Domesticated Against My Will

Things That Should Be on Twitter

2012-02-01T02:34:00.000-08:00

Last week I ate a p-nut butter cookie and it turned out to be a pot cookie. I was so damn high it was great. I woke up the next morning wanting to quit my job and hit the road.

The Bank has postponed the sale of the house while they try and collect property taxes from us via harassing phone calls.

A little girl in a crappy sich who used to hang out at my house back in 1999 died in a car crash last May. I mourned for about a week. Miss her. RIP Krystal. Sorry if I failed you.

January 9, 2012

2012-01-07T21:39:00.000-08:00

This is the day the Bank takes back the house. Ironically, they sent us a notice dated 12/28 stating they needed two more items from us, documents we have never heard of throughout this process after complying with all their requests for info. Documents they just came up with, that were not previously required. And its too close to the sale date to get them in.

A lawyer said we should sue them. At the very least we could get another couple of years in the house.

I dunno. What a racket. The Banks get whatever they want. Profit from the upturn and profit from the downturn.

So now I gotta find a new place to live.

My Cell Phone Crapped out and Now I Miss the Eighties

2011-12-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

I miss the eighties because it was the last decade before cell phones became a required part of life. It reminds me of the microwave. In the seventies, virtually no one I knew had a microwave. They were new fangled devices that most people saw as unnecessary, now everyone has one and I'd venture to say its the most used device in most people's kitchens. And now everyone has a cell phone, and I'm not against cell phones per se, but I object to some of the changes in culture that have occurred as a result of them. Never mind that all the dudes at work are constantly buried in their iphones, fucking around with inane apps and one-upping each other in stupid shit. What I have noticed is a blurring of all boundaries due to the cultural requirement to be constantly available to everyone all the damn time.

A whole new generation has entered the work force, one that has grown up answering their cell phone all the time. Offspring #2 even sleeps with hers and answers it. All night long, if necessary. I cannot fathom it. I have had both Offspring mad at me for going for a long walk and not answering my phone. I just don't take it with me. Its inconceivable to them to not take a phone with you wherever you go. And these young millenials will answer personal calls and text messages on company time, therefore, they see nothing amiss with answering company calls and emails on their personal time. When I leave work, I LEAVE WORK, and you're not gonna get work email answered when I'm not at work. Its like every aspect of life is now all mixed up in this big soup of social networking. There are no boundaries anymore, and anyone who has boundaries, which used to be called BASIC PRIVACY, is suspect or "has something to hide." This attitude has crept into the culture without anyone noticing.

My cell phone died a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was the battery, because the thing is so old, so I went out and bought a battery. It died again, so I attempted to buy a charger. The model was discontinued two years ago, so I ordered a battery off the internet for an even older phone. Its in good condition and I still have the charger, so I ordered a battery from some obscure dealer on the 'net. I used paypal, which still has my old home address on it, so they apparently shipped it to that address. The house is empty and foreclosed on now,so the battery got shipped back, and I had to contact the company to have it reshipped. So now its going on two weeks and I've not had a cell phone since.

The first day of no cell phone, I was driving to work and I felt strangely relaxed. No one was going to call me. No reminders from the dentist. No calls from the Offspring. No calls from anybody. I thought: wow. I remember this. I remember when you could go somewhere and people had to wait until you got home to ask you something. I remember when you could go out of the house and no one knew exactly where you were and everyone was okay with that. It was normal.

It was a freedom we just don't really have anymore. And that's why I miss the eighties.

Simple, Yet Effective

2011-10-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

Month Five Of Not Paying The Mortgage

2011-10-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

Month Five Of Not Paying The Mortgage

I had a conversation with The Bank today. After the usual requests to enter my loan number followed by the pound sign and agree to be recorded “for quality control purposes” the conversation went something like this.
“Hi my name is Dave and I can be your customer contact representative today.”
“Well Dave, I got a letter and it told me that B------ O----- was my customer contact rep and I’d like to talk to her as stated in the letter.”
“B.O. and I are on the same team. I can help you with any questions you may have. What can I do for you today?”
“Well, I’m calling to see if I can negotiate with the bank on this underwater mortgage.”
“Let me pull up your info. (Silence for about 60 seconds) Oh. It looks like we are missing a form.”
“What form? I did get a letter saying we didn’t sign the copies of our tax return but we signed that and sent it back.
“Yeah we got that. It looks like the application is missing.”
“How can the application be missing? I applied online.”
“Well…it says here that we mailed you one on the 5th and you need to send it back.”
“But I got a letter stating we don’t qualify for HAMP on accounta we’re too financially responsible.”
“It also says here you’ve been reinstated for consideration of a loan mod.”
“Well can’t I negotiate with you now? Look, I talked to a realtor and they said that if they were to list the house right now, it would be listed at 219K. And we owe 372K, so if we can’t get a loan mod and have to shortsale it, the bank would get even less after paying realtors and such. So can we offer the bank more than what they would get now and save them the trouble?”
“No. They won’t do that. A shortsale means you can’t pay the mortgage.”
“Well why not shortsale to us? We would offer MORE than market value and save everyone time and money.”
“No. They won’t do that. They lose too much money short selling.”

“But they’re going to lose MORE if they foreclose or let us shortsell and it goes on the market. Lots more.“
“But they won’t do that.”
“It doesn’t make sense. What I am hearing is that the Bank would rather foreclose on us which would ultimately force them to take much less than they would get by giving us a principal reduction. “
“Well they can’t do a principal reduction because they would lose too much money.”
“But they are going to lose EVEN MORE money if they foreclose. UNLESS… they are somehow making more money foreclosing than working with homeowners.”
“Look, if you can pay the mortgage you should pay the mortgage.”
“But it doesn’t make sense to pay the mortgage. It’s over 150K underwater. If it goes up 100K in 10 years it will STILL be underwater. We are in our fifties. We have retirement to save for and college educations to pay for. And taxes to pay. We are financially responsible; we put down 106K and put money into this house. We don’t want to lose it but it would be financially IRRESPONSIBLE not to save for retirement. And if we put our money into this sinking mortgage, our kids will likewise be saddled with college loan debt well into their adult lives because we can’t pay for both right now what with rising prices and all. Did you know peanut butter is going up 40% after the 31st of this month? If we keep this mortgage in ten years we will be broke, still have an underwater mortgage and our kids will be paying off student loans.“ How about we agree to give the bank 260K at 5% over the next 30 years? It will still be underwater, but not so much that it doesn’t make sense to keep it, and the bank will be getting more than they will get if it goes back on the open market.”
“We can’t do that. We can’t give you a principal reduction because if we give you one we have to give other people one too and the bank will lose too much money.”
“Well doesn’t it make sense to mitigate the losses on both sides? To find a mutually agreeable solution?
“We can’t shortsell it to you. The investors would lose too much money”
“ Look, this is the most circuitous discussion I’ve had in weeks. I’ll send the form back and see what they come up with.”
“Can you verify your annual income as -------?”
“You have that information. I think I’m done for the day.”
CLICK.

Bizzare Visit

2011-09-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

So me and Offspring #1 are watching reruns of "16 and Pregnant" on recorded TV early on an Indian Summer's eve when suddenly there's a chime on the ol' doorbell. Such chime is immediately suspicious on accounta no one rings the chime when they can call or text message to announce their arrival. So I go up to the ol' spyhole and scrutinize the uninvited "guest". "Anyone expecting anyone? " I shout to no one in particular in the 1188 square foot household. "NO!" is the resounding reply so I peer anew through the peephole in the front door. "Its some black chick" I say "and she's got a clipboard." I watch her shrug in exasperation through the peephole and wonder if she heard me. " I'm lookin' for Mr. "(insert Spouse's name here) she says. I open the door. "I'm from the Bank, " She says. " And I'm trying to determine residency. I don't know if y'all are tryin' to work with the bank, do a mod or whatevah...."

"Yeah" I say. " We're tryin' to do a loan mod."

"Okay," she says, " I'm just here to see if y'all are still living here. You know, 'cuz some folks be renting the house out an' shit."

"Oh no, " I say. "We all still be livin' here. In fact, there's Mr. (insert spouse's name here). But I would advise not to talk to him. He's in a shit kickin'mood on accounta the car repairs he's givin' up his weekend for."

So she walks off, checkin' shit off on the clipboard, declining to speak with Mr. (insert spouse's name here.) Why the fuck do they always go after the man when we are both liable for the loan?

And I'm wondering....why pay people to do this crap? Isn't it costing money to pay people to check up on homeowners that they could be recouping by actually modifying loans and avoiding all this checkup/foreclosure action/county auction/real estate listing and commission fees, etc? Why go through all this expense unless there's some huge PROFIT in the end.

Think about that.

Gawd. Great Depression here we are.

Life Goes On. And on.

2011-08-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

I'm reading a book right now called "Rags to Retirement" about folks with very little financial resources who somehow are managing to get through retirement and not be completely destitute. I am trying to plan for the future, which is hella difficult when the ol' spouse has no plan and sees no reason to come up with one. He's content to keep working and not worry about what the hell is gonna happen 20 years from now, but I want to make sure I get to live the last quarter of my life the way I want to live it and not just fucking "wing it." Besides, he likes his job alot and I'm kinda showing up for a paycheck at this point.

I found out I can't have access to my 457 account unless I quit my job. I really want to roll that money over into a self-directed IRA and buy a coupla condos with it. (cheap, cheap condos) The rental income would go back into the IRA, and if I found another job, I could double the amount I'm saving for retirement, AND ensure that I have a mortgage free condo to move into when I'm 59 and a half, plus the income from the second condo.

SOOOOOO.... I'm invigorating my resume and looking for work. I'm having fantasies about moving to DC, for some reason.

I've also been swimming alot and doing yoga, and my knee problem, which I probably haven't mentioned, has disappeared! Yay!

Thats my update, bloglandia.

The Bank Wants Money

2011-08-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

Its now month three of not making mortgage payments and the phone rings about ten times a day with calls from the Bank wanting to put us on a repayment plan. I officially applied for a loan mod via the online form, however, I think we make too much money to get cut any slack on this underwater mortgage. Basically, if we HAD purchased more home than we could afford and got a crappy sub-prime mortgage or over leveraged our house, they would help us with a loan mod. But being hard working dual income earners goin' down with economy is somehow our civic duty. It seems the banks would rather foreclose and sell at a loss than allow us to benefit from that loss in any way. Would it not make sense to reduce our mortgage balance rather than foreclose? I mean, they are not gonna get what is owed on it either way. Why go through the costs of foreclosure, cleanup, realtor's commissions, further market decline, etc.?

It doesn't make any sense. They got bailed out. The middle class gets screwed. We need to find a way to revolt.

Rewards For Failure

2011-07-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Okay. I'm really irritated by the current state of affairs. My spouse and I are hard working dual income earners barely scraping by in an underwater mortgage. I filled out the FAFSA to see if I can get ANY financial aid for my Offspring, who are both hoping to hit the State Uni in January. Oh, and by the way, tuition was just increased AGAIN, for a total of 18% in the last two years. Anyway, I talked to the bank today and it looks like because we're hardworking Americans tryin' to do the right thing, we're gonna get screwed again. Because we probably don't qualify for HAMP loan mods on accounta the income coming in. Because they base your qualification on a percentage of your take home pay, not on whether you have college tuition to pay and other bills sucking up your income.

Meanwhile, my ex-door neighbor and her spouse filed bankruptcy. They were allowed to keep their five acres in the foothills, which they purchased with a home equity line they defaulted on. (Yay! Free land!) They lived for over two years in their home mortgage free, and it has not been foreclosed on yet. (Yay! No rent! no property taxes!) ALSO they stopped paying the mortgage on two income properties, which went into receivership, but somehow they are still allowed to pocket the rent payments to the tune of 2400$ per month. (Yay! Free money!) They've been pocketing this cash every month for over two years and the homes have not been foreclosed on yet. And here's the other kicker. In one year's time they will have the option of paying off the remainder of the bankruptcy settlement, which means if the home is not foreclosed on in that time, it will be released from receivership and they will probably qualify for the HAMP principal reduction program on accounta she lost her job and they'll get their house back. She's also collecting unemployment. How can you get that when you have a free 2400$ a month coming in from rental property? Yay! More free money!

I shoulda kept that vacation home and done the same thing instead of shortselling it. I could have rented it out and earned free money instead of "doing the right thing" and taking care of it and finding a good buyer.

So here's what I'm thinking of doing. Getting legally separated, telling the bank we're divorcing, and trying to get the loan mod based on one income. And the Offspring can wait another year to go to college and probably get financial aid.

I'm sick of trying to do the right thing. This country hates the middle class.

Uncertain Futures

2011-07-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

I have made the decision to quit paying the mortgage. I have discussed this with my spouse, but he is really unresponsive toward the whole issue. I am a bit sick of him having no fucking plan for anything, to be honest. The bank has been calling several times a day, but neither of us has answered. I am trying to figure out how to get the maximum time without paying a mortgage as possible, so as to sink away as much money as possible in the hopes of getting a private lender to allow purchase of another home at today's market rates. I have little hope the bank will be willing to work out an acceptable loan modification. I know of no one who has actually had the bank work with them on anything. They profit from foreclosing on people because they get to rack up the late fees and penalties, increasing the mortgage balance due so that they can claim bigger losses, and then take bailout money for the balance between the note and what the property actually sells for.

I have completey lost faith in this country. All around me, all over my neighborhood, houses sit empty, or have been foreclosed on already and resold, or are in default. Nearly every fucking house in my neighborhood and I'm not kidding. I know so many people who have had to file bankruptcy, walk away from their houses, let income properties go. I have five co-workers in my immediate department. Four of them have foreclosures on their record, one has filed bankruptcy, and now there's me. Five out of six. Thats America for you.

It is a strategic default, the current wave of foreclosures. The house is just too far underwater for keeping it to make sense. It is a real tragedy what has happened in this country.

I have no idea what the future holds, and I am strangely excited at the prospect.

Good Lord I Haven't Posted in a Month

2011-06-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

I just watched a depressing documentary called "Girl From Bangkok" on Netflix live streaming. Anyone who argues that the world is not set up for the benefit of men just needs to watch that documentary. And its not even that good a documentary because the dude documentarian is kinda creepy if you ask me. His camera angles struck me as exploitative and too intimate with the subject of the documentary, a young women named Pla. And the fact that he "thinks there is something different about her" really angers and irritates me. Just because he's got some kind of hard on for her or whatever doesn't make her any different than all the other women forced into that lifestyle by Western demand for the sex trade and poverty. Dude, ALL those women deserve compassion and respect, not just the one you have decided for whatever reason is not like all those other whores out there. And quit calling them girls. Some of them are, but Pla is fucking 19 which makes her a young woman.

