This is old — I’m sure everyone has already seen it. But it’s hilarous. I love cheaply-made youtube productions including costumes. (She’s also wonderfully articulate and the accents/voice acting is fabulous.)

The secret to staying permanently slim? Choose two thin parents. Ideally, choose four thin grandparents as well.

(I am having a serious argument with WP regarding embedding videos. Damn.)

We are miserable because we feel like fools. We are kicking ourselves for ignoring the red flags that fell like rain. We are despairing that we may be manless forever because even the best of them isn’t good enough, and the future we had envisioned for ourselves seems a stupid, unattainable dream. We are embarrassed that we tried so hard, sacrificed so much, and got so little in return. It is humiliating to be brought so low by someone so unworthy. We are horrified at the huge gap between the man we thought he was and the man he actually is, and our blindness to that feels like a fatal flaw. Some of the misery is about all the hours we devoted to his moods, his comforts, his judgements, and those hours are empty now.

–susanw

I’ve been having dreams about those men I used to know or maybe never did.

I guess there’s not much else to say about that. I wish I could say that I believed the men in my life were decent human beings, or that though not decent, they were not a representative sample of men in general, but I would not believe it.

I’m still dismantling. I’m not sure that we’re ever finished. Separating from those future men, the ones I maybe kind of believed I would eventually meet and fall in love with and have great sex with and marry and make babies with, that wasn’t hard. I always knew that was a lie. I never believed in marriage, though I did doubt my ability to escape it while simultaneously remaining in romantic relationships with men. The men in my past are the ones that are hard to break away from. One of them told me once that all the men in my life had betrayed me, and he wanted to be different. He was right, and he was the same.

My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don’t even need to shrug. I simply don’t care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don’t matter.

–marilyn french

This is cross-posted from my fluffalicious OkCupid journal, simply because I haven’t written in a horrendously long time! (I’ve been too busy writing fiction, schooling, working, and playing with Pony, I guess.)

–

No, wait. I’m definitely a big fucking feminist. I’m a radical fucking feminist, just a few steps away from militant fucking feminist, except war (and therefore the military) is, of course, a creation & tool of the patriarchy that needs to go bye-bye.

An important part of being a radical feminist is believing and feeling this big hippie-esque sisterhood with other women, the idea of supporting and uplifting each other, even if many of our metaphorical sisters do not identify themselves as feminists. To be an anti-feminist woman is to be a masochist, which is–you guessed it!–just what the patriarchy trains us to be. Women “should” be martyrs (just ask my mother), sacrificing ourselves for everyone else–mainly, men–in our lives. Radical feminists tend to understand that we can’t blame women for that. After all, we were those women once; we may still be in certain situations.

That being said, this big fucking radical feminist is TIRED of “I’m not a feminist, but…” bullshit from women who are too afraid to offend teh menz in this one tiny way. It’s like being too afraid to offend the Aryan Nation by calling yourself anti-racist. What the fuck?!

Even better, the “but” obviously implies that some feminist rhetoric is about to follow. “I’m not a feminist, but…I believe women are equal to men and should have the same rights and opportunities as are presented to men.” Dude(tte?), you just defined feminism.

I’m not asking women to go around identifying as radical feminists (yet). As a radical feminist, I know better than anyone that us radfems make teh menz & other dudez MAD. We piss ‘em off real good, with all that talk of taking away their privilege. Kind of like Affirmitive Action makes white people mad, because we fucking like the assumption that we’re going to get shit without doing any work for it. ONOES, if women were truly equal to men–which, come on, is going to require the collapse of the patriarchy and a complete dismemberment of fucked-up gender ideals–men would have to actually prove themselves worthy (of a job, of a lover, etc etc etc) instead of it being assumed!

But seriously. How hard is it to say, “I’m a feminist, which means that I believe in equality for all people, regardless of gender [or race or religion or...].” Grow some metaphorical balls (or should I say ovaries?), ladies! You can call yourself a feminist and still wear make-up! Some people (like, me) will find you a hypocrite, but it’s still better than “I’m not a feminist, but.”

My mother, sarcastically: Nice armpits, Kody.

Me: Huh? Oh. I quit shaving like a month ago.

My mother: Why?

Me: I didn’t feel like doing it anymore.

My mother: That’s disgusting.

Later, when she gets over whatever emotional rampage she’s currently on, we’re going to have a little talk about how she has no rights to talk about my body…particularly no rights to make such sweeping moral statements about my body’s natural state.

My goddamned heart is broken. I’ve been watching Criminal Minds for days and Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid reminds me at least a little bit of someone I miss a lot.

I hate being disappointed by people.

I might actually write something this weekend. Hey, gotta have goals, right?

From Buddy Wakefield’s “The Information Man”:

I have heard that if you pull a bent breath through the second hole of a harmonica
tuned to the key of Georgia
while a train moves by on the tail end of dusk
there’s a good chance
you will finally know what it means to rest.
I have not yet rested.
It takes a long time to make love with someone
who hates themselves.
It feels like I’ve been standing here for exactly
that long,

First of all, I have to say I adored this movie. The first one was a lot of fun, but I think “Prince Caspian” totally upped the bar. There was a mouse knight that was ZOMGTHECUTESTHINGI’VEEVERSEEN (but don’t tell him that, ’cause he’ll fuck me up). High King Peter has grown a bit and that pretty mouth is doing him well. (Is that an inappropriate thought for a movie about Jesus?) All the kids were significantly better actors. Etc.

