Shameless Plugging Time!

Okay, so I don't know how many people who read this haven't already gotten my crossposting at my nerdy DA journal, and if there are any, how many of them are visually impaired, but just in case: Check this out.

Incredibly cheap (for glasses) and not even horrible and fugly like cheaper glasses tend to be. Not only that, but their reproduction Lennon frames come in waaaaay more color options than the actual official Lennon sunglasses.

At these prices, I might be able to have sunglasses again!

And I'm Sittin' Here on Capitol Hill

Sometimes, things happen that are awesome. This is one of them.

I saw a commercial for it about five minutes ago, and it was marketed as "just in time for the election," and is apparently being sold with an election-tracking map so kids can keep up with which candidate is winning which state.

In case you're unclear on why this is awesome, let me tell you a little story about my childhood.

In whatever grade it was that we started to learn about government, I became enraptured with the idea. We could pick who we wanted to be in charge. It was up to us. And on that glorious day that I hit the age of eighteen, I could join the ranks of people who helped to choose who ran our country. I would play pretend, and my games would involve my imaginary character's eighteenth birthday, on which she was given a voting license by her mother or something, and this was the best possible present. (Clearly, I did not understand the rules of registering, but I think that knowing you need a license to vote at seven is fairly impressive, right?) Other kids wanted to be eighteen because they wanted to be grown-up, to drive cars, to stay up as late as they wanted, and, after puberty, because they could buy cigarettes and porn or whatever. I wanted to be eighteen because it meant that I would finally, FINALLY be able to vote.

Perhaps if kids watch this Schoolhouse Rock thing, they'll get excited about voting like I was. Perhaps they, too, will look forward to the day that they can decide who they want to be president or governor or mayor or senator or head of the PTA or whatever. Higher voter turnout by excited young people could only be a good thing.


Also tangentially related to the Bill on Capitol Hill is some crappy stuff. Here I'll quote from the fabulous Cara of Feministe and The Curvature who has said it much better than I could: "I have previously written about the dangerous proposed Department of Health and Human Services rule that would endanger women’s access to reproductive health care. The rule, if instated, would allow health care workers to prevent women from knowing all of their health care options, including those regarding birth control — and would call government-funded providers “discriminatory” for refusing to hire such people, thus removing their funding.

The comment period for the proposed rule closes on September 25th."

Seriously, go say something about it. (They even give you a form letter for us lazy folk who can't think of anything more eloquent to say than "L. E. SMASH" on this matter!)

Please Do Not Pump Them Up. Please.

Alright, so coming up on two Saturdays ago, I went to go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Alas, I was a virgin and everything.) Now, I’m pretty sure everyone with a functioning sex drive will agree with me that Frank N. Furter, for all his psychotic Meatloaf-eating and straight-kid-seducing ways, is pretty much made of sex. And if you don’t, I guess my only response is to stare slack-jawed and break my brain trying to fathom why. (Possible reasons: You have not seen the movie; maybe Tim Curry is eternally Nigel Thornberry for you; etc. These are okay reasons, I guess.)

And then, something strange happened. Instead of wondering how someone could not want to have this Sweet Transvestite break into their cheaply-filtered guest room, I wondered why I did. I mean, honestly, I’ve got no attraction for Tim Curry outside the stockings, pearls, and heavy makeup. It was then that I started to think about The Seventies.

I recently learned that, during the “lost weekend” in these aforementioned The Seventies, already-rather-pretty-boy John Lennon stole May Pang’s flower-decorated jeans because they fit him. Being a nerd for John Lennon, I thought this was maybe one of the greatest things ever. (Also, now that I think about it, it means that the dream I had long ago where George Harrison followed me home from Wal-Mart and permanently borrowed my pants because his were ruined in the rain makes a lot more sense.)

I have conjectured that everyone, deep down inside, somewhere in their heart of hearts, would totally do David Bowie. I stand by this conjecture, and will write off any evidence anyone can provide to the contrary as mere outliers and flukes that don’t usually occur in nature. No, I don’t care. Really. La la la la la, I can’t hear you.

I watch anime and have a fondness for Japanese pop culture. That...that’s really all I need to say about my love of feminine men, isn’t it?

I wonder if it’s a coincidence that I came across all these wonderful things (especially Japan) during puberty. I know that, as a child, I really bought into that “gender roles” crap, once I came to terms with the fact that they wouldn’t let me be a Boy Scout because I was Not a Boy. (I still want to go swimming in a lake with fish in it. No fair.) But, somewhere along the line my ideal guy changed from my pre-pubescent fantasy of some short-blonde-haired, blue-eyed, business-suited Soap Opera Hunk to my current, post-pubescent fantasy of a delicate-featured, long-and-silky-haired, glitter-covered Asian in tight leather pants and go-go boots.