Gawd. The more I ruminate on that documentary the more I want to vomit.

There are a bunch of dudes at work who make regular visits to Bangkok. Figures.

Someone More Devout Than I

2011-05-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Everything is Futile 'Cuz the World Ends Tomorrow

2011-05-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

So says some whack job Christian preacher. He's got billboards all over the country. I'm sure you've seen them. I mentioned this to Offspring #2 so she could quit worrying about finals. She said: "So what're we supposed to do?" To which I replied: "Cry mightily unto God, of course."

For those of you who may not have heard the whole story, Whack Job Dude says that tonight at 11pm a massive earthquake is gonna start in New Zealand and spread west, going global and hitting the U.S. tomorrow on May 21st. Kinda arrogant don'tcha think? Of Course the U.S. is the absolute CENTER of God's apocalyptic wrath, the absolute CENTER of Armageddon. The illustrious date for the rapture is also in Central Mountain Time. Does this mean the rapture is gonna happen in New Zealand BEFORE 11pm pacific time tonight? Or are the folks down under just fucking screwed? Because Christians down there will hit May 21st before we do, right? So we should know whether all his predictions are horseshit right around 11pm tonight.

It would be awesome if some news station started claiming the devout were disappearing down there.

Some other atheist dude is charging folks to take care of their pets post rapture. Eternal Earthbound Pets is the name of the business if anyone wants to get on board posthaste.

All I can say is I don't wanna go to heaven anyway if there are no dogs there.

Here's What I'm Gonna Do

2011-05-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna roll some of my pre-tax retirement account over into a self directed IRA and flip some real estate. I checked my latest returns from my plan and they were .35 percent. Thats up .35 percent so at least I haven't lost anything lately but I'm pretty sure I can do better than that. I can probably do WAY better than that fixing and flipping something, and this time I'm going multi-family. I don't understand stocks and don't really trust them. I like things I can touch.

I have an appointment tomorrow to see inside a property I drove by today. Its in a neighborhood of stately victorians, and is two houses on one lot that both need some work. I figure I'll fix the back house first then get it rented out while I do the front house. Put it back on the market, rinse, repeat. I'm gonna challenge myself and see if I can turn 75K into half a million by the end of the year.

I feel surprisingly excited to have a project!! I'm back in action!

Oh Yeah. You're Not On Facebook

2011-05-19T01:41:00.000-07:00

I really don't know where to start. Life is crazy sometimes. I've been thinking of getting on twitter, because I like the concept of ranting into the cybervoid in 140 characters or less. I could see myself getting into that, and participating on a regular basis. Fuck Facebook. If there was any one thing contributing to the "surveillance society" it would be facebook. Seriously people. I don't want my shit on facebook and I don't want you to post pics of me on facebook. Fuck Facebook. Do you not see how your participation in Facebook contributes to a surveillance society? Got nothing to hide? Think again. I also have nothing to hide but I don't want every fucken random person including my employers and the TSA or the Feds all up in my business. I repeat myself: Fuck Facebook.

Lotsa shit happening. What do I do all day? I go to the damn job. I come home. I watch HGTV househunters or ANTM or 16 and Pregnant or Parks and Recreation.

Americans, you are not FREE. Its all an illusion. Keep that in mind as you try and pay off your 30 year mortgage and your student loans and whatever the hell else is keeping you from your dreams. Wage slavery is the New America.

Wake Up Call

2011-03-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

I can't begin to express how horrible I feel when I see pictures of the incredible devastation in Japan. I cannot imagine living through something like that. I try to imagine a 30 foot wall of water stuffed with houses and cars coming at me and I just get terrified. Its a wake-up call for sure. I live in earthquake country and we're probably next. Its making its way around the Pacific Rim, slowly but surely. Haiti. Chile. Japan. What's next, Alaska? Then California?

R.I.P to all whose lives were lost in Japan. I wish I could help with the cleanup, or SOMETHING.

And here's what my republican friend said. "YOUR PRESIDENT, just pledged millions of dollars to THOSE PEOPLE." Christ on cracker. I didn't hear her bitching about wasting trillions on warfare but a little humanitarian aid to Japan has her knickers in a twist.

Life is short. Nothing proves that more than the sich in Japan right this very minute.

So Here's Whats Going On

2011-03-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

My spouse is layed up with injuries incurred in a motor vehicle accident, so I'm playing nursemaid and whatnot. Doing all the domestic chores and generally avoiding work on Family Care Leave, which ain't so bad except I have to field nosy questions from the workplace and drive Offspring #2 everwhere on accounta she lost her license due to a "wet and reckless" charge which results in a mandatory revocation for one year if you're under 21. Fuck fuck fuck.

I'm reworking my resume to try and apply for a wild job onboard a ship. Its really difficult to know what to play up and what to tone down to make a career change. I've googled "career change resume" and whatnot, and have come up with a coupla different resume types to represent my strengths and relevant background rather than a chronological summary of my work life.

I have a book called "resumes that mean business" but its from the late nineties so I'm not sure what's the norm in today's market. They recommend something called a "focused resume" with an overview and profile and relevant experience, but I'm so damn old these days I can't seem to narrow it all down. This book says that "its not their job to make sense of your life." I can hardly make sense of it myself. At any rate, I'm on this company's website trying to absorb the culture so I can translate that into my resume without using all the usual boring catch phrases and keywords like "dynamic" and "self-starter" and "proactive" and "problem solver" and all that other shit that puts people to sleep.

Wish me luck.

Is It Ever Really Too Late To Start Over?

2011-03-04T21:15:00.000-08:00

This is a serious question, and one which has reared its ugly head many a time in the last few weeks. I am speaking specifically of a conversation I had with one of those extremely rare people in my life-an enduring friend I can't seem to piss off. (which is a good thing, believe me) Anyway, this ex-door neighbor of mine called me super pissed off about her job and the assholes she works for and proceeded to give me the kind of rant only a good friend would endure.

So what did I do? I tired to encourage her to quit or whatever and do something more meaningful. (Like I should take my own advice!!!) Her response? Its too late, she said. Its too damn late to do something else. She hates the career but feels like she only has four more years so she should suck it up and stick it out. Is it really too late?

So of course I had to ponder my own sich. And I wondered if I have to suck it up also. There is not one person in my life who thinks I should quit my job because I hate it. NOT ONE. I am generally thought of as ungrateful for having such a good job, for having benefits, for having a retirement plan. Who would want anything else, right? I should be happy just to have those things and no matter how soul-sucking the job may be, it can't be that bad because I have income, benefits and a retirement plan.

So I'm throwing this out there-is it ever too late to start over? To reinvent yourself as something else? To attempt to pick up a new career or change the course you are on? I always thought you could do whatever you wanted at whatever age you wanted regardless of ageism and sexism and all the rest of that shit. But the reality is that you only have so long to set yourself up for old age and if you fuck it up, you can end up in a single wide in shitsville.

But at the same time, life is short and its about the journey and if you no longer enjoy the journey, you might as well take a different path. Everyone says "do what you love and the money will follow," but how many people actually follow their passion? How many people even know for a fact what that really is? Am I headed for life in a singe wide in shitsville?

Off Sick Today

2011-02-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

I called in sick yesterday, and probably will today also. I have some low grade flu coupled with major congestion and for some fricken reason my voice is shot.

So....what's going on is that I'm tutoring Offspring #2 in her college Biology class. She is struggling with it, but its a degree breadth requirement and despite the fact that she has absolutely no interest in the topic, she's gotta get it done.

I've always thought Offspring #2 was mildly ADD. There were times when she exhibited classic symptons of it, but then I'd see her drawing for hours or doing something otherwise non-ADDish and I'd convince myself that ADD wasn't it. Besides, she was never a behavior problem in school, which is what usually clues the teacher in to ADD, I suppose.

But then I read an article about how ADD manifests itself differently in girls on accounta how girls are enculturated differently and all. Boys lash out when frustrated or angry, girls turn it inward, so the theory goes. So this article basically said that girls don't get diagnosed nearly as much as boys, and boys get over-diagnosed, despite the fact that rates of ADD are probably similiar in both boys and girls.

So yeah. Offspring #2 probably has some form of ADD. But I'm not gonna make an issue of it because I don't want her on some funky personality changing drugs. I'll just give up my entire next three months of free time re-learning college biology and tutoring. Gawd. Wish me luck!

My Sister is a Bitch

2011-02-10T01:48:00.000-08:00

Its 2am. I'm doing couch potato wine ritual "Lite" tonight, meaning, I'm still on the couch, but I'm not hitting the glass too too much. Takin' it slow, as it were. Offspring #'s one and two are in Offspring # 1's bedroom watching some B movie horror flick-you know the ones....I can hear the sound of women doing shit but I can't tell if they are having an orgasm or getting murdered. Same ol' same ol'.

Anyway....My sister hasn't spoken to me in 6 years. She's a beyotch in the first degree. She makes all kinda moral determinations based on her position of privilege in this world. For example....she's one of those "whats wrong with America today is that families don't all eat dinner together every night!" kinda people. She takes a position of moral superiority over families who DON'T eat dinner together every night because she's in a position to do exactly that. That's all well and good if you have white collar jobs, or Mom stays home to cook those fabulous meals, but if you are like most of the working population, you are probably on shift work, work opposite shifts from your spouse to save childcare expenses, and are subject to ridiculous amounts of overtime. Yeah. Thats pretty much the working folk's hell. You hardly ever get to be a whole family all the time, and you have to carve out some sense of family in that particular paradigm. And you count yourself lucky that at least you aren't a single parent. At least your kids have that-two parents who are still stickin' around. And the LAST thing we need is some self-righteous privileged rich bitch tellin' us we're doin' it WRONG because we aren't eating dinner all on schedule.

So here's how the conflict went down, short version.

Offspring number 1, whose 15 going on 16 at the time, gets pulled over at 10:50 pm, on her way home from a school function. Ironically, I had spoken to her via phone at 10:45, where she informed me they were leaving the pizza parlor and heading back to C's house. I told her she could spend the night at C's if she wanted. Cops are jerks, keep the youth handcuffed until 1:50am, when I get a phone call. The girls are searched in invasive ways, touched up by the cops, female officers are not called. They tell me to come and get "my minor" and I get there to witness a Barney Fife on a power trip telling me my 105 pound teenager needs to be cuffed. Two young teenage boys of color are being humiliated off to the side. A mexican kid and a black kid. Whatever. I take her home and she tells me how they were all kept for over two hours at the hands of the police and the next day I call the dispatchers to check the story. I ask them when the traffic stop was initiated. 10:50, they tell me. I was not called until 1:50, so for three hours, these cops had minor children in their charge, which is totally against protocol. Fucking bastards but who the hell can make an issue of it when you have to go to work and work mandatory overtime as well? Fighting that kind of injustice just takes too much fucking energy, which is then more time away from family.

So....I tell my bitch sister about the incident and she tells me my daughter is a lying sack of shit because what the hell is a 15 year old doing out at 10:50 anyway? 10:50 is too late! She would NEVER approve a 15 year old out at that hour! I tell her to check her privilege because in my hood there ain't no such thing as curfew, the cops are racist as hell, and she can't possibly understand because she lives in a white bread neighborhood with a rich husband in the best school districts in the country. My kids go to school in an overcrowded urban district that is in the worst school district in the entire fucking state and hob-nob with kids from some of the worst neighborhoods in the area. And its not their fucking fault and I'm not gonna be a racist asshole and prohibit my kids from associating with anyone in their school based on their zip code.

So my inability to continue in my sisterly relationship as a dormat led to her not speaking to me in six years, which I can totally deal with, except in addition to maintaining a personal vendetta against me, she has completely cut her picture perfect family off from mine. Including ignoring my Offspring. But I tell ya....her picture perfect family, behind the scenes and elsewhere, is proving to be WAY less than perfect.

She so ays she won't talk to me unless I apologize. For what? Standing up for myself and my family? Refusing to be a doormat? Get a clue. At this point, I have no desire to talk to her ever again.

Oh and for the record....in case anyone is wondering, the car was not stolen, there were no headlights out, they were not speeding, the cops found no alcohol or drugs in the vehicle or on their persons. In short, there was no fucking reason to pull them over other than to harrass them and probably take the opportunity to feel up a couple of teenage girls.

Happy New Year Everyone!

2011-01-23T11:13:00.000-08:00

I know, I know....its a bit late being the end of January and all, but I've really had little to blog about lately. I'm actually typing this on my new laptop-my personal treat for Christmas. Its so nice to have my own computer. Those of you who don't have to share certainly know what I mean!

I got Netflix recently. I swear Netflix rocks. I mean c'mon, ten bucks a month? Unlimited? Thats the best deal going. I got addicted to "Lost." Thats pretty much where I've been. In front of the TV watching Lost. And Dexter. My sister also got addicted to Lost. She decided to limit herself to two episodes a day, which is just like her. She believes in regulating herself, whereas I decided that maybe exactly what I needed at this juncture is to sit my ass in front of the TV and get lost in Lost. As a result, she is still lost in Lost and I am finished. I watched a lesbian flick last night called Desert Hearts. I must say I coulda been pursuaded by that dark haired chick myself.

Thats about it. Offspring number two is working her ass off trying to sell door to door. Turns out she's pretty good at it. I've never been good at sales myself, and don't tend to move in circles with salespeople, but I do know that some people excel at it and she seems to be one of them. I told her to move on to selling yachts. I would imagine the commission is pretty good for those. Offspring number one has one more quarter to get the AA degree and transfer. Four years for a two year degree but whatevah!

I also read "3096 Days," by Natasha Kampusch, which tells the story of her abduction and imprisonment in a secret dungeon cellar at the age of ten. Its very well written, which I did not expect, because being an abduction victim does not automatically make one a good writer, but she does a fine job with illuminating the psychological aspects of both herself and the kidnapper. Natasha got away finally at the age of eighteen, and she took a whole lotta shit from people who didn't find her to be a very sympathic victim for some reason. There was alot of vitriol on the internet directed at her for some reason. People didn't think she was behaving like a model victim. She behaved more like a badass survivor and I guess that didn't sit well with folks who wanted to find an incredibly broken person at the end of it all. Anyway, do get the book if that sort of thing interests you.

