.  Sorry.  I am no prude. Check my closet and you will see that I am in no way adverse to showing the girls off. But do we really need to see the girls and half your back before 8am? No, no we do not.

xoxo,

bitchy