Let’s talk about how Middle Eastern People Are Bad. Ironman may have had a vaguely plot-related reason for all the bad guys (except the Dude) being Arabic, so what the hell is with Prince Caspian X being Spanish, but all the bad dudes from his kingdom appear Middle Eastern, just with Spanish accents? Also, The Princess Bride has made it impossible for Spanish people with swords to be taken seriously.

It’s interesting how Caspian started out as a kind of naive, sheltered kid to saving Susan. High Queen Susan, remember? The archer? That could kick anyone’s ass all over the room, even in a corseted dress? Yeah, she needs Prince Montoya to save her all the sudden. And, of course, Susan goes all ga-ga eyed over the only human male around her age that isn’t her brother (though perhaps Narnia needs a little incestual procreation–it worked for the Egyptians, right?), but that shit is doomed so I guess it’s ok.

Now, this may be kind of silly to complain about, considering I walked in knowing the Chronicles of Narnia is supposed to be about a talking lion as Jesus (more on this in a moment), but there were a few moments in the film where the supposed allegory was taken a little too far. I practically expected Aslan to whip out some scripture or teach a man to fish or something.

Interestingly enough, it appears that, according to C.S. Lewis, the parallels to Christianity are completely accidental. Which answers a lot of the questions I had about the Chronicles of Narnia, because I’ve been unable to figure out what the hell any of it has to do with the Bible besides Aslan-as-Jesus. I still don’t understand this, though: Narnia is a magical land in a parallel universe. There’s all kinds of crazy stuff going on, like talking animals and elves and centaurs and griffins. Similarly, Harry Potter lives in a magical world hidden within our own. There’s all kinds of crazy stuff going on, like giants and dragons and Draco Malfoy’s hair. And yet the Chronicles of Narnia are about Jesus, while the Harry Potter books are the work of Satan. They encourage wizardry, you know.

On that note–and even better since Lewis didn’t intend for Narnia to be about Christianity–I challenge anyone to find at least as many parallels to Christianity within the Harry Potter universe as there are in the Narnia books. I’m sure there’s some way we can make Harry out to be Jesus. C’mon, folks; it’s all part of the evil plan to lure Christians to the dark side.

Go see the movie. There was an adorable talking mouse with a sword.

My lovely friend Claire took less than half an hour in photoshop to make me look as the women we are inundated with images of every day do: flawless, exceptionally “beautiful,” etc.

Original:

“Improved”:

The eyebrows are definitely cooler, but my eyebrows do not do anything vaguely resembling that, ever. And I resent the loss of my freckles. I would not resent the loss of the circles under my eyes because that would mean I was resting!

Anyway, that’s less than half an hour on an old version of Photoshop. The actual advertisements, magazine covers, etc, that we see are the result of days of work by perhaps multiple professionals with the best equipment money can buy; not to mention, the model herself has spent who-knows-how-much on maintaining the nearest thing to physical perfection she can through diet, exercise, sugery, and scary chemical peels.

I was harrassed at school today.

This doesn’t happen to me very often. I am not ugly, but my features fit another time’s beauty myth (”button nose” is sooo Little Women) and I don’t buy a whole lot into this time’s beauty myth. I have never worn makeup. I do not have the Patriarchy-approved female form of boobs, ass, and tight, flat stomach. I keep my hair short. I’m loud and opinionated* and while there are people in this world who “get it,” many don’t.

I get flirted with, and my open, loud, innuendo-filled nature is often perceived as flirtacious, but men don’t whistle when they drive by or chat me up in the grocery store.

Today, I finished my final early and was feelin’ real good about it. As I walked down the hall, minding my own damn business, a man sitting on the floor smiled and said, “Hey.”

“Hi,” I said, though I kept on walking.

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

By this time, I have passed him and his buddy, and assume the niceties are over, when he says (in an incredibly creepy under-the-breath tone), “You looking good, can I holler at you?”

I considered flipping him off, but I was rattled. I kept walking. Pretty sure no hitch in my step. But rattled enough that, when I ran into a friend a few minutes later, I stayed in his company for the next forty-five minutes or so until the next test. Though there were several productive things I could’ve been doing around campus in the spare time, I did not want to be alone and approached by that guy again.

My friend did not understand how this was scary, and I was too shaken up to explain it.

*FSM, how I hate this adjective. Zie who doesn’t have opinions is a boring jackass robot!

from susanw at the IBTP forum, who has kindly agreed to be my new mother (that is, in addition to my old one, who is pretty neat):

WOMEN DON’T WANT YOU.

Maybe a few times in your lives some of you have met women who genuinely desired your body in a flood of passionate lust.

The rest of the time we have had intercourse with you because we were forced, coerced, threatened, intimidated, nagged, whined at, manipulated, tricked, brainwashed, and blackmailed. We did it to get out of abusive households, rotten jobs, crushing poverty, and terrible loneliness. We did it so you’d love us, so we could count on you, so you’d stay, so you wouldn’t be so mean. We did it just so we could feel your arms around us. We did it because we loved you, because we didn’t want to hurt your feelings, because you’d make us pay if we didn’t, because the children needed shoes, because we didn’t even know we had a right to refuse.

So the next time you’re tempted to pinch out butts or look us up and down, or drop some nasty remark that passes for humour, or think no means yes, or do any of the predatory things that spring from the myth that you’re entitled to the use of women’s bodies and that we owe you intercourse whether we like it or not, stop.

Wait for one of us to approach you, because in all but very rare cases, women don’t want you, and we’re sick of being treated like prey.