New Years Resolutions? I'm keeping it simple. My goal for January is to make a solid decision about work. When to leave, etc. What to do instead.

I'm also working on my personal health, because thats something I have control over that doesn't cost much. I want to get in better shape so my job opportunities will be better, even tho' my plan is to get something non career-ish and part-time. Bartender or something. Maybe I'll hit the road and work seasonal shit. Go to Alaska for the summer. I love Alaska. But that show "Sarah Palin's Alaska" sucks bit time. I mean, I LOVE ALASKA, and it bored the living shit out of me.

That is all.

Looking In the Mirror

2010-12-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

Well another year has gone by and I'm another year older. Always around this time of the year I pause to reflect on what kind of year it has been. Have I accomplished anything of signficance? Am I a better person?

I looked in the mirror the other day, and I know that I was super sick with the flu but still....I honestly looked like shit. And I took full responsibility. I look like shit because I have not taken very good care of myself. I don't exercise enough, and I drink too much. Granted, I'm a wino, not a hard drinker, but I acknowledge that if I don't knock it the hell off, I'm going to look even shittier. I'm out of shape and about 40 pounds overweight. I'm not proud of any of it, but I take full responsibility. Its all my fault for allowing bouts of depression and confusion to get to me, instead of being the kick ass fighter type person I used to be. Where the hell did I go? I fell into the abyss of domestic servitude, thats where.

Its not easy to look in the mirror. It involves looking at everything, not just your physical appearance. It involves facing up to your weaknesses and faults, and vowing to maybe work on some of them. We can all become better people. We can all reclaim ourselves.

So thats where my new focus is. I am going to try and become a better communicator, for starters. I am going to try and ask myself at every moment of each and every day what I can do to get my message across in a better way, in a way that empowers me while still respecting others. I am also vowing to help other people achieve what they want without compromising myself in the process, which is not an easy task. I'm going to try and do at least one thing every day to make our living space nicer. Clean the sink or run the vacuum around or mop the floor or give the fucking dog the bath thats way overdue.

I'm going to change my routine. I actually bid on a different shift at work, just to switch it up a bit. A change is as good as a rest, right?

So right now I'm gonna go wash and de-flea the dog!

Letter To My Credit Card Company

2010-11-18T09:51:00.000-08:00

To Whom it May Concern:

I just received my credit card statement in the mail and I have to tell you this one just pushed my Fuck You button.

30% interest? Are you kidding me? I have always paid this card on time, unlike many in this country who have no problem defaulting or filing bankruptcy to get out from under unsecured debt. Is this the way you treat good credit customers?

Well, you just shot yourself in the foot because I'm transferring this balance over to a card that doesn't jack around their good clients. How does a big fat ZERO percent interest sound?

Have a great day!

The End is Near

2010-11-11T21:50:00.000-08:00

WEll, I think I hit the ceiling at work. I don't want to say the Glass Ceiling, necessarily, but suffice it to say, thats sorta what its looking like.

Without going into all the sordid details, I'll just say this:

I may officially quit sometime early in January, which both scares and excites me.

I'm no spring chicken but I sure as hell am not going to kiss anyone's ass in over-gratitude for the privilege of working a job. I am up against ageism, to be sure, and it kind of scares me to be back in the job market.

But then again, I am not one to stick around when the opportunities dry up, and my career appears to have plateaued.

I think I will work on creating income online, as no one really has to see you, and you can create income on your own merits, in your own time, in your underwear.

Stay tuned.

Hey, Millenial Generation I'm Pissed Off at You!!

2010-11-03T13:59:00.001-07:00

Well, Prop 19, which would have legalized recreational use of Marijuana in California, failed at the polls. ( 56% no to 44% yes.) I am beyond dismayed at how this could have happened, except the general word around here is that it failed due to the underwhelming numbers of 18-22 year olds who turned up to vote. AND due to the people who voted NO because they want to coninue to make tax free income from sales of pot.

Tax-free income. Wouldn't that be nice? I can't seem to get on that gravy train. Maybe I'll drop outta the mainstream, get a medical marijuana card, and grow for a living. Quit paying taxes.

Offspring #2 had a young friend over today. He did turn out to vote, and he voted no because he wants to keep selling it and doesn't want the price to come down due to corporatization of weed growing. The dude is on financial aid at the community college, which basically means tax paying citizens like myself are supporting him. He gets to smoke weed anytime he wants. I don't. I'm a tax paying contributor to society who obeys the laws, and gets drug tested. I don't even work in a safety related function and I get drug tested. So it just chaps my ass that a freeloader who makes tons of tax free money gets to get high and live off of my efforts and I have to keep showing up for work and don't get the same freedoms. My freedom is inhibited, while he does whatever he wants on everyone else's dime, and pays nothing back.

This culture makes no sense. All I want to do is smoke a bowl occasionally when I get home from work. That's all. I don't want to sell, distribute, or anything. Just get high once in awhile.

Fuck you millenials! Get your asses out to vote! And those of you on welfare and financial aid-maybe YOU should get random drug tested. Then you'll be in the same boat, more or less.

Gawd. At least Measure B didn't pass. Thank you citizens of San Francisco! You have my DEEPEST gratitude.

I Attend Job Interview Because of Donald Trump

2010-10-20T13:46:00.001-07:00

Not that Trump gives a rat's ass.

I dragged my 51 year old ass to a job interview yesterday, to compete with a host of crisp dudes right outta college. Its a lateral transfer, but I'd be outside, driving a truck, and wearing a uniform (no duds to buy, yay!). I decided to go for it on accounta I've been listening to a Donald Trump CD entitled "Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and in Life." In said CD, he advises that one must always go outside one's comfort zone and embrace change and new challenges and all that other shit they say on motivational CD's, with a bit of assholery a la Trump thrown in to keep you from totally becoming a fan.

Trump is kind of a scary dude. He's 90% inspiration and 10% asshole. I don't agree with everything he's about, like getting even and getting revenge. He thinks getting revenge will make people respect you; I think it just makes you as shitty as the next person, but whatevah!

Anyway. I only got the notice on monday for a wednesday morning interview and I had to work the swing shift all three days so I was unable to go out and buy new interview duds or get a much needed haircut and since I'm menopausal and my hormones are all fucked up I have a HUGE ZIT on my chin. I mean enormous. AND I'm on my period which means my old shitty interview clothes feel about ten pounds too tight.

But I kept a positive attitude and went anyway. Stuffed my fat ass into my clothes, blow dried my graying hair, put in some eyedrops to keep the whites alive and off I went, listening to Trump talk about success and how-it-all-means-nothing-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things. Really Donald? You're a philosophical guy? Who woulda thought?

What the hell I'm doing trying to take on a new job when I have a pretty cushie number right now is beyond me except that I think I need to shake up my fucking boring ass life in order to be successful at what I'm doing outside of work because I've been in a rut so deep its gonna be my grave if I don't DO SOMETHING. But at least I'm not gonna start digging. You know how it is-you land in a rut and some asshole hands you a shovel.

Anyway, on the CD, he talks about taking risks, going against the grain, using your work as your personal training ground, and going out of your comfort zone. I decided going to this interview and contemplating taking on the responsibility of learning a new job and leaving all I know behind would certainly put me out of my comfort zone, and give me some ooomph to try and succeed in my other business outside of work. Using work as my personal training ground, right?

I'm not passionate about the fact that I've become unproductive at work. At other jobs I've done in the past, I've been proud to be a good worker, someone people could count on. Right now I'm dead weight who keeps showing up. I'm gonna try and let someone have the job who really appreciates it and try and move on.

So I'm listening to this Trump story about how he was in the dark days of financial ruin, owing millions to various banks and how one guy at one of these banks that he owed 150 million to was determined to bring him down. He was supposed to attend an annual gala dinner event full of these bankers at some upscale hotel in the midst of this stressful financial downfall. He did not want to go. He wanted to go home and hibernate and who knows, probably down some scotch or something to forget his woes. But then he changed his mind, put on his tuxedo and, because he didn't think it would be cool to show up in a limo when he owes people millions of bucks, walked ten blocks in the pouring rain, arriving soaking wet to an event where he would encounter the very people he owed millions and millions of dollars to.

So I figured if Trump can do that, I can show up to a job interview with my unruly hair, a zit on my chin, less than perfect attire, and fudge a few of the questions. I kept a positive attitude and soldiered on.

And I actually think I did alright. Trump says you will feel energized if you go outside your comfort zone and guess what? He's right!!

Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life CD

When Do You Kick Out Your Offspring and How Exactly Do You Do It?

2010-10-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Here's my current dilemma. I'm sick to death of my Offspring. I love them dearly but c'mon, how long do I have to wait until they get some semblance of their shit together.

Offspring #1 is now 21 years old. She refuses to work a real job, preferring to deal marijuana to her friends instead. I've laid down the law about doing that out of the house, (not under any circumstances) so she does it by delivery. Recently she joined a network marketing business, but has done zero to promote it. She also is limping along in Community College, with one more semester before she can transfer to State University. If she were "on track" she would be a senior in a four year program, but to date, she still has 3 more classes before she can transfer as a JUNIOR. She spends most of her time lately with her 27 year old boyfriend, an aspiring rap star who has no real job and does nothing on a daily basis to realize the rap star dream. Offspring #1 bought a second car some time ago. Its a piece of shit and promptly after purchasing it, it started to need repairs. I am paying car insurance for two cars to keep her from having them towed and losing everything. This has been going on for, oh, about a year now. Finally, I paid for the repairs with the stipulation that she pay me back when the car sells, just so I can get back to paying for car insurance on one car. (I originally agreed to pay her car insurance as long as she is in college).Repairs are now done. Car sits in front of the house and she has demonstrated no motivation to clean it up, put air in the tires, put a sign on it and go park it somewhere to sell it. I figure I could have had airfare to Belize and back with the unnecessary money spent on the damn insurance. I don't have much support from the spouse in this matter: he pays no attention to the finances and doesn't really care about spending the money.

Offspring #2 is currently sleeping off some kind of heavy partying. She is 18 now, and rolled in the house at 7am announcing that she had to go back to work at 10am. Her alarm went off, she slept right through it, and I tried to wake her to no avail. I finally gave up. Now, she is a year ahead in college, has a job, and goes to the gym every day, but I think she's letting her friends and social life keep her from really attaining her goals. I help her way too much in school, giving her pointers on essays and proofreading shit for her. She got a parking ticket (42$) the other night, lost her glasses (260$) a few weeks ago, got a toll evasion violation (30$) and incurred a charge for missing an orthodontist appointment (30$).

I am so tired of living paycheck to paycheck, barely making ends meet, having next to nothing saved for retirement, and having my Offspring waste my money right and left.

So what do I do when I don't have my spouse backing me up? I'm about ready to get an apartment somewhere and move the hell out of here.

I'm So Fucking Lucky On Accounta I'm Heading to Hawaii

2010-09-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

No Shit. I'm going to Maui for the first time evah!! I'll be snorkeling with turtles, SCUBA diving and forgetting my woes for seven whole days.

I can't really afford it but I'm going anyway.

San Francisco Residents Have the Right to Vote on My Paycheck

2010-09-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

On November 3rd, the residents of the City of San Francisco get to vote to fuck up my paycheck. Its called Measure B, and it would require me to pay 9% of my paycheck into a retirement fund and also pay more for my medical and dental coverage. For me, it would amount to 500 bucks a month for me and Offspring #2. The asswipe who put forth this measure is some dude named Jeff Adachi, who works in the Public Defender's office, and who makes 197K a year and pays nothing for his medical and dental. Of course, his job won't be affected under Measure B.

Public employees who work for the City and County of San Francisco have already made concessions to assist the city with its budget woes. We have had to take pay cuts, forgo cost of living increases, take mandatory furlough days without pay, etc. We have already given back to the City. We agreed to pay 7% into our retirement fund beginning in June of next year. There's no more fat to cut out of our paychecks. And 500 bucks for medical? The last time I even used my medical benefit was over 18 years ago when I gave birth to Offspring #2!!

The part that really gets me is that we don't even make enough money to actually live in the City of San Franciso. Its too damned expensive. The vast majority of us who serve the City of San Franciso; the police, the firefighters, police dispatchers, etc., all live elsewhere and have to commute to provide these public services. So it just galls me that a bunch of wealthy residents get to vote to cut my paycheck. I don't even have a say.

Guess its time to start squatting in my own home 'cuz if this shit passes there won't be enough in my check to pay my share of the mortgage.

I Got Stoned the Other Night

2010-08-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

The night before last I smoked a pipeload for the first time in frickin' YEARS. Seriously, I was a huge pothead in high school but I quit smoking it on December 31st, 1988 and since then, I've smoked it maybe three times, and the last time was well over ten years ago.

I just didn't care anymore. Now I have to worry about the random drug testing at work because as we all know, it can stay in your system for, like 28 days or something.

But I decided I didn't care anymore. I am so sick of my job controlling every aspect of my life. I find it really stupid that I can legally come home and drink myself silly if I want and go to work hung over but if I smoke a bowl the fricken world will end.

Its ridiculous.

Anyway. It was great. And I drank a bunch of water, turned off the "Automatic Income Reducer" aka The TEEVEE, and thought about shit. My brain was working overtime for about an hour and a half, and my thoughts kept coming back to the reality that I definitely have to shake up this boring ass life I'm living.

People are sheep. No offense to anyone in saying that but we all are. We are sold a bill of goods about what it means to live our lives and most of us end up literally the walking dead. Shuffling in to boring jobs, paying thirty year mortgages and never quite getting ahead. Its set up that way so that you MUST do this shit. If it weren't a setup most people would not do the shit they do all day. People who absolutely LOVE their jobs are few and far between. Here's the litmus test:

If you won the lottery would you carry on with what you're doing? I sure wouldn't. So why do I do it? A paycheck. So I don't end up out on the street somewhere getting slapped with a CRAZY label.

What's that saying? Most people are dead by the time they are thirty but don't actually get buried until they are seventy?

Gotta go. Some friend of mine wants to borrow a thousand bucks. She's irritating me lately, and not just because of that.

More later. God ain't if fun to bitch into the void of the blogosphere. Thanks for listening random people on the 'net!

The Hypocrite Vote-Will It Make a Difference?

2010-08-21T12:28:00.001-07:00

The small time backyard dope growers who don't want to lose their income are gonna vote no on the legalization of marijuana in November.

So are the bigger pot growers. I just hope there's enough of the rest of us to outvote those hypocrites.

