Random Rim Jobs
I swear. True story.Photo Lotto 27
Posted on February 08, 2012
This is appropriate for those who are feeling the winter doldrums. If you are, like me, in Chicago, chances are you've not had the opportunity to feel the winter much. It's only my second winter in Chicago, so I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure this is a damn mild winter. So far there have been only two or three instances where snow stuck on the ground for longer than a day. Christmas wasn't white. New Year's wasn't white. February hasn't been white so far.
I'm not complaining. Not at all. I've been able to take Isis to Oz Park on many more days than I did last winter. It hasn't been such a horrible pain in the ass to leave the house – even if I do regularly forget one of all the things needed to go out in the cold: gloves, hat, coat, scarf, keys, phone, sunglasses, iPod, lip stuff, tissue, and whatever else is meant for the outing, like my school supplies, book, or grocery shopping trolley. And there hasn't been nearly as much trudging through the snow as there was last year.
I know the Viking will think these ladies are too thin. And I know that even in my wildest dreams I would never have been that thin, but every once in a while I wonder what it feels like to be able to wear bikinis with impunity. Even before I felt fat – but after my step-mother told me that I shouldn't wear certain clothes because I was neither tall nor thin enough (but her daughter was) – I worried about body hair in unsightly places; these ladies don't seem to have the same concern.
Or maybe I'm just assuming. Maybe these ladies who appear to be content and carefree with their flat stomachs could be so concerned with those same stomachs that they have eating disorders, drug habits, or both and more. And there is waxing ….
Spring – and summer – is coming but I'll not be dressing like this. In the mean time, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere can dream.
I swear. True story.
Staycation (Part 1)
Posted on February 07, 2012I get alerts from various “deal” sites like Groupon, LivingSocial, PopSugar, and so on on a daily basis. Most of the deals I pass up, but the ones for Brazilian waxes, manicures and pedicures, and neighborhood eateries I usually buy. Every once in a while I go for an inexpensive tooth cleaning or a massage. For the most part I pass up the “getaways” because, well, that sort of lifestyle, even at discount prices, currently eludes us.
So it must have been when we were feeling flush that I saw a deal for a newly remodeled local hotel and asked the Viking if we should spring for a staycation. We did. The deal was for a single night’s stay between January and March, a slow time for tourism in most of the Northern Hemisphere, and especially slow in Chicago since that’s when it’s fucking cold, snowy, and generally miserable.
There the “coupon” sat waiting for me to make a plan for some time between January and March. I had plenty of time. One of the things I had to iron out was arranging for someone to take care of the animals. Well, the animal. Joaquin would have been upset but fine for one night. Probably quite upset. Joaquin, you see, is a very needy kitty. He has a litter box, so he doesn’t have to go outside, and he doesn’t overeat so dry food can be left out all the time. However, Joaquin likes company. He likes company to the degree that every time I take Isis outside he cries at the back door. At least that’s what the Viking has told me. I know he cries from the living room if we’re in the bedroom and all the lights are out. He’s dumb but sweet, and would survive a single night on his own, albeit unhappily.
Isis, on the other hand, needs frequent care and can never be left home alone overnight. She’s not nearly as energetic as she was just a year ago – I guess her 11 years of life have caught up with her quickly – so she usually sleeps through the night, but she has a lot of needs. She needs to go out last thing before she goes to bed and first thing when she wakes up. She needs medication twice a day. She needs wet food mixed in with her dry food at least once a day, though I sometimes do it for her twice a day because I spoil her. The food, by the way, is high-calorie puppy food because though Isis a senior she is also a skinny girl who seems to be a gourmand who only likes her dry food if it’s mixed with fancy canned food. I really wish she had gotten her slender ways from me, but it just seem she’s not that into food. (Yes, I do understand that my dog did not inherit my slow metabolism or my proclivities for overeating; I’m not a moron.)
I had asked my friend Viola – who had puppy sat for a whole week back in late April 2011 when the Viking and I had gone to California and Nevada – if she could stay over for a night. Her living situation had changed so that staying at our place on weekdays was no longer possible. That meant I had to plan our staycation on a weekend. I worried. I figured the coupon deal had the sort of blackout dates similar to airlines even if it wasn’t explicitly noted.