Imagine if I hadn’t been exposed to glam rock and hippies and J-pop at such a formative age? I might have been dating some square like Brad Majors these days.

P.S. No, I hate Twilight, don’t even ask.

Let's Talk About Abortions! Yay!

So I was poking around Feministe about ten minutes ago and found this. I had about two thoughts. The simple one was, "Samantha Bee is made of win." The one I'm going to talk about went something like this: "AAAAARGGGHH L. E. SMASH!" (Told you I was violent on the inside.)

What is it about anti-choice buttwaffles that makes me angry enough to punch babies and kick puppies? Honestly, I'm not sure what about them pushes me quite so far into Capslock Harry territory, but I do know why I get angry in the first place.

My paternal family is pretty solidly Irish Catholic, and throughout my childhood took a much bigger role than my maternal family in raising me. (This might have something to do with the fact that my maternal family largely migrated from Jersey to Florida while I was not yet a hatchling.) I've lived with my older sister through two of her pregnancies and developed love and emotions for one-month-old fetuses in her belly. I don't think I need to go on much farther here; the point is that I don't want to get an abortion ever. I wouldn't want my future daughter to get an abortion ever. I wish there honestly was never any need for any woman ever to get an abortion. (This fantasy could perhaps maybe happen someday if we could get some affordable birth control and comprehensive sex-ed already for the love of all that ever was or could be holy.) Technically, yes, I'm pro-life. Incidentally, this also means I'm anti-war, anti-death penalty, and basically anti-anything that involves a human life being taken away.

But you know what? I'm open-minded enough to know that my experience is not everyone's experience. My personality is not everyone's personality. My circumstances are not everyone's circumstances. This is why I'm pro-choice. I'm not pro-murdering-infants. I'm not pro-punching-pregnant-women-in-the-stomach. I'm not pro-mandatory-abrotions-for-everyone. I'm pro-choice.

I'm pro-choice because I can't pretend to know what everyone who considers an abortion is going through. I'm pro-choice because there's no real definition of when a fetus stops being a clump of parasitic cells and starts being a person. If they find that line, then I'll absolutely agree to no abortions past it, but until then I'm not about to call someone a murderer for doing something that could be equivalent to swatting a fly or using antibacterial soap. I'm pro-choice because I don't think, when a teenage girl gets pregnant because the condom broke, that the only option should be to shrug and say, "Well, there goes your youth." I'm pro-choice because having sex does not warrant a punishment, and a human child shouldn't be seen as one. Ever, by anyone.

As a white girl with enough money to buy condoms and birth control, and a decent enough education to know how to use them so they work, I choose to avoid having an abortion unless there is some kind of horrible emergency. That, right-wing wankers who make me froth about the mouth, is what pro-choice means.

(Fun fact: I wanted my next post to be about how David Bowie et al turned me pseudo-gay, but this came out instead. Don't worry, I'll get around to that too. Probably. Maybe.)

Admitting is the First Step

With this post, I will take a break from yelling about crap I don't enjoy, and instead make a confession to my readers (All six of them.):

I am a comment addict.

On my own stuff, for instance. If I put up a piece of Deviant Art and someone doesn't comment if they favorite it, I twitch a little. If I put up a piece I actually like and nobody comments, I die a little inside. The fact that the maybe six of my friends who say they read this blog have yet to comment on anything here makes my heart hurt. I am very much not well.

Of course, this is to say nothing of comments on things that have a following. It's one thing when my mediocre animoo gets commented on and I dance inside my mind. It is quite another to just HAVE to read all the comments on, say, a blog post that has a devoted following. I must have wasted hours reading comments on a post at Sadly, No! or some hacked object at ModTheSims2. I could likely spend half my time on the internet doing something more constructive if I didn't NEED to know what the masses thought of some post over at BoingBoing.

The thing is, I almost never comment on anything. Something has to particularly strike me for me to give feedback on it. It's more like people-watching than anything else.

I'm not likely to spend much time thinking of a response, but I will stay up until daylight, telling myself, "I will go to bed after reading these comments." Then, of course, I will forget I told myself this, open up a new tab full of comments to read, and begin the sick, depraved process over again.