I can understand not wanting to lose your income but damn, maybe you should not have relied so entirely on something illegal to pad your wallet.

Go to Oaksterdam University and get involved in the legitimate end of the business already. This could be THE INDUSTRY to get in on the ground floor.

I'm seeing pot crops inbetween the grapes. I've heard that pot naturally deters certain insects that are harmful to other crops. They don't like the aroma or something.

All I can say is if it passes, I'm gonna celebrate with a pipeload!

Hot Dog Day Humiliation: A Trip Down Memory Lane

2010-08-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, once a week we had Hot Dog Day at School. We had it at Catholic School, and we had it later on when I transferred to public school. It was a source of excitement for most of the kids in school, but a huge bummer for me. Why? Because I NEVER had Hot Dog Day money. Ever.

Not having money would not have been so bad had I been able to head for the lunch yard solo to sit alone with my crumpled up, ripped paper bag (we had to bring ‘em home to reuse ‘cuz they were expensive) containing a peanut butter and mint jelly sandwich on bread from the “past due” bin at the bakery and a mealy apple. But no such luck, every kid, including me, had to go to the cafeteria where volunteer moms cheerily sold hot dogs and hamburgers with all the trimmings, bags of chips, hostess cupcakes, ice cream bars and whatever the hell else was there. ( I tried not to look too much) Every kid, including me with no money, had to go through the line, smell the aroma of fresh cooked hot dogs, feel the rumblings in the stomach, pass the lunch lady, and pay for their choices. Or not. I just shook my head at the lunch lady and filed past the long table of goodies and went out to the yard to watch other people eat food I never would have in my mouth. Hostess cupcakes? Hell no. Those fuckers were expensive. We ate mongo bags of oranges in my house for snacks, and that shitty puffed rice that tasted like Styrofoam, unless you put a ton of sugar on it. That puffed rice in generic bags the size of king size pillow cases was pretty much the indicator of “not enough money” in my day. Puffed wheat was marginally better.

I was so fucking sick of mint jelly. Somewhere my mom got a deal on a case of it and it lasted for two years. I was also hungry. The nuns used to give me free milk every day and I can feel it now sinking into my empty belly, cold and satisfying. Food was kind of scarce in my house. My mom made chipped tuna on toast for nine out of one can of tuna, that kind of thing. Fresh hot dogs on a Tuesday at school was'nt in the cards.

Later on, in High School, my friends would buy shit at the cafeteria window. The window was where you went to get packaged stuff, or cookies and other foods that you did'nt have to have served up on a tray. I would get in line with them and we’d wait our turn, get up to the window, and I’d stick my head in and say:

“ I’ll have nothing today, thanks!”

And my friends would crack the hell up. Every time.

That Ridiculous Slippery Slope

2010-08-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

If you want to get right down to it, straight marriage is responsible for the slippery slope often cited as a reason to oppose gay marriage. Think about it. If all those straight people didn't think their relationships were so fucking awesome as to warrant special privileges like tax deductions and inheritance rights and all the other stuff that benefit straight folks just for hooking up, then gay people wouldn't be wanting all that shit either.

I say we abolish all those privileges and make everyone go through all the same legal shit and get rid of the tax deductions, etc.

Or give everyone civil unions. If civil unions are so fair, why don't opponents of same-sex marriage want 'em? It would seem they just don't want to be classified in the same group as gays and lesbians. Its homophobia, clear and simple, no matter how much they protest otherwise. I once got into a discussion on a message board with a dude who said he wanted people to know when he said he was married that he had a wife, not a husband. So there ya go. Its all important not to be mistaken for one of those gays! He might have to clarify! God forbid!

Allowing gay marriage will redefine marriage. The usual bullshit spouted off by defenders of "traditional marriage" is that it will take away the definition of marriage as "a union between one man and one woman" but there never is any alternative as to what they think the definition will now become. I find this extremely interesting that they never say the definition will now become "a union between two consenting adults" or God forbid, " a union between two equals." Because that's the crux of the ol'matter right there. The reason no one ever says "opposite sex marriage" the same way they say "same sex marriage" is because "traditional marriage" means something else entirely. "Traditional marriage" is the union of a man and a woman who are inherently unequal with the power differential traditionally shifted in favor of the man.

Don't tell me this ain't true 'cuz I've lived it. Traditional marriage is set up to prop up men. Its codified in the tax structures that penalize wives for working, and in the social security system which screws wives over for having kids. Basically, its everywhere and if gays are getting married, it sorta redefines marriage as a union between two people who are the same, therefore inherently equal.

It totally queers up and challenges the definition of male privilege, which is the cornerstone of marriage, which is the cornerstone of patriarchal society. Gay marriage is a challenge to the status quo of male privilege, and even tho' these folks who oppose same-sex marriage can't probably see it, they feel it to the core. That's why its "traditional marriage" versus "same-sex marriage." Men are threatened by a union where folks decide who does what based on what they want to do or are good at rather than what their gender has assigned them.

Anyway. This post is all off the top of my head, which is what I'm doing for awhile.

What I really meant to write was this:

"Straight people have a right to divorce! So I'm gonna get one and MARRY MY DOG!"

That's my slippery slope for ya.

Learning Race Lessons at The Richmond Plunge

2010-08-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

The Richmond Municipal Natatorium, also known as The Richmond Plunge, will have its grand opening, or I should say re-opening, on March 14, 2010. You can read the history of this fabulous old swim center here.

The Richmond Plunge is a grand old building with a grand old history and pretty much everyone from the city of Richmond and its environs has memories of gold from this wonderful old building located in Pt. Richmond, California. Everyone can remember the beautiful mural on the back wall, and the mushroom fountain in the baby pool. Good times, man, good times.

I learned to swim at the Richmond Plunge. My Offspring learned to swim at The Richmond Plunge, in the ever popular water baby classes. Offspring #1 could dive, not jump, I said dive, off the diving board, swim to the surface unassisted and swim to the side of the pool before the age of two. At the time I was bringing my Offspring to The Plunge, there was yellow tape against the back wall, and you had to "swim at your own risk," and sign a waver or something because the back wall was not earthquake proof or something. Then came the fundraising efforts to save The Plunge, the threat that if not saved, this building that stood for over 70 years might have to be torn down.

For my generation, The Plunge was more than a swimming pool. It was a place where people of all races mixed it up in a time of segregation. I learned to swim there in 1964, at four years of age, in an era when my blue-collar working class neighborhood did not allow black folks to buy houses there. The Plunge was where I first met African American kids, where I first interacted with them, made friends, and shared french fries at the burger joint across the street while waiting for our parents.

I'll never forget a friend I had in one of my classes. Being a good swimmer, I was in "advanced beginner" classes at age five. There was another girl there also aged five, a Black girl by the name of Doundrelle. We were fast friends, enjoying our ten minute "free period" together when the lesson was finished, diving for plastic rings and trying to see who could hold their breath the longest under water.

I recall that she always said "Lets go up under the water!" and I thought how odd it was to say "UP UNDER the water," instead of just "under the water" or "down under the water," but I didn't mind, it was just different. She had a lot of different vernacular, and sometimes I had to ask her what she was talking about, but not very often. It was probably mutual, but little kids don't care about shit like that. I just loved seeing her. She had three short braids that stuck straight out, with plastic "cherries" on the end, a quick wit, and large laughter.

On the last day of class, at the end of the summer, I wanted to ask Doundrelle to come over to my house and play someday, but she wasn't in class. Her brother said she couldn't come because she didn't do the dishes.

I pondered that in my young mind because it represented something completely different to me, something that gave me my first inkling of how the effects of economic disparity affect value systems. Now, I didn't know shit about money or how much Doundrelle's family had compared to how much my family had (which wasn't' much, we were pretty poor) but I recognized immediately a difference in values. You see, my Mother would have insisted I go to swimming lessons no matter what, even if I didn't do a chore or two. To my Mother, swimming skills were absolutely necessary, and besides, having paid "good money" for the classes, there would be no way in hell I would miss them, unless I was in the fricken hospital or something. I'd have to be damn near dead not go to The Plunge for lessons.

But for Doundrelle, swim lessons were a privilege, not to be taken lightly.

I thought about that for a long time. Swim lessons as a privilege, something to be completely appreciated, not abused, not a given.

To this day, I still remember her like it was yesterday.

Bizarre Letter From My Mortgage Lender

2010-08-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

Okay. I have absolutely no fricken' idea why I received this letter from my lender. Basically it states "you owe X number of dollars on the principal on this mortgage note and if you do not dispute this within 30 days you are agreeing to this figure," only it states it in better legalese.

What the hell? The mortgage is current, so I have no clue why they would be sending this notice, but I must say my mistrust of the Corporate Banks that are running this country via the Federal Reserve makes me smell a rat. By the way, the house is 100K underwater.

I am sure there is some ulterior motive on the part of the lender. It could be they are using this as a legal way to circumvent the Homeowner's Exclusion Exemption in the event we default on the note or shortsale the property (as in: you agreed you owe X amount so we can come after you for a deficiency despite what the Obama administration says). At any rate, how is a member of the General Public such as I supposed to know what's up their sleeve?

Well, what does one do when one does not know what the fuck is up? One goes to the Internet for advice.

Here's what I found out:

What the lender has done is to begin something called "Administrative Process," which can be started by anyone. For example, if I send y'all a registered letter saying "Hey you owe me 1000 bucks and if you don't respond in 30 days you agree to this figure," and you don't respond, I now have legal right to collect on this bogus debt. They basically sent me a "debt verification" letter to re-establish that the debt is owed to them and they have a legal right to collect it.

Now why the heck would they need to do that? Unless, of course, they no longer are in possession of the note. Failure to produce the original note has resulted in judges throwing out mortgage debt and reducing it to zero on behalf of some homeowners. And my research indicates that my lender has lost a coupla these cases.

Now, California is a non judicial state, so in order to do this, you have to hire a lawyer and sue, so I'm not sure I want to do that but in the meanwhile, how does one respond to this letter, upon which implications I can only speculate?

Well, here's what I did:

I sent them a registered letter asking them to provide, within 30 days, a copy of the original note and all assignment indicating proof of standing to collect the debt under USC Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 101, Section 207.

Now I wait and see how they respond.

Thank You California!! A Quick Post on Same Sex Marriage

2010-08-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

I want to thank the California State Supreme Court for overturning Proposition H8. What part of "you cannot vote on people's rights" don't the haters "get?"

If gay people marrying is such a threat to your marriage, your marriage was in trouble to begin with.

Oh, and guess what all you folks who oppose gay marriage? Gays and Lesbians already have families. There are already gay and lesbian couples raising children. They are very often raising children no one else wants, children abandoned by former spouses, children in the foster care system, adopted children, not to mention their own biological children.

This is what chaps my ass about the opponents of same-sex marriage the most: that they would deny innocent children the protections that come from being raised in a house hold with a married couple. They would deny innocent children medical and dental benefits of the wage earner. They would deny innocent children the benefit of additional income afforded by the tax deductions hetero families enjoy. There's a ton of other protections afforded to children legally bound to a married couple but I'm too lazy right now to look it all up and articulately render the facts.

I'm just glad the California Judges don't have their heads up their asses.

The opponents of same sex marriage don't give a rat's ass about children at all. They only care about THEIR children.

Politicians Show Up To BADRAP: Girlfriend Forced to Hide Behind Lightpost

2010-08-03T11:13:00.001-07:00

Meet my Pit bull. I call her girlfriend. She's young and pretty and sweet and I LOVE HER! But 'lest you think she is perfect, she's not. She is highly leash reactive, selectively aggressive toward other dogs, and YAPS like a damn chihuahua. She is so leash reactive that I can't take her in public because anything that "looks weird" to her causes her to lunge and bark. She yaps relentlessly at other dogs. I can't allow her to great other dogs because she might or might not start something. She gets along with some dogs and can't stand others, and I have no clue if she will get along or not so I keep her away from other dogs. And if another dog starts something, she is determined to finish it, so I don't get out much with my Girlfriend. She is very LOVING TOWARD ALL PEOPLE.

I waited 7 months to get into BADRAP training classes. BADRAP is the Bay Area's Pit bull advocacy and rescue organization. Needless to say, Girlfriend is not anywhere near being a canine good citizen, altho' she is well behaved at home and knows all her commands. She's just leash reactive and aggressive toward other dogs.

So I show up for "drop in" and there's tons of activity. Open House or something. Apparently politicians from Concord were there because they are contemplating a breed ban. Because of some idiot with 5 pit bulls who didn't socialize or train them or watch his grandson, which led to the death of the two year old who entered the garage where three of the dogs were confined.

So me'n my girlfriend spent 45 minutes behind the concrete base of a light post so the politicians would not witness my yapping asshole girlfriend lunging at other dogs. Because people don't understand leash reactivity and that a dog who is aggressive to other dogs is not aggressive to humans.

Wherein I Find a Coupla Quotes Worthy of Pondering

2010-07-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

This one I found on a card while shopping for a birthday card for Offspring #2. Yay! She's 18!

" You hate your job? Why didn't you say so! There's a support group for that! Its called Everybody and they meet at the bar." -Drew Carey.

I need little reminders like that.

And this one from "Teen Moms" on whatever channel that is that has all the baby shows.

"I really don't want to be with a cheater. But once you have a baby its just really hard to leave." -Amber.

Amber, I'm afraid its set up that way. Its a well planned conspiracy to ensure your domestic servitude. Or should I call it "serve-a-dude."

Amber, your baby is cute as hell!!

And the last one:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies...if the American people ever allow private Banks to control the issue of currency...the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fatheres conquered." -Thomas Jefferson

Whoa! Sound familiar?

The Feds Visit The Beach

2010-07-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

Offspring #1 has a medical marijuana card, as does one of her friends. So they're sitting there on Stinson Beach, up away from most of the beachgoers, enjoying a day in the sun, and outta nowhere Federal Agents descend upon them, binoculars dangling around there necks, reeking smug and satisfied attitudes.

"We have cannabis cards," says Offspring #1.

"We don't care," Say the Feds with noticeable glee. "This is Federal Land and your cards don't count here."

Result: $200 Dollar fine and confiscation of the herb.

Really? Are you effin' kidding me? The Feds have nothing better to focus on other than spying on a couple of peaceable folks enjoying a day at the beach? WITH BINOCULARS?

As I said, I'm not free and neither are you.

