Raging Red

I had nearly forgotten my least favorite Halloween costume ever. I think I must have intentionally suppressed the memory, because the day I spent dressed as a bag of jellybeans was not particularly fun. However, this recent boingboing post jolted my memory. I was older than those two kids in the photo, so my bag was bigger than theirs, and I used small balloons instead of regular-sized ones, so they looked more like jellybeans. I didn’t just waddle around in this costume for an hour or so of trick-or-treating. No, I wore it all day at school. Guess what you can’t do when your entire body is surrounded by balloons? That’s right, you can’t sit down. I tried to kind of straddle a bench because, well, the particular area that would have come in contact with the bench whilst straddling it was the only place where there were no balloons. That didn’t work out too well. I honestly thought that I had a shot at winning the costume competition with my clever get-up. I didn’t win, but I think “bag of jellybeans” is a strong contender for the most uncomfortable Halloween costume ever.

It has been brought to my attention - and rightfully so - that I have been subjecting you all to a photo of a certain Beaker lookalike for far too long. I apologize, and I’d like to remedy my error by sharing with you some of my vacation photos. Hopefully they will be like soothing Visine to your bleary, Surbed-out eyes.

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Monterey Bay, originally uploaded by raging red.

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Seals on 17 Mile Drive, originally uploaded by raging red.

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The Lone Cyprus, originally uploaded by raging red.

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Jellyfish at Monterey Bay Aquarium, originally uploaded by raging red.

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More jellyfish at Monterey Bay Aquarium, originally uploaded by raging red.

It was a great vacation, and I have returned home with a new fixation on jellyfish and Goya etchings (I saw a complete set of Los Caprichos at the Steinbeck Center in Salinas). Yay California!

So I was walking up Capitol Street today after leaving work, and I noticed a man sitting on the bench in front of the library. He caught my attention because he had no shoe or sock on his right foot. He was wearing dress pants and a button down shirt and had a sock and a dress shoe on his left foot, but the other shoe and sock were sitting on the ground in front of him. Why did he have a bare foot? I looked at him more closely, and saw that he was clipping his toenails. Yep. Sitting on a bench on a public sidewalk in front of the library, clipping his toenails. What the fuck?

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about it all evening and now I’ve had a couple glasses of wine and I wrote a little song about it that I’d like to share with you. Please sing along with me, to the tune of the Spiderman theme song. (I prefer the Ramones version.)

Um, yeah. Aren’t you sad I don’t blog more often?

Is it just me, or does all of downtown Charleston smell like dead fish today? It’s really gross, and I think it might be coming from the river. (It’s definitely not ginkgos this time.) Of course, the secretary in my office looked at me like I was crazy when I asked her about it, so maybe it is just me. Then again, she’s a smoker, so it’s possible her olfactory nerves are shot to hell.

I’m only just now getting used to the ubiquity of Bluetooth headsets. I remember the first time I got on an elevator and the stranger next to me started talking, sounding like she had decided to start in the middle of the conversation, then realizing that she was in mid-conversation, just not with me. I no longer think the city is crawling with crazy people walking around in business attire talking to themselves. They do look a little ridiculous, though, I have to say.

Despite the fact that I do not own a Bluetooth headset, I’ve realized that I do derive some benefit from their existence. Now when I walk down the street or drive around in my car talking to myself, people are less likely to think I’m crazy and more likely to think I’m just on the phone.

My bathtub had been draining incredibly slowly, forcing me to reduce my shower time from “long and luxurious” to “fast enough that I won’t be standing in water up to my calves by the end.” Thus, the Roto-Rooter man was summoned. When he removed the drain snake, it was covered in hair up to about six feet of its length. The man said: “Well, you win the prize for the biggest hair clog I’ve seen in a long time.”

I suppose I should feel embarrassed by this, but instead I feel strangely proud for some reason. Just look at the little guy. (Note the penny for scale.)

I know, it’s pretty gross. But it’s just my hair - a ball of my wet, probably rotting hair. Okay, it’s disgusting. I do feel a bit sorry for the guy who has to remove other people’s disgusting, wet, hair balls for a living.

I’ve had this problem (well, not to this exact degree) in every place I’ve lived, and even drain covers don’t help entirely because some hair still gets through. Let’s face it, I shed like a Wookiee.

Bill Lynch has started a new blog called “Don’t print this,” after ending his run at Gazzblogs. In the two posts he’s written so far, he’s proven himself to be a master of the “Easter Egg link,” a term I just coined for the art of making clever jokes through the mere act of linkage. If you have no Earthly idea what I’m talking about, just click on “breakfast” in his first post and “an addict” in his second. I’m adding him to the list of WV Bloggers whom I enjoy, since he’s not a mouth-breathing lizard.