What was explicitly noted – but which I had not noticed – was that the reservation had to be booked by November 1, 2011. It was some time into November 2011 that I bothered to take a look at the small print of the “coupon” and first saw the single caveat. Crap! I didn’t want to forfeit the value of the deal just because I was too dumb to look at its limitations.
I called the number on the voucher and asked to make reservations. I said I was using the deal. I did not preface with an apology for calling after November 1. My plan was to play dumb if I was told that it was too late to make a reservation.
[To be continued ….]
I swear. True story.
I’m a Dummy
Posted on February 06, 2012I have many epic dreams that involve my family members. I figure it has something to do with my subconscious need to connect with them.
I’ve realized that I am the one who has made the point to connect with each of my siblings and they’re the ones who’ve not bothered to contact me in return. I last had contact with my (step-) brother when I called him on his birthday in November. I last saw my step-sister when my father (and step-mother) were at her house at Christmas and my step-sister’s daughters had gotten iPads with FaceTime. I can’t remember the last time I’d had a conversation with my sister.
No one in my family makes a point of contacting me. We’re not a particularly close family. Years ago my step-sister told me she regularly talked to her mother – my step-mother – about once a week, which shocked and surprised me. It shouldn’t have been considering it was a mother and daughter. By that time I’d already stopped communicating with any regularity with either my stepmother or my mother.
I had, for a few years when we both lived in Southern California, been very close with my mother. I had house- and puppy-sat when she was out of town. I had cleaned her place (for compensation) when she couldn’t be bothered to clean up the clutter. She was a slob, but she wasn’t a true hoarder until later. You see, people who grow up with nothing but abusive fathers and “purposefully” ignorant mothers and poor as shit don’t see a point but to be slobs. More likely, they simply don’t know what clean is.
By the time I cleaned for my mother I had been educated on “clean” by my step-mother.
* * *
The above was written whilst under the influence of alcohol. I have no clue to what, in particular, the title was referring, and I have no idea where I was meant to go with the story. But there you go, a glimpse into my alcohol-addled brain.
Photo Lotto 26
Posted on February 03, 2012
I’m not sure where or where the fuck I decided I liked some of these photos. Look, three naked chicks and their shoulder blades. And spines. There’s a rug that was probably made by small children. Oooh, sexy.
I swear. True story.
Where the Fuck Have I Been?
Posted on January 29, 2012And why the fuck aren’t I writing?
The answer to both of those questions is, I don’t fucking know. I haven’t felt all that inspired recently and I’ve no clue why. I also haven’t felt like meeting new people or fucking anyone but the Viking. The other day I realized that I couldn’t recall the last time I’d had an orgasm. Crazy, I know. I used to masturbate to orgasm several times a day, dammit.
I do not think my sex drive is gone (especially after last night when I had a very, very nice orgasm indeed), but I do think I’m probably on a down swing in my cycle. Not my menstrual cycle, because I never have any idea where I am in those, having not had a period for over two years, but my sex cycle. I, like everyone who will admit it, go through sexual phases. I’m in a phase where I like having sex but I don’t feel the need to pursue it voraciously.
I suppose that makes me boring, and so be it.
I swear. True story.
Photo Lotto 26
Posted on January 24, 2012
I can’t imagine when I picked this because I don’t feel like women should be put on display like that. Or so obviously objectified. Maybe I liked that the standing woman had bush.
I swear. True story.
I’m Blogging For Choice
Posted on January 22, 2012
Since I’m being political lately, I decided to join NARAL Pro-Choice America for Blog for Choice Day, January 22, 2012. The date is important because it’s the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Right wing nut jobs – hello, Rick Santorum – think that court decision and all the hoopla since has been all about killing babies. There is nothing a “pro-abortion” activist likes more than killing babies. I know one of my favorite pastimes is watching piles of dead babies burn as worthless medical waste. The scent of incinerating souls makes me feel a little high, which is how I know I’ll have a great time in hell.