Meanwhile, Mexican Drug Cartels are taking over the mountainous coastal areas with big ass 20,000 plant farms hidden on state land. Whatever. I guess going after them is alot more dangerous than picking on a coupla young folk sitting in the sun. Those drug cartels are heavily armed, after all.

LEGALIZE CANNABIS IN NOVEMBER FOLKS! Put the drug cartels out of business. Get rid of the criminal element in the pot industry. I mean, c'mon, its not like keeping it illegal has done fuck all for keeping it out of anyone's hands. Its everywhere, and legalizing it is not gonna make everyone stoned and stupid overnight.

I'm Not Free and Neither Are You

2010-07-23T10:20:00.001-07:00

At Dinner at Chevy's last night Offspring #2's boyfriend casually mentioned that he has yet to register to vote, and also for the draft. Which we don't have, right? Then what's the point of having all 18 year old males register for whatever the hell they are calling it? Apparently if he does not register for this draft thingy he can go to jail.

If thats not evidence the government owns you I don't know what is.

I'm considering a series of rants on the erosion of freedom in the Good Ol' U. S. of A. Stay tuned.

Where I Weigh in Over Much Ado About Nothing

2010-07-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd weigh in on this controversy about Jessi Slaughter, the foul mouthed eleven year old shock jock in this video. 'Cuz that's pretty much what she's doing here: being a shock jock.

Psychologists are weighing in! Parental critics are weighing in! None of it is good! Its sad, some say! She's fucked up for life! Good lord people WHY THE FUCK IS ANYONE SURPRISED?

C'mon. Its absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to keep your children away from this crapped out society we live in, unless you shut yourselves in, don't have a TV, don't work so you can watch your kids all day every day, never let them go to school, never let them go to anyone else's house, never let them read a magazine, in short become a fucking hermit or the Duggars.

Children see violence on TV, in music videos, in movies, on the cover of magazines and more importantly, EVERY FUCKING DAY ON THE NEWS CHANNELS.

They see sex and sexual exploitation in commercials, in magazines, on the Internet on even the most benign sites, in mainstream entertainment and EVERY FUCKING DAY ON THE NEWS CHANNELS.

I repeat. Why is anyone surprised? Are eleven year old girls exempt from using this language because they are eleven year old girls? Would this be so tragic if it was an eleven year old boy saying these things? Do we expect eleven year olds to not know any of this stuff in this day and age?

Puh-leeze! Everyone needs to shut the fuck up, quit cyberbullying this girl and do exactly as she says and FUCK OFF.

Or change this culture, because she's just a reflection of it. The Internet and communication technologies are growing, changing, expanding, and spreading faster than anyone can control it, and faster than anyone can regulate it, and faster than anyone can imagine how to keep kids innocent and sane. That's the problem. NOT Jessie Slaughter.

Oh. And keep them away from this blog, too.

Largely Inarticulate Musings on Various Doors That Can Open in the Whole Anti-Abortion Crusade

2010-07-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

Since I have talked about them on this blog, most folks know I have two Offspring. This makes me intimately aware of what it means to be pregnant, to grow a human being, and to push it out. I’m down with all of it. I have felt the vulnerability of being too pregnant to run to a bus (or from a predator) or even roll over unassisted, for that matter. I know the aches and pains and the colonization of one’s body, the scabs on my nipples from nursing, the pay cut as punishment for having a baby, the PTA meetings, Science Fair Projects, ongoing teenage dramas, other parents who hate you, etc.

After all this, after contributing two quality females to the population, I am still pro-choice. Here’s why.

I’ve heard the incessant sniveling by dudes about having the right to choose to raise a child from an unwanted pregnancy. There are some men who believe that if they want to raise the child and are willing to raise it, then the woman should have to go through with the pregnancy. This seems like a noble argument, (on behalf of dudes, of course, because just try and tell a pregnant teenager she can keep her baby and suddenly its all “adoption is your best choice!) but it stinks because obviously what you are doing is giving men the right to force pregnancy.

Forcing pregnancy is forcing pregnancy, and if you can force it on a woman in the situation of an unplanned pregnancy, you open the door to forcing it in other situations, like in cases of rape, or in the event a husband wants a boatload of children and his wife doesn’t. Are we heading toward a future that looks suspiciously like the past where married women can’t get birth control unless they have their husband’s approval and signature?

If you force pregnancy in cases of rape, you are basically saying rape is no big deal. You are implying that a woman, or a girl, can and should easily move on from the trauma of rape. You are saying that all the physical discomfort of pregnancy and labor and pushing out a child, (which can be extremely traumatizing for some women even in cases of wanted children), is not further traumatizing to victims of rapists. You are legitimizing rape. You are making rape an okay way for men to control women, even more so than it already is. You are making rape a reproductive strategy. Which makes marital rape every man’s right, because damn, if he wants more kids and she doesn’t all he has to do is deny access to birth control and rape her and whose gonna prosecute that?
Forcing pregnancy is taking control of a woman’s body. If you give individual men control over individual women’s bodies by giving them the power to force pregnancy, you also open the door to giving them control over the abortion decision. If he can force the pregnancy, he can also force the abortion. So basically men get control not only of women’s bodies but also of the concept of choice. What they want is of primary importance.

To say that life begins at conception and a fetus has all the rights of a human being opens the door to regulating the activities of pregnant women. You can charge women with child abuse for smoking or drinking or not eating organic. You can jail them for child endangerment for pretty much anything men say is dangerous like riding a motorcycle, flying an airplane, riding a bicycle, working in a factory, carrying anything over 10 pounds, on and on, etc., etc. Pregnant women become micro-managed.

If you can legally micro manage a woman while she is pregnant you open the door to controlling everything she does after the baby is born as well. (in the interests of the more precious child, of course) And if you can micro manage a pregnant woman and you can micromanage a mother, you can justify micro managing any woman on the grounds that she can get pregnant, might get pregnant, and therefore might be pregnant already. So women can be banned from certain activities or professions or any other fucking thing (like voting, maybe? See the patriarchy movement, they actually have that on their agenda) based on their fertility status and nothing else.

Let us just imagine for a minute that all abortion is banned. If you ban abortion and also define the beginning of life as the moment of conception, you now must ban all forms of contraception that prevent pregnancy, as opposed to those that prevent conception. If you ban some forms of contraception, you open the door to banning other (and all) forms of contraception.

Here’s a vision of the future, folks, and don’t think it can’t or isn’t gonna happen.

Contraception is banned, rape is legal, women are property, pregnancy becomes compulsory and therefore the default condition and all women are told what they can and cannot do every moment of every day.

That’s some scary shit.

The Best Thing in LIfe

2010-07-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

Is that no one can read your mind. Seriously. I've thought about this all my life, about how your thoughts are absolutely private and no one can get at them. No matter what you are going through, or what you are thinking in any situation, no one really knows whats going on in your mind. This is a really good thing, and its the one thing you will always have that no one can take away from you. You can sit there in a meeting at work and look straight at your boss and think "what an entitled ass he is" and no one knows. Your thoughts are the key to everything, really. I believe I would kill myself if someone ever figured out how to get inside people's heads. That would truly be the end of civilization as we know it.

When I was a little kid, I used to sit around thinking. It made adults nervous. I would get asked "What are you doing?" and I would say "I'm thinking." This was usually followed up by "Why don't you go DO something?" or "Why don't you go play?"

I always thought thinking was a perfectly valid activity. Funny how they try to squash it out of you.

Watching the Duggars

2010-07-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

The last coupla nights couch potato wine ritual involved a few episodes of "17 kids and Counting." I'm sure everyone is familiar with The Duggars, that weird Christian family that pops out kids every frickin year. I've seen lots of episodes of The Duggars and I'll admit they have lots of their shit together, but if you really study them, there's a bunch of subtext going on.

I'm not sure why I still pay for the high def TV service 'cuz there's fuck all that I watch on TV, and what I do watch is pretty much total shit, or stuff I could probably get on netflix "instant access" for about 10 bucks a month.

Anyway.

Episode 1 was the one where they pop out kid number 18 by C-section. Theres a scene at the end where the whole family shows up to worship the new Jesus Soldier, Jordyn-Grace Makiya, I think her name is. The entire family stares adoringly at the newborn,(in the arms of one o' the older sisters, of course. I never see the new babes in the arms of the brothers, for some reason.) while Momma baby machine lays there inert and drugged outta her mind, totally ignored. An empty receptacle. She actually looks sorta dead. It kind of creeped me out.

Episode 2 was where "the eleven oldest" Duggars (except one sister who stays behind to help the way pregnant Mom Duggar with the rest of the brood)head off to Central America somewhere (El Salvador?)on a do good mission to help po' folks out and earn extra points in the journey to heaven.

They visit families and pass out food, which is great. One family has, like 11 kids and another four that died of starvation or disease. They have no running water or proper sewage or medical care or anything. Chickens and pigs are running around under foot. The Father is congratulated for being such a Great Guy for not running off and abandoning his offspring (like all the other dudes do, apparently). The Mother is not congratulated for anything, despite the fact that her poverty and despair is directly related to her status as a sperm bucket to aforementioned dude. This, I must say, is the first time I have related poverty in my mind to The Absolute Right of Dudes to boink. I think damn, maybe if you jacked off once in awhile it would improve your standard of living somewhat.

The Duggars then visit a coupla orphanages where they pass out stuff. A lot of it is useless plastic crap passing as "gifts." Like a plastic watch thats gonna be worthless as soon as the battery dies. They also pass out food, but damn, whats up with the plastic crap? Is it really in the best interests of these kids to get them worked up over cheap plastic shit that has very little worth in their lives? How about passing out clothes? Talk about teaching crass American consumerism and materialism.

JimBob talks about how maybe one or two of his kids "might one day adopt" some of these kids. I'm thinking: Why don't you and Michele quit popping out more "gifts from God" and adopt a few yourself? And how do these dirt poor and abandoned "gifts from God" fit into the Duggars' religious ideology? If children are truly "gifts from God" and you should "have as many as God gives you," what about all the orphaned kids, JimBob? Where do they fit in?

Gawd. I hope Queer as Folk British Version is on tonight. Gotta go to the Salt Mines (aka work) now.

Gotta Move

2010-06-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

Saturday there was a shooting right in front of my house. Offspring #1 had a couple of friends over and when they left a Black Honda with a white dude and an asian dude pulled up and shot into their vehicle.

For no reason. No fucking reason at all.

The gun violence has escalated over the years, and all of it is perpetrated by young males, aged 15 to 22-ish. Males are fucked up, I mean seriously fucked up.

The Norteno and Sureno gangs, formerly absent from this area, have infiltrated the town about a mile from my residence. Our neighborhood is the first one they come to after a short drive up the main drag.

I want to get the hell out of here and move elsewhere. My spouse is not onboard.

The neighbors blame us, because Offspring #1 has some dirtbag friends.

Its all driving me to drink. I need to formulate a plan.

I can't believe my spouse can just let this go. This is not the first shooting in the neighborhood. My next door neighbor's son was robbed and shot a half a block away, by teenagers. Too many wanna-be baby gangstas around.

When it becomes normal to have a shooting in front of your house, its time to move.

Hallmark Hollidays

2010-06-23T19:58:00.001-07:00

I gotta say it. I hate Mother's Day. I hate Father's day. I hate Valentines Day. I don't celebrate them and I don't want anyone else to either. I couldn't care less if anyone buys me a cheap card or flowers or calls me. I don't want anyone to expect me to do this for anyone else, either.

I'm probably the only one on the entire goddamn planet who thinks like this, but christ on a cracker, I just consider these holidays to be a not so subtle form of social control.

And I refuse to be controlled by a social convention that requires the population en masse, to call up one's mother or father or fuck one's spouse or partner on a particular day and pay homage.

I think you should do those things randomly, when you are inspired to do so, not when Culture fucking demands that you do so in order to fulfull societal obligations that prove you are part of the damn herd.

I resist it totally. I mean, I see my Father once a week, at least. My siblings ignore him for most of the year, but they do call on Father's Day. So Fucking What you pieces of shit. Pay him some attention the rest of the year. You don't have a clue what goes on the rest of the year.

You have no clue that Mom was in the emergency room twice last month or that Dad fell down the hill three times this year, or that he's growing more frail and that Mom is a total pain in the ass and she had better not outlive him or its gonna be hell for the rest of us, the ones who still live locally and deal with all the crap that goes along with aging while you, the wealthy, more successful members of the family live in your big ass houses far far away and forget about all of it.

I digress. Sorry.

So I didn't call my Dad on Father's Day. So what. I'm sure he was busy talking to those offspring who ignore him the rest of the year anyway.

And my spouse says:

"So did you call your Dad on Father's Day?"

"No." I reply. This is followed by the usual bullshit about how I could AT LEAST phone him on Father's Day.

But I'm thinking: First of all, who the hell is my spouse to check up on my compliance with social convention in the first place, and who the hell is he to imply that I am somehow remiss or wrong for my feelings and attitudes toward what I perceive as stupid damn holidays?

God the social control is fucking everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Especially in one's own home. And my spouse uses it to make sure I comply with all the other fucking social conventions like assumed second class status as a Mother.

Needless to say it doesn't work. HAH!

I shall post sans spell check because I want to. Feel free to nitpick at spelling and/or sentence structure or any other grammatical transgressions.

I'm off to the wine cupboard! Two buck chuck for all!

Small Pleasures

2010-06-23T19:39:00.000-07:00

I have discovered a new gay channel on TV. I can't recall what they call themselves except that they have the British Version of QAF!!! Thats Queer as Folk, for the uninitiated. Apparently it is the original version, the one that inspired the U.S. version.

I discovered said program during a late night couch potato vodka ritual and I can't tell you how happy I was because I was almost gonna subscribe to netflix to check this gem out. And its totally worth it, since I am familiar with the U.S version, and checking out the parallels and spotting the same characters is really interesting.
The British version is way grittier and the people are far less pretty and have notoriously British teeth. Teeth that have not been "fixed" like Hollywood movie stars. (I swear when I saw the last twilight movie I thought I was gonna be blinded by the whiteness and straightness of everyone's fucking teeth.) The hot-boy-who-sleeps-around-and-fucks-everyone (called Brian in the U.S. version) has positively crooked teeth. And the role still works!!!

Its also very unpolitically correct, by U.S. standards. Check it out, y'all. I'd post a link if I were a better blogger but I suck so, okay, whatever.