I’d like to send out some love to iPodMods and recommend them to anyone who is having iPod problems. A while back I dropped my iPod, like the klutz that I am. I blame it on the exercise equipment from which the iPod fell, but it’s possible that I have some pent-up hostility toward exercise equipment completely unrelated to this incident that I’m just passive aggressively misdirecting at this time. (Thank you, Dr. Phil.)

After the cute little guy was rendered completely unplayable, I sent it to Apple for a repair estimate. They told me they’d fix it for $250. The damn thing cost $299 brand new, so I declined the repair and my useless iPod was sent back to me. Then I discovered iPodMods. The heavens opened and radiant beams of sunlight were cast down upon me. They did the repair for $100 less than Apple, and now my iPod is back with me and as good as new, except for the tiny dent that remains on the side, which serves as a reminder to always hang on tightly to my slick white friend.

Thank you, iPodMods. You guys rock. I don’t know how I was able to exist for so long without being able to sing along to the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law theme song on the fly.

[The diagram above is absolutely integral to my telling of this funny little story. Click for a larger version.]

For lunch today, I walked a few blocks to a sub shop to get a Philly cheesesteak. (The Philly cheesesteak is not absolutely integral to this story, but it was pretty tasty.) As I exited the sub shop, I saw the scene depicted in the diagram above. The woman in the green car had her car in reverse and was attempting to park, but the woman in the car behind her refused to back up. It’s completely unclear why she was doing this. The traffic light was red and (as is clearly depicted in the diagram) there was a Vast Empty Space behind her. There was a line of traffic to her right, but all she had to do was back up one car length and let the woman in the green car park. There was a fair amount of horn honking on the part of both parties, which is what attracted the crowd of Bemused Spectators.

One man in the crowd remarked of the woman in the red car: “I guess some people just have more time on their hands.”*

Another man replied: “Or they’re just bigger assholes.” This caused the Bemused Spectators to laugh.

Finally, the light turned green and the line of cars in the right lane drove off. The Asshole got over in the right lane and drove away, causing the Bemused Spectators to clap and cheer while the woman in the green car was finally able to park.

People are strange.

* The undeniable truth of this statement is illustrated quite nicely by this blog post and its accompanying diagram, which was painstakingly rendered in MS Paint.

In the feminist blog world, through which I have been traipsing quite a bit recently, today is Blog Against Sexism Day (because today is also International Women’s Day). I never took a women’s studies class in college (I should have skipped Economics, what a bore) and I haven’t done a lot of reading on feminist theory, which would probably earn me scorn within said feminist blog world, but whatever. I’m trying to catch up now. Better late than never, right?

As a teenager I felt that I was a feminist, but I shied away from the “f” word because of the negative connotations that non-feminists have attached to it, lest I be thought of as a man-hater or some such nonsense. Well, I’m not shy anymore – I’m a fucking feminist.

Which brings me to the subject I’d like to address – fucking. Or rather, sex and sexuality and sexual expression and all that good stuff. People who are wholly unfamiliar with feminist theory usually think that all feminists have but one view on these topics, but if they’d merely dip their toes into the feminist pond, they’d quickly realize that nothing could be further from the truth.

Yesterday I read a really good blog post about “fuck me feminism,” which refers to feminists who believe that women are empowered by embracing our own sexuality and reclaiming the porn and sex industries for ourselves. I recommend that you read Kiki’s entire post at Saucebox, but the main thrust of the post is summed up in her final paragraph:

Are FMFs ["fuck me feminists"] embracing the short skirts and high heels, the strip clubs and porn videos, the one night stands and meaningless trysts because these things are truly expressions of their own sexuality, or because those particular expressions of sexuality satisfy male need and mens’ idea of what female sexuality is, and helps men drop the distinction between feminist and fuckable piece of ass? Are the women who proudly proclaim themselves fuck me feminists more interested in promoting acceptance of their sexuality or in gaining male acceptance?

This really made me think. What particularly jumped out at me was “the distinction between feminist and fuckable piece of ass.” Meaning, are “fuck me feminists” compromising themselves just to make sure men don’t think they are that kind of feminist - you know, the man-hating feminazi kind. Are they just trying to make themselves less threatening to men by proclaiming “hey look at me, I’m fun, I like porn!”

I’ve been doing a lot of self-examination. (No, not that kind.) I wear high heels occasionally, I’ve been to a strip club, and I watch porn (not on a regular basis, but I’m not going to lie and say I don’t watch it at all). In addition, I own lingerie and I have a bit of an exhibitionist streak. The question I have to ask myself about all of these things is: WHY? Are these truly expressions of my own sexuality, or have I embraced these things only to satisfy men?

Continue reading ‘Feminist in Progress’