I’d like to think that no one is truly “pro-abortion.” I know I’m not. In my perfect world abortions would not be necessary because everyone who got pregnant would want to be pregnant, and would be able to afford to raise the kid into a productive member of society and all that. In my perfect world there would also be plenty of sexy sex, both potentially procreative and otherwise. In my perfect world everyone who wanted fail-safe birth control would have access to it, thereby preventing any oopsie pregnancies.
Alas, the world is not perfect and sometimes the sperm swim towards eggs without asking if that’s what they should be doing. And sometimes the sperm fertilizes the egg and that egg implants in a welcoming uterus. Then that fertilized egg in its cozy home goes to work splitting and so on. Zygote. Fetus. Birth. Baby. Which is all well and good if the goal is Baby.
If the goal is not Baby there are medical procedures called abortions. No, I don’t think abortions are birth control. I think birth control is birth control. The goal, at least for me, is to make sure a fertilized egg does not find a cozy home in my uterus.
But I like knowing that if the precautions I have taken fail, that I have one more option to assure no Baby. Because I’m way too old to change my selfish, lazy, alcoholic ways now. Besides, my genes are shitty and I probably only have about 20 years of lucid thoughts left.
Due to my diligence with hormonal birth control I have never been pregnant. There was a very short time when I was married that I considered trying to get pregnant but the timing never worked out with the finances or the maturity of the proposed father. It was around then that I had to reassess whether, if I got pregnant through birth control failure, I would have an abortion. For a short time the answer was no, but at all other times it’s been yes.
You see, us ladies have to ask ourselves, “What if?” every time. Not every time we have sex (if we’re using reliable forms of birth control) but every time our life’s circumstances change. Would I have a child now? No fucking way. If, by failure of my IUD I got pregnant, I’d march my ass to my local Planned Parenthood and talk to the folks there about terminating the unwanted, unplanned, and unaffordable pregnancy.
While I’ve never been pregnant, I’ve known plenty of women who have been. Some had babies, some had abortions. Some have done both. Not one person I’ve ever talked to who had an abortion thought it was a pleasant experience or one they wanted to repeat. One called the post-abortion communal recovery room the Room of Sadness. Why would anyone want to hang out in a Room of Sadness?
That is why I am pro-choice. It’s not because I like dead babies (though they can be funny), it’s because I don’t want to have to deal with any sort of Baby thoughts whatsoever, and because I never want to hang out in a Room of Sadness. I choose to avoid Rooms of Sadness by choosing to use safe and effective – and legal – birth control. Of course I’m not the only one. There are lots of us out there.
Which brings me to the “mandate” of Blog for Choice Day: How will you help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012? Fuck, I don’t know.
Yes, I’m lazy, but I’m not that lazy. And I’m not apolitical. When I lived in California it was easy because access to abortions is in the state constitution; NARAL gives the state an A+ in choice-related law.
Illinois, however, gets a B-, which means I have some work to do in my new home. Seems both of Illinois’ US Senators – Richard Durbin and Mark Kirk – are pro-choice, as is the US Representative representing my district, Danny Davis. Of course I know that those folks don’t have anything to do with state laws because I went to public school and learned all about that.
Illinois’ current governor, Pat Quinn is pro-choice, but who knows how long until he’s in prison. (No, I’ve not heard anything, but going by past Illinois’ governors’ track records, I wouldn’t be surprised.) My State Representative Ann Williams is pro-choice. I had some trouble finding out whether Illinois State Senator John Cullerton was pro-choice, and had some doubts considering he’s Catholic. Then I saw that “Illinois Review: crossroads of the conservative community” (Click at your peril because it made my skin crawl.) called Illinois a “pro-abortion” state and said Mr. Cullerton consistently “opposed protecting unborn humans” and I knew he was ok. (Helping my opinion was that he voted for medical marijuana, same-sex civil unions, and stem-cell research.)
What I’ll do to elect pro-choice candidates in 2012 is … vote for the incumbents. See, I am lazy. And that may not be all I’ll do, but I’ll do at least that. Before research for writing this, I had no clue what the voting records or choice-stances were held by the people purporting to represent me. Hell, I didn’t know who represented me. I know now.
Do you know who represents you? Are you happy with their voting records on choice?
Still not convinced you need to do something? Take a look at this easy-to-read infographic provided by NARAL Pro-Choice America:
I swear. True story (that needs to change).