Well I'll Be Damned, Life Is Looking UP

2010-03-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

Back in 2007, I started tracking my net worth. Or lack thereof, which has been the case, unfortunately. I created an excel spreadsheet and set some financial goals for the first time in my life. I did a recap every quarter to see where I was financially. Needless to say, I watched my net worth plummet into the negative realm over the next three years, and pretty much abandoned the spreadsheet for all of 2009.

Last night at work I decided to pick it up again.

After all the worrying about how to pay the tax bill resulting from the shortsale of the vacation home that was supposed to be my ticket out of soul sucking job hell, it turns out we lost so much money that it cancelled out the big fat 1099!! Halle-fucking-lula! We're getting money back!! WTF!!! is all I can say, besides being ironically grateful we lost so much money.

Anyway. I took out a prosper loan to pay off the credit cards. Prosper rocks. I now have an interest rate that is less than half of what the credit card companies were charging, a monthly payment that will not change, and more importantly, none of the games. No changing the due date without telling me so they can declare me late and charge a late charge and jack up the interest rate. No arbitrary fucking with the credit limit. I'm done with the banks. I'd rather pay interest to random strangers on the internet. Check it out. http://www.prosper.com Also, if I make only the payment, it will be paid off in less than three years. I can see getting it paid off quite a bit sooner if I pay extra.

So I pulled out my financial tracking spreadsheet and filled it in and discovered that I actually have a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting out of this depressing shithole of debt. I can't tell y'all how frustrating it is to work at a soul sucking job that robs you of your time and energy and never seem to get anywhere.

And then have everyone tell you how lucky you are. I do realize I am in a position of privilege to even have a job. To have health benefits and a retirement plan. But still. Why should it be necessary to sell your soul just to get by?

Hardly anyone "gets" where I'm coming from. Makes me feel like a freak.

The long and short of this boring post, if you've read this far, is that I can see quitting my job within a year. God that reality feels good.

Question of the Day

2010-03-16T13:49:00.001-07:00

Am I the only person in the universe who watches "Ru Paul's Drag Race?" Its so cheesingly low budget but damn I love those queens.

Life Begins Anew

2010-02-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

Offspring #2 finally passed her driving test! I told her I would not pay for any "stupid tickets." She's already got one. For parking in the faculty lot at the Community College.

I'm taking a class in Group Travel. I thought it would give me an insight as to whether I want to go into being a Tour Leader or something. I don't feel like going tonight. My back hurts and I'm disinclined to sit for three hours in a hard desk.

I really just want to be independently wealthy, with passive income from a source that does not require my actual presence.

To that end, I've started an affiliate business which I advertise over the internet, driving people to my replicated website. It has huge potential. I'll keep ya posted if I figure it out.

I have a friend who says I have a mind like a steel trap. "If anyone can figure it out, you can," she says. I appreciate the compliment. I know a bit about internet affiliate marketing, and with the right budget for advertising, I think I can make it happen, albeit slowly.

At any rate, I'm quitting my job within the next year. Life's too short to spend it doing soul killing shit. Besides, the IRS is not getting any money from me for that short sale. What crap.

The bank, who dragged out the shortsale process (charging me interest the whole time) and rejected two bigger offers until the only offer was 60k less than the original one, has issued me a fat 1099.

And Life goes on. The shortage of posts is because my workplace has now prohibibited us from going to all social networking sites. They are tracking it and will approach you if they detect any shopping, networking, porn use, or something called "illegal, suspicious" whatever that is.

I may be abandoning my blog infavor of doing facebook and twitter and all that jazz to build my internet business. I'll let ya know, jus in case anyone out there actually gives a shit.

Fun and Games at the DMV

2010-01-18T13:26:00.000-08:00

Offspring #2, who, as some of you may be aware, has failed her behind the wheel driving test three times. Which basically means I am far more intimate with the DMV than I ever would have hoped to be. Anyway, the latest saga, which took place last week, is like something out of the twilight zone. Its as if theres some force in the universe that wants to prolong my career as "taxi driver to the teens," a force that is equally determined to keep Offspring #2 from behind the wheel.

Anyway. Offspring #2 had her fourth driving test scheduled for the 13th. A couple of days prior, she had another session of driving instruction (cha-ching,cha-ching, another hundred and twenty bucks out of my pocket) and the dude said she probably wasn't' ready. I concurred but Offspring #2 wanted to have a go at it anyway.

So. We get in her car, because I no longer have my registration card since it disappeared with the envelope containing all her driving documentation, permit, etc. This envelope containing said important papers was placed, by me, very carefully in the glove box of her car, since I knew it had to be kept in a safe place and I figured she would be taking the test in her car, so what better place to put it? Well, it mysteriously disappeared, jut got up and walked away. Of course, its my fault, but it couldn't have squat to do with the 420 smoking sessions in there now could it? I had to replace all that documentation, however, I decided to skip getting my registration replaced, because I knew eventually I would have to pay up again, and get a new one.

But I digress. Back to last wednesday, the 13th.

We are heading to the freeway in Offspring #2's car when she gets a call on her cell phone. She's driving and she answers it, which is a total violation of the rules but okay, whatever. Its her boyfriend, who is in a car right behind us. He informs us we have a tail light out. You can't take the driving test with a tail light out.

We go home to get my car. I inform her that she may not be able to take the test because I no longer have my registration card, but the tags are on the plate, so maybe we could slide on that. We jump in my car, which is full of books and water bottles and the windshield needs cleaning. I throw shit in the backseat and hope the examiner doesn't take it personally.

We get to the DMV 15 minutes early. There's an Angry Bitch at the drive test window. "Proof of Insurance and Registration," she says curtly. Oh. Shit. I forgot the insurance and have no registration. I tell Angry Bitch. She says: "It clearly states you need both." I mutter something about being sick and forgetting, thinking we can't do this test today. She says: "You're sick? Well I AM TOO!" And glares at me. She adds: "Look, I can look up the insurance but you're gonna have to get a copy of the registration. And you only have a five minute grace period."

We go stand in line. Hella long line, but I get up there with ten minutes to spare. I tell the Dude I need a copy of my registration. He slaps some paperwork down. "Do I need to wait in line again once I finish this?" I ask. He slaps a number down. "They'll call you." He says.

An hour and half later, I get called. 18 bucks for the registration card. I mention that we missed a driving test because I did not have the registration. "Oh no she didn't!" says the woman at the window. "That bitch didn't check you in?" She gestures to Angry Bitch at the drive test window. "Oh hayell no! I'm gonna get the supervisor!" She goes and gets the supervisor, who tells up we can come back at 1:30 when the examiners return from lunch and they'll fit us in.

We go to lunch. Come back to the DMV and get in the drive test window line. Angry Bitch is gone. Another woman checks us in, but says there's a problem. A tree has fallen on the vehicle of a previous applicant, totalling the car and blocking the drive test queue. No one can queue up for the test until the CHP arrives, takes a report, and the vehicle and tree are removed. "But she passed and everything," she tells me of the applicant.

We watch the scene. I can't believe both the examiner and the applicant survived with no injuries because theres a big ass tree branch right through the car, front seat and dashboard squashed. It takes an hour and a half to get a crane in to lift it out, chip it up, then a tow truck to move the vehicle. Finally people queue up for the test. Offspring #2 is fifth in line.

Finally, its her turn. I get out and go into the DMV to wait. I glance away for a second, then turn back to see the examiner motioning to me. I go outside and she says:

"You have a tail light out."

Christmas

2009-12-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

I can't believe its Christmas Eve 2009. This was, for me, the fastest year on record. I set no goals for this year. Looking back, what I accomplished was the sale of the cabin, and I paid the credit cards down by 14,500 bucks. My credit took a bit of a hit with the shortsale, but it appears to be rebounding and as soon as the year officially ends and the tax crap comes, I will know how much money I need to come up with for the tax consequences. I can't believe I'm getting taxed on investment losses after bailing out those damn banks. I'm kind of sick of this country, to be honest. I don't consider myself to be either Democrat or Republican. And I'm bored as hell with Obama. Every concession he makes seems to be at the expense of women.

Soon it will be time to think about what to accomplish next year. I feel like my hands are tied until Offspring #2 manages to pass the driver's test. Theres a 2005 KIA sitting in the driveway with her name on it. It's got 82K miles on it and cost 2900 bucks. I've had some people with no kids admonish me for getting her a car. People with no kids are always the experts on raising them, for some reason. But I tell ya, there's no way in hell I want my girls taking public transportation in my neck of the woods. Especially late at night. The transit hub most lines pass through is downright dangerous. Besides, having a car opens up more employment opportunities, which is important in this economy. Offspring #2 is saving us a bundle on college tuition what with being a concurrent enrollee (technically she's a high schooler, tuition is one dollar) so getting her a car is okay in my book.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Watching "The L Word"

2009-12-22T10:50:00.000-08:00

I've switched to red wine.

Not that switching to red wine means anything really, but for some reason, I drink less with red wine. Two glasses and I'm happy. That's a good thing for my nightly couch potato wine ritual. I shall take my small successes where I find them. And its cheap burgundy to boot, but hell it tastes pretty good.

The downside is I tend to sip it slowly, which keeps me up later. Like, until 3am last night.

Anyway. I'm old enough to remember the inception of cable television, like Showtime and HBO. Back in the day, you had to buy a special box to get Showtime and HBO. My family couldn't afford it, but my best friend had it. She even figured out some special code you could scramble up the box with by pressing a sequence of numbers simultaneously in order to get HBO when you were only paying for Showtime. You had to use two hands to do it. I remember there was a smut channel also. For men, of course.

I still don't get Showtime. But I do get LOGO, and I tend to watch it. I love that show "Queer as Folk." My spouse won't watch it. He's typically homophobic. Gay people watch straight shit all the time but God Forbid a straight person should watch gay themed shows. Or that a man would watch "women centered" shows. You know, "chick flicks" etc. Straight white males are so egocentric.

So last night I went to LOGO looking for QAF, and found "The L Word." I've heard about this show, but have never really seen it. I've heard criticisms of it, like its "too L.A.," the women are "too pretty," "not realistically lesbian," etc.

I was skeptical when I heard the first character speaking. She had one of those "squeaky" SoCal voices. Now, I'm not trying to bash on y'all from SoCal, but I swear, I went down there for some job training once, and every single woman I spoke to from the supermarket checker to the cop who pulled me over had a squeaky voice several octaves higher than my sisters up here in The Bay. I think its a regional thang, but I digress.

Well, I think I'm fucking hooked. I can't think of any show were there are that many women characters whose lives don't revolve around men or their kids. My god, scores of women doing shit like working, and playing basketball, and having dinner and not a man in sight!! Hall-e-fucking-lulah!

Watching that show made me extra sensitive to how shitty the rest of T.V. is for women. How shitty Hollywood movies are for women.

Thank God for "The L Word." There's women working in Hollywood besides Meryl Streep!

Yet Another Random Media Encounter

2009-11-26T21:39:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in awhile, obviously. I've wanted to but I've had to stay away on accounta I'd rant about all the shit that's gone down lately, like, you know, the famous gang rape in Richmond out here in Cali. I don't think I even need to link to that shit, 'cuz everyone on the planet has probably heard about it. It happened down the road from my neck of the woods, and Offspring #2's best friend knows the victim. I can tell you this much: the reality of the assault was even more brutal than was reported in the news. I swear, its a damn good thing I don't own a gun, because I swear I'd probably kill someone.

So. I'm gonna bitch about some stupid show I saw on T.V. the other night. Maybe some of you have seen it. Its called "Medium," and its about this crazy woman who can talk to the dead. Or she gets messages from the dead, I guess, normal medium stuff except members of the police force actually listen to her crazy talk, 'cuz she's always right. Unlike an actual medium. She might be a detective herself in the show, I can't really say because I've only seen in a few times and besides, I'm watching what's really going on in this show and not what they want you to believe is going on. Make sense?

This medium, whose name I can't remember, which is really lame blogging but okay whatever, lives with a dude who never seems to have any conflict with her depressing crazy messages from the dead or her impossibly time consuming schedule. He happily listens to her shit and takes care of their two female offspring without complaint and never seems to have any of his own shit to do. You know, A Totally Fictional Dude. These observations, by the way, are based on a sum total of maybe two whole episodes viewed by me, so take it for what its worth.

As I've said, I've seen this show before, and I don't remember it being this bad. I like shit like "Psychic Detectives;" shows that actually depict psychics sensing stuff that actually happened, reality type psychic shows, not this fictional drama crap. If this episode weren't so creepy, I would have sat there and laughed. It was THAT ridiculous.

The basic premise was this: A ghost murderer from the past inhabits some dude's mind so that ghost murderer can continue to commit the murder of young teenage girls long after he has actually died. The show kept flashing back to scenes of bygone horrific murders of young women. (of course!), then going back to the present, where the worried Ms. Medium tries to figure out why she's seeing this shit. A nice opportunity to normalize horrific violence against women. Get used to seeing it folks, 'cuz there's more coming. She doesn't really react to the violence, the killing, because its, well, the same shit on a different day, like in the past.

Ms. Medium finally figures out that this murderous ghost is trying to kill again by possessing the mind of his grandson or great grandson or whoever the hell he is, and guess what? Inflicted Dude looks just like Ghost Murderer!

Break to interlude of interview with Hot Teenage girl. "He told me he wanted to see how it looked to run his scalpel slowly across my creamy thigh!" she exclaims pornographically. (Or something similar, I didn't write it down) From normalizing violence against women we go to fetishizing violence against women.. Its the natural course of events, dontcha know.

Anyway, the Inflicted Dude suddenly becomes a sympathetic character because he's possessed and therefore any violent transgressions are not his fault. Poor guy. Can't help himself, obviously, and he is doing drugs and alcohol to keep the voices in his head in check. How noble of him.

So for some reason Poor Inflicted Dude goes out drinking with Hot Teenage Girl, and of course there's nary a nod to the impropriety of THAT.

Hot Teen Girl ends up dead. There's a scene of Ms. Medium's female offspring sobbing in front of the television where she's watching it unfold on the news. Ms. Medium shoots her a weak look which really means: "get used to it hunny bunny 'cuz there's more killing of girls gonna happen whether you like it or not." Fictional Hubby Dude chops veggies or something in the background, saying nothing, as usual.

I am sitting on the couch with my female offspring watching on television someone else's female offspring watching on television the murder of a female; she is simultaneously being acculturated into the inevitability of female murder through that television while I and Offspring #2 are simultaneously being acculturated into the inevitability of the murder of females ourselves. Get it? Like one of those pictures within a picture within a picture that go on and on forever. It makes my head swim and I don't even need to be drunk. Fuck if this message isn't PERVASIVE to anyone who thinks about it for half a second.