So it would be really cool if I got some comments on this post? [insert emoticon here]

In Search of The Elusive Lulz

Here is what I am getting sick of hearing: "Feminists have no sense of humor." This is usually said by a male (most often white) in response to a woman, particularly one who has declared herself feminist, not dying of laughter after a rape joke or a domestic violence joke or some kind of "women-as-props-in-men's-lives" joke.

Look. I will say right here I still laugh at the George Carlin bit about how anything can be funny, including rape: Imagine Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd. Thing is, you pretty much have to be at George Carlin skill-level to pull that shiz off. Porky raping Elmer takes refuge in audacity. Especially when you take into consideration that these are Looney Tunes, and there will likely be cartoonishly deformed facial expressions and ridiculous props pulled from hammerspace and fun with speech impediments. Your so-called "joke" about you, a human being, say, raping another human being to death...well, that isn't funny at all, really. That's more "disturbing and horrible." Unless you're two feet tall and your eyes have been known to jump off your face when someone throws TNT at you, only to be hilariously soot-covered and slightly tattered after the explosion, I don't want to hear about you raping someone. Unless you can find a way to contextualize a rape that rivals George Carlin's one specific joke about it in cleverness. I, personally, won't hole my breath.

I still do get a chuckle out of the old creepy mofo standard, "My favorite pick up line is, 'Does this rag smell like choloroform to you?'." This is mainly because I, a tiny unassuming girl, have worked hard to perpetuate the myth that I am SUPERCRAZY and will KILL you. See, it's funny because it isn't true. (This, incidentally, might help explain why people are more likely to suffer my insanity gladly than that of my friend, who actually might hurt you.) I'm 5'2", about 100 lbs, and mousy. Pretending to be a psycho stalker works for me because it's patently ridiculous. What would I do with a normal-sized human being if I caught one? My noodle arms certainly can't move them anywhere. I'm far too bashful to do anything to anyone I knock out. Where would I even get chloroform? I'm broke all the time! People who know me personally (and thus, the only one I tell jokes about drugging people and having my way with them to) will get the joke.

But when a seemingly average guy (let's say guy, for the sake of arguement) who could concievably drug and rape someone makes a joke about drugging and raping someone, that takes the silliness out of it that, for me, makes it okay to laugh at when I say it. And I'm not going to make that joke to a bunch of people who know nothing about me, or at least not that I'm tiny and crazy and kind of shy.

Clear as mud? Awesome.

My point is that the thing about making jokes that can be totally offensive is that there are a number of factors in play here. You need to think about your audience, yourself, and your skill level. As someone who has been treated as a "less than" because of her chromosomes, a joke treating women as "less than" is, oddly enough, not exactly going to resonate well with me.

Anyway, I leave you with a link to Shakesville on this topic that might make a little more sense.

Semi-Original Content

Crossposted from my aforementioned Deviant Art journal, in which I like to complain about misogyny in commercials.

Okay, so those Twix commercials. Those "Need a moment" ones. I liked them until something occurred to me: Every one of them, without fail (unless I'm forgetting any, in which case tell me and I'll eat my humble pie), has been about men somehow deceiving women so that the women will like them better.

-First one: Wife in hot pink spandex asks if the ridiculous pants makes her butt look big. Husband shoves candy into mouth and mumbles, so wife cannot hear that he totally wants to call her fat. Wife is happy!
-Second one, maybe?: Beavis and Butthead are all grown up and in a bookstore, chuckling over some skeezy book about how to pick up women. Girl one of them knows walks over and says hello. Man eats candy in a freeze frame, and is inspired to pretend to be offended by the book. Girl likes guy!
-Most recent one I've seen: Girl and guy are talking at a party. Girl is discussing politics intelligently. Guy does not listen to a word she says, and goes, "Uhhhhhh, wanna come back to my place?" Girl is rightfully outraged that guy is such an a-hole. Guy eats candy in freeze frame and comes up with some BS story about wanting to blog with her. Girl loves blogging and presumably would LOVE to come back to guy's place!

Puke.


Also, I HATE Girls Gone Wild. Everything about the whole thing. The exploiting possibly-underage, probably-drunk girls, the complaining by many that now that the girls are starting to enjoy it it's "not as good" anymore, the fact that Joe Francis is a skeezy rapist if about a zillion separate accounts are to be believed, the sell-your-dignity-for-a-t-shirt mentality, all of it.

Which is why it hurts me so much that the steel drum music in the background of their disgusting commercials is so catchy that I frequently find myself dancing to it and humming along with it when I'm doing the dishes and watching the Daily Show. *die*