Mad Twist at the end! It is discovered that the Inflicted Dude is not responsible! Hot Teen Girl's wounds are SELF INFLICTED! SHE was possessed by the Murdering Ghost Dude during the drinking episode and stabbed herself. God almighty. We're set up to feel sympathetic to the Inflicted Dude because he's not responsible for anything while being possessed, but the Now Dead Hot Teen Girl is totally responsible. If it ain't the Double Standard! This brings the usual victim blaming to a whole nuther level! Fucking brilliant indoctrinational propaganda!

Everyone sighs with relief. Poor Inflicted Dude is Not Responsible. The resolution is for the Dude. Nothing resolved for Now Dead Hot Teen Girl. She self inflicted her wounds. Dead girls are a dime a dozen after all. No thought or discussion of how to stop the Murderous Ghost from possessing another girl and having her kill herself. This Murderous Dude cannot be stopped. He's a ghost, after all. Something that may not even exist. Something that cannot and will not be stopped. There is no resolution. Its a metaphor. The killing of girls will go on and on and on and they will be responsible for their own deaths!

That show has totally jumped the shark.

But damn. Is it any wonder that events like the one in Richmond, California where violent fuckwad males raped, brutalized and beat a teenage girl for over two and a half hours occur? Horrific violence against girls and women is American entertainment!

I don't know how many people have said of the Richmond victim, "she should have known better. Why was she drinking?" At the same time I have heard "what do you expect of them what with all that alcohol in the mix?" Same old Double Standard. The presence of alcohol holds a girl responsible for her behavior, while it simultaneously excuses the behavior of men.

Okay, this turned into somewhat of a rant after all.

Guaranteed Internet Forward Fails

2009-11-03T18:34:00.000-08:00

I got one of those things I call "girlfriend forwards" the other day. You know the ones. The ones I can't possibly imagine any dude sending to anyone. The kind of forward that demands that you send this message to ten of your friends and something good will happen, fail to do so and you will die sort of forward.

This one came from a friend who doesn't usually send those sorts of things, and the difference in this one was that the it was guaranteed! And the time frame was so specific: tell me what happens tomorrow at 1:00. Okay, I think, I'll make an ass of myself and play along just this once. So I send this sappy floating angel forward on to ten random females in my address book. And wait.

Today rolls around. Here's what happened at 1:00.

Offspring # 2, whose determined to be an actress, has a photo shoot in the afternoon for new head shots. She's in crisis over nothing to wear and I'm late for work already. She's in the shower. "But MOOOMMMMMM I NEEEEED YOU!" she implores from behind the bathroom door. I glance at the clock and search through her dirty clothes bin, looking for something. She comes out and declares herself a loser. I find some skinny jeans, a bright yellow deep V-neck T-shirt that happens to be clean, heels that match a trendy necklace. It looks good and I manage to convince her so. I make an appointment with some gal at Macy's to do her makeup. Fifty bucks and she promises me "product." I have no idea what that means but I book it anyway because I'm the lamest female alive when it comes to makeup. Seriously. The lamest.

I call work and tell them I'm going to be late on accounta my newly spayed loopy pit bull puppy on drugs has escaped and I have to go find her. Co workers agree to cover my ass. Twenty minutes later I'm in the car on my way to work, where I arrive a good hour late. The Boss is there and I have to repeat the pit bull on pain killers story, this time with embellishments. I'm a pretty good liar when I have to be.

Gawd the things I do for my offspring! Fucking Hell! Where the hell was my lucky angel?

Apparently the photo shoot went well. Now I can break the news that I have YET ANOTHER driving test scheduled for her. Give her something new to stress over.

Another Random Media Encounter-Ardi

2009-10-20T19:38:00.000-07:00

My email program has been fubar all day, which is a pain in the ass because I've started this new money making venture and I keep checking my email to see if I've drummed up new business. I'll let y'all know if it works out in the end, its a combined multi level thang with affiliate overtones and I've already got a person in my downline but I'm not one to harass people to get onboard anything so I'm not gonna go into detail.

Anyway. I left work a bit early last night and came home and hit the couch. I had planned on a truncated couch potato wine ritual since I wanted to get up early and do some cold calls. As it happens, there was this special on some channel about this new archaeological discovery, the oldest female skeleton on the planet apparently, some kind of missing link they're calling Ardi. 4.5 million years old, I guess, and she walked upright but still had ape thumbs so she could still cruise through the trees. They depicted her all hairy except for these scary white hairless boobs. Okay, whatever. I'm not going to make some nicely articulate analysis here because, well, I don't feel like it.

I love major scientific discoveries like this! But I can't stand the stupid way they interpret shit. (must have been the discovery channel) They had her all up in this nuclear family bullshit. Here's the theory:

Ardi chicks for some inexplicable reason stopped going for the bad boys with the big teeth and started giving time to the "Nice Guys" instead, because they all switched to a predominately vegetarian diet. (as evidenced by the ground down primary canine teeth, whatever they're called) Nice Guys who agreed to carry lots of fruit and veg, (which made them begin to walk upright) got to stick around and have sex. Well what they actually said was that it was an exchange for "regular sex." Then they showed re-created scenes all picture postcard perfect of happy submissive Ardi gals totin' offspring while Nice Guy hubs toted fruit and veg.

I mean gawd almighty. Even four and a half million years ago they've got us pegged as the sex class. Food in exchange for pussy, what else are females for? Where's the archaeological evidence that Ardi dudes had perpetual boners and needed "regular sex?" Didn't most species go into heat? That seems more likely to me. And I'll bet my bottom dollar that it was the females of our species that started standing up. I'll bet it had something to do with making pregnancy shorter.

What a complete and utter load of crap. I almost felt like slinging the cheap plonk at the widescreen. Except I didn't.

Alpha Female Smackdown

2009-10-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Offspring #2 has been accused by her ex-boyfriend's father of "trying to wear the pants."

This incident occurred because she refused ex-dude's 2am request to walk over to his place, saying "hell no I'm not walking over there. If you want to see me you can come over here."

It seems like anytime a strong independent female exerts power over her own destiny and makes choices outside of What The Dude Wants, she must be put back in her place.

I resent the dude's Dad, an adult male, telling my Offspring how she should or should not be or do or act. Her decisions will remain her own and he can keep the hell out of it.

Fucking Jerk.

The New Me Rejects Doormatitude.

2009-10-10T09:38:00.001-07:00

I have a friend I'll just call J. I love her for some fucking reason I can't put my finger on. Its just the energy between us I guess, energy that was there from the first moment our eyes met. She is the one woman on this planet I would dump The Spouse for in a hot minute. That said, she claims to not be lesbian, and at the same time lives with a woman I'll call S. S and J just upgraded to their second home in a better location, with acreage. They've been together a long time. I've never met S and J seems to want to keep it that way. Its an odd friendship I have with J, what can I say.

Anyway, I got an email from J complaining about doing all the work involved in the big move and how S is apparently not pulling her weight in the whole shlepping shit out of the old house into the new one thang and not cleaning and painting, and procrastinating about sorting through shit. Now, my first response was to offer to help. I would pretty much do anything for J.

I am so glad I thought this through before responding to her email. Because I decided I was of two minds in the whole thing. Let me 'splain.

Mind number one: This is the mind that irrationally loves J and wants to tell her how fucking awesome she is, how much she brings to the table, and how lucky S is to be teamed up with her, because I really do believe that. This the mind that ruled the Old Me who would do anything for this woman who is out of my reach. This is the mind that wrote an email to that affect and almost hit the send button with that shit, until mind number two kicked in.

Mind number two: This mind said hold on a minute, you don't even know S. You don't know what she brings to the table. Since J has all the "dude skillz" maybe S does all the crap work, you know, the labor usually dumped on women that's been Free to All since the dawn of domestic drudgery, and therefore is undervalued. Maybe J can be an asshole and a control freak. J obviously didn't buy that new place all on her own, so S must bring something. Mind number two also reminded me that Once Upon a Time when I tried to tell J why I hated the whole marriage game, she accused me of being ungrateful, unsupportive and not standing by my man, this after a sum total of two conversations with my spouse juxtaposed with fourteen years of loyal friendship.

So. Based on the battle of two minds, I was faced with three options:

Option number one-Tell J how awesome she is and how much she brings to the table and how lucky S is.

Option number two-Defend S the way J defended my spouse and risk pissing J off.

Option number three-Stay the fuck out of it.

I chose option number three. And I didn't offer to help. Why should I pick up the slack for S? S benefits from what J brings to the table, not me. I initially offered to help them move, that's enough. The Old Me stroked J's ego. The New Me won't anymore.

I still love J. I'm just yanking the doormat element out of our friendship.

Freeway Musing

2009-10-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

Traffic where I live has a habit of coming to a grinding halt, parking lot style. We consider this normal. Those of us who commute cope with it in various ways. I usually get on the cell phone and take care of keeping in touch with people while I zone out. Its fucking ridiculous. You literally inch along breathing in traffic fumes and convincing yourself "its my downtime," in order not to go batshit crazy.

Anyway. One day I didn't have anyone to call and I left my fave CD's elsewhere, so I entertained myself by looking around at the other motorists. At one point a fancy jaguar pulled up next to me enveloping in its grandeur four rich babes. They were super coiffed. You know what I mean. Hairdos, makeup, facelifts, girl clothes, nails, etc. The whole nine yards. And they looked wealthy. Superfucking wealthy. They also looked kind of stiff and restrained somehow.

I glanced over and one of them glanced back. There I was in my Public Sector Business Casual wear and my crappy family-car-thats-also-good-on-gasmobile. Workin' gal, no makeup. She looked at me and I looked at her and I thought:

Look what the hell you have to go through just to be rich. I hope the compromise is worth it. Sellout!

She looked away and I pulled ahead. But it made me wonder: Do rich women play the femininity game to a greater degree than poorer women? Do the ones with rich husbands have to do all that crap to maintain the status quo? I don't think I've ever seen a rich woman who didn't play the femininity game, and I think that indicates something.

Shit. Maybe I'll get rich if I put on some fuck me pumps and a pencil skirt.

Random Thoughts for Sunday

2009-10-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've taken a break from reading about NLP, and am now reading Getting Played: African American Girls, Urban Inequality, and Gendered Violence about violence against girls in the ghetto. Its an academic study, with first person narratives. An interesting point made in the book is that when studies of violence in poor urban areas are conducted, the focus is generally on violence perpetrated by males against other males, violence resulting from gang activity, drug dealing, etc. Since crimes like rape, gang rape, and domestic assault are mainly unreported, violence against girls is largely invisible. So fucking typical. The focus is always on men. No one gives a crap about girls. Misogyny is everyfuckingwhere.

I've been doing some research to determine the feasibility of moving on from my job. I consulted my tax lady for a ballpark figure of how much of an impact the shortsale is going to have on our taxes, and found out we will probably have to come up with about 11K, which might as well be a million bucks 'cuz we don't have it, but its less than I thought. Add to that about 16K in credit card debt, and the reality of sticking with the job is, well reality. At least for now. So I've decided to stop all contributions to my 457 plan in favor of trying to pay off all this shit before June of 2010. I also found out that if I quit my job before June of next year, they will cash me out half of my sick pay. Which is about 5K at the moment.

NLP says to focus on what you have, rather than what you do not have. And what I have is a small retirement payout, if I take vesting retirement at age 50, this December or after. I also have permanent enrollment in the Health Services System, which is HUGE. Presumably, I have medical and dental benefits for the rest of my life. And I have a small 457 plan.

I was reading on another blog where one of the commenter's mentioned how important it is for women to take care of their own financial well being. I have to say that despite the fact that I don't have as much as my spouse has in terms of retirement pay and social security because he's been working steadily for 30 years, whereas I took a bunch of time off to care for kids, (which isn't considered all that important by society no matter how much lip service they pay to motherhood, if it were important they would credit you for social security) I no longer regret going to work. For a long time I felt conflicted. I wanted to be with my Offspring, not at work. But now, I see how my efforts in the labor force have helped me to be in a position where I can actually consider dumping The Nigel and doing something else job wise. I have the privilege of contemplating options. My economic power also forced him to be less of an ass over the years. There was a tangible understanding on his part that I could support myself. We were equal breadwinners, and now I actually have some resources to work with.

I got excited about a job I heard about, with another agency. I missed the application deadline, but there's movement in that agency, so I'm going to keep my eyes pealed. I think that instead of focusing right now on job freedom, I'm going to focus on paying off debt, then building some savings, and creating some passive income. I think I'll be in a position to choose something different by June of 2010. That's the goal. In the meantime, I'm either going to transfer to another department, or find another job. I can't believe I failed to see that there can be a simple solution: find a different job.

Its amazing how when you get into a rut you lose perspective. You get into that rut and then you start digging. And no one notices you down there and if you don't watch out, they can start piling the dirt on. Its amazing how one asshole can fuck up your whole life by fucking up your job.

NLP and Me, OR Blog Protagonist Takes Responsibility

2009-09-27T14:11:00.001-07:00

I was jumping around the feminist blogosphere the other day, and as is often the case, I happened on a link to some MRA asshole's blog. The kind of asshole who is into the whole PUA (pick up artists) movement, which incidentally seems to intersect with a whole bunch of anti-misandry dewds.

Anyway.

I was interested to note that some of these PUA's use neuro-linguistic programming to assist in their manipulative seduction rituals. Now, I'm not really interested in manipulative seduction techniques, but I became interested in learning what NLP is and what it means in terms of influencing people.

So because of some asshole's anti-feminist ranting I ended up at Amazon where I purchased Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies .

I'm only one chapter into it, so I am by no means an expert, but I learned that NLP is not only conducive to influencing OTHERS, but in influencing ONESELF. Hmmmm, methinks, maybe there's another something here.

So the whole dealio seems to be more of the "glass half full" positive thinking stuff, along with some of "The Law of Attraction" thrown in, albeit with a slightly new slant, and better directions.

Basically, the mind and the body are connected, and language influences the mind. If you want to make a change, you have to shift the mind.

Desire for change usually stems from dissatisfaction with something. A problem of sorts. To change the situation, you must shift the focus from Problem Oriented Thinking to Outcome Oriented thinking. Outcome Oriented thinking is more productive, because to eventuate an outcome, you need to go through some kind of process to produce it, and you are more apt to identify this process if you are focused on the Outcome you want rather than the problem you have.

So, methinks. Identify desired outcome. Figure out what you need to make it happen. Go do it. Voila!

Well, there's a bit more to it than that, but that;s the nutshell version. For example, part of identifying the outcome is knowing WHY you want that outcome. For example, in my sich, I want Financial Freedom so I can be Free from my Job. But do I want to be free from ANY job? Or just the one I have now? Interesting question. I shall apply said NLP self-examination techniques to my own personal sich in a further post.

See how checking in with asshole MRA blogs can actually be informative and productive? Who woulda thought?

I Suck At Work. But Y'all Know That.

2009-09-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Really. I Totally suck.

We had an "annual meeting," wherein Asshole Control Freak hyped up the merits of a couple of departmental promotional opportunities, one of which involves doing a Manager 1's job duties while receiving Administrative Assistant pay. FUCK THAT!!. The other involves reporting directly to him, no fucking thanks, ain't worth the extra 8 grand a year to deal with that shit, as well as losing the paid lunch thereby accruing AN EXTRA HOUR in one's workday!!! Is he nuts?!! He droned on and on about how fascinating the new Admin Assistant position would be what with working START TO FINISH(!) with City Contracts!! City Contracts!! Does that actually rock someone's boat out there? Its not even Contract Law or anything, just writing and following contracts for capital projects or some crap. GAWD. How did people get convinced this shit is worth caring about?

Good Lard, life is boring around here. All the young dewds are spit shining and tarting up their resumes so they can suck it up and move up the ol' ladder, while I respectfully decline in favor of the continual plotting of my escape.

I know, I know, I should be fucking grateful to even have a job in this economy and how dare I snub my nose at all this privilege. And yet I do. I firmly believe one should strive for as much joy and personal freedom as possible, and damn it, I'm purt-n-ear ready to give this job the boot.

Anyway, so the meeting is droning on and I had to fight this impulse to pull a box of kitchen matches out of my purse and slowly, dramatically, say:

"Mind if I interject here? Listen real carefully. (I strike a match in a glorious sulphur fizz) Ya hear that? Memorize it. Its the sound of this bridge burning. BURN BABY BURN!"

Great fantasy. And not all that hard to make a reality. Kitchen matches cost, like what? 99 cents?

Homeschooling, Unschooling, Deschooling and Work

2009-09-18T10:53:00.001-07:00

My co-worker has safely hit the highroad, so I get to get paid while finishing this post. I am unashamedly not working at work, but it doesn't really matter as long as I perform my tasks related to the reactive element of my workplace. Meaning, as long as I respond to incoming shit as necessary, the proactive side can atrophy. Such is my job.

Offspring #2 just turned 17. She's in her second semester at community college, after completely blowing off High School. Offspring #2 hated school. It sucked the life out of her so that by the middle of eighth grade she was unrecognizable to me as the beautiful, gender defying, wind-in-her-hair laughing cherub I knew her to be before she became incarcerated in the government run child prison called school. I regret sending her to school, but I had to work on accounta I can't be beholden to no man 'cuz then they expect you to put out whenever they want and I can't roll like that. So I've said it before and I'll say it again; sending Offspring #2 to school was one of two really crappy choices, but that's common to female citizens under patriarchy.

I finally let her quit school because she was old enough to stay home alone and I wanted her back. I wanted her soul alive and I figured she would be fine without the indoctrination. So she quit school and proceeded to sleep until the crack of 2pm on a daily basis reveling in lucid dreaming. She also perfected a killer Myspace page.

I am currently reading a book called Un-Jobbing : The Adult Liberation Handbook (Second Edition) . Its an adult variation of another book called The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education

For those of you not in the know about the Homeschooling community, I'm going to enlighten you on a few terms. Homeschooling generally refers to people who replicate school at home. They use packaged or self made curriculum, attend community classes, or take an eclectic approach where they combine several more "traditional" methods of learning. Unschoolers, on the other hand, take a decidedly self directed approach to learning, take few if any formal lessons, and basically do whatever the hell they want. Which leads to adults who are fully engaged in whatever rocks their boat, so the likelihood of falling into dead end soul sucking jobs they hate is virtually nil.

When you pull a kid out of school, they don't know what to do at first. They have to go through a process called "deschooling" before they really come into their own and become true autodidacts. The "rule of thumb" for the length of the deschooling process is that it takes one month of "doing nothing" for every year the kid has been in school before they begin to fill their days with stuff that is meaningful to them and get busy enjoying life.

It makes sense. When you are told what to do and force fed someone else's idea of what you should learn, you don't come up with anything on your own. You barely know what the hell you like to do, because lets face it, you don't get a lot of time to explore. What if your teachers NEVER touch on what you like? You may never find your passion. You'll end up doing some soul sucking job and convince yourself that its okay because who wants to be a depressing person to be around? No one. But that's one of the main points of the whole school game. To get you to think its normal to show up and do boring meaningless shit all day so that eventually you'll show up and do boring meaningless shit all day for a paycheck. Yes folks, THERE IS a conspiracy. You don't need to go to school to learn anything. All anyone really needs to be taught is how to seek out information.

So I figure that's why I don't know what I want to do. I've been prevented for so long from doing anything that makes my heart sing that I have no clue what I love to do. I've been showing up for work, doing domestic duty and child related crap for so long, I've forgotten how to have fun and do whatever the hell I want. Not that I minded taking care of the kids, but you have to admit there is a ton of drudgery in it as well. Toilet cleaning, endless picking up of shit, mandatory cooking and cleaning and laundry, all of which can be enjoyed in moderation, but once it becomes your gender role it loses its luster right quick.

I figure that its going to take me at least two years of "deworking" to "unjob" myself and get a new life as an empty nester.

I have seen how it works with Offspring #2. She does what she wants. She is in college because she wants to be there, not because she has to be. She laid around for three years "doing nothing" and somehow she is managing to keep her GPA at a 3.5 in university transfer courses despite that fact. Funny how so many people believe the lie that you need to go to High School. Or any school for that matter.

I just wish she'd pass her fucking driving test already.

Never Sell A House to a Lawyer

2009-09-14T19:03:00.001-07:00

This is a picture of my beautiful vacation home. It was built to free me from wage slavery, but alas the market fell out, the house went upside down, and I lost pretty much everything I had worked for financially for the past thirty odd years.

But I got over that. I mean, whaddya gonna do? Nothing right?

My realtor found a buyer. The realtor is pretty much fucking worthless.

I was supposed to submit an "exclusion list" within ten days of acceptance of the offer. (a list of items in the house I intend to keep) I told the realtor that I would submit a new one, but he assured me he had the one from the last offer and that he would fax it over the the buyer's agent.

I trusted him on that one. Big mistake. Perhaps he forgot, perhaps the seller's agent lost it but at any rate, the buyer's are pissed off because as they put it:

"They took every floor and table lamp in the place!"

Which it total bullshit because there WERE NO FLOOR AND TABLE LAMPS IN THE HOUSE. There is superb overhead lighting in all the rooms, and a couple lamps on the end table in the master bedroom, which I might add, lamps are STILL THERE.

In fact, we took very little out of the home. A set of dishes. Some books. Towels and bedding. And one queen sized four poster bed, purchased for 75 bucks at a garage sale.

They are getting every fucking thing else. Dishes, couches, hide-a-beds, rugs, dining table, barstools, end tables, chairs, television sets, DVR's, pots and pans, phones, mattresses, nightstands, etc.

And a damn good shortsale deal on a house. And they're crying about some lamps that never existed in the first place????

Fucking selfish pricks.

Okay, done venting. But I tell ya, if this falls through, I'm gonna have to get a lawyer.

Barbie and Donna's Blog

2009-09-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

Take a wander over here y'all.

Flashback to The Good Ol' Days

2009-09-04T20:27:00.001-07:00

This one's especially for the Dykes and Lesbos who land on my blog. Just Because.

Remember when life was actually FUN? You know, back when we were'nt wage slaves.

Remember when going to the beach did not mean having a thong swimsuit up your ass?

Remember when we sat around with bears and guns with no men in sight?

Remember when Gladys was just Gladys and no one thought to call her a Dyke?

Remember when it was easy to pass for a Dude 'cuz nobody looked past your attire?

Remember getting shitfaced stoned in the woods with your best girlfriend after school?

Have a Great Day!

6 Days of Vacay!

2009-09-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

Okay I'm taking off for the Bay Bridge Closure. I'm too old to deal with the two hour commute required of any alternate route. Besides, I am not of the ilk who fervently believes that one's absence from work illustrates one's lack of usefulness at the job. Besides, I don't fucking care.

I have a co-worker who started smoking pot again. He doesn't care either. He's a lot like me in a lot of ways. He struggles with the requirement to have a good career, and the desire to just make surfboards and hang out at the beach.

He feels like he is expected to appreciate the success he has worked for, even tho' it flies in the face of what he really loves, surfing. He's also an entrepreneur, and a very good one. He just has not realized it yet. He's trying to conform to someone else's measure of success. Advanced degrees. Good job in the Public Sector. Get a pension. Make enough money to attract another wife, I guess.

Went to the Pretenders the other night! I got way too fucking wasted. Kind of freaked me out the next day.

I'm not gonna drink for awhile.

Welcome Back Jaycee Lee Dugard

2009-08-28T00:19:00.000-07:00

Jaycee Lee Dugard has been missing for 18 years. Until now. It appears that some fuckwad whack job religious nutjob pedophile rapist has been holding her captive for the entire time in a suburban "compound" in Antioch, California.

I am so angry over this that if I had half a chance I would KILL THE fucking whack job and his complicit wife in half a second.

I am so angry over this and I am not even her mother.

But I am a MOTHER, YOU COCKSUCKING ASSHOLES!

I know the fear this child felt. I know how she missed her mother in the early days. I know how afraid she was when he raped her the first time. I know how afraid she was when she got her first period and her mother was not there to help her. I know how afraid she was when she got pregnant the first time at 14 years old. I know how fear gave way to resignation, and resignation gave way to hope, and hope kept her going.

I know how fucked up she was all wrapped up in love for her daughters and Stockholme Syndrome.

What the hell did he tell her that she wouldn't try and jump the fence?
How much force was involved in keeping her there?

What happens now that her "support system" is imprisoned?
What happens to her mother, now that she has three mentally fucked up girls and women to deal with?
How do you love grandchildren who are the product of your daughter's abduction and rape?
How do you live normally after "camping" for 18 years?

How do these fucking assholes get released back into society?

I think that any sexual act that involves kidnapping should warrant the death penalty.

Why? Because kidnapping should be categorized as a special circumstance. Kidnapping indicates premeditation. Kidnapping indicates that the kidnapper does not think of his victim as human: he thinks of his victim as an object that he owns. Something he has "stolen" and that is now his. A non human. Someone to use and abuse.

All the really creepy serial killers rely on kidnapping. All the rapists who kill eventually kidnap. So if someone kidnaps and then rapes, the likelyhood of them "graduating" to kidnapping and killing is HUGE.

So kill the fuckers already. You kidnap and rape, you die. End of story. No more Jaycee Lee Dugard stories.

This story hits home because I remember it well. I live in California and I recall the period from about 1988 to 1991 when girls were going missing CONSTANTLY. Like every month, it seemed. Don't forget their names, please. Because they have not come home.

Amber Swartz Garcia (R.I.P)
Michaela Garecht
Nikki Campbell
Ilene Misheloff
Angela Bugay (R.I.P)
Xiana Fairchils (R.I.P)

There is very little to celebrate in this. WHAT? We are supposed to be eternally grateful that Jaycee is not dead? BULLSHIT!! As womyn , we need to aim higher. We nee to demand AN END TO this shit. Kill kidnapper rapists. That'll stop them from being repeat offenders.

I'm gonna go hit a shot of vodka. 'Cuz I can't cope with this shit.
Peace Out.

Update From the Domestic Trenches

2009-08-25T15:16:00.000-07:00

Offspring #2 failed her driving test AGAIN. After practicing for days on end in the vicinity of the DMV, me giving up my days off to driving instruction duty, Offspring #2 commits a Disqualifying Critical Driving Error when she fails to yield to drivers on the left at a four way stop, even when THEY WERE THERE FIRST! “I didn’t see them!” she sobs into the phone.

More hassle for moi, as lame spouse has not contributed one iota to the whole “learn to drive” debacle. I am the sole trainer of teenage drivers in our household, and fitting it in with my work schedule is a challenge to say the least. AND, its particularly difficult to pass the test at the only DMV not booked solid for thirty days by 8:10 am every morning because its in a very urban area and no two intersections are alike. Some have green arrows, some don’t , some are four ways stops, some are two way stops. One way streets abound. Narrow streets, busy avenues, traffic, pedestrians, road work, you name it. And its really difficult to schedule a retest, because Governor Arnie has seen fit to save the state money by closing the DMV's three fridays out of every month. So theres backlog.

Sometime I wonder if we should just drive to bumfuck Idaho and get an out of state license and then get it converted.

Anyway, new driving test scheduled for Sept. 22nd!

I hope she does better at her job interview today at 4pm.

At any rate, the whole thing depresses me. I sit here at work depressed and alone and I have to stay at this shit until 10pm. Her ex best friend passed her test today at the same facility, on the first try, which makes it all the more of a downer for her. Since their "falling out," this girl has convinced her mother that my Offspring #2 is a loser. They enjoy bashing her together, despite the fact that she has already completed a semester at college and has been working since the age of 14. Why do I care about that? Why does it bother me that some mother is snarking on my Offspring? God. Someone get me outta here!

Update at 11!

It ain't 11 but here's the update: Offspring #2 got the job. She sucks at driving, but damn she can interview!

Heaven On Earth?

2009-08-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

Check out this website.

Apparently there are Christians who believe that only human souls go to heaven, therefore animals will not be part of the Rapture. (in 2012, don'tcha know)

What I want to know is what the hell kind of heaven is it going to be if there are NO DOGS?

Messages From the Universe?

2009-08-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

As I pulled into the parking garage at work after 20 days off, I wondered vaguely if anyone had quit while I was away.

Not only did a woman quit, but another one DIED. Only 37 years old and passed on suddenly from undiagnosed stage four spinal cancer.

The one who quit was someone I never thought would quit. I thought she would live out her career and retire in the same job. She said to me:

"Ya know, I was on vacation and I just decided I didn't want to work here anymore. I'm moving to North Carolina to be near my sister."

And then the kicker:

"This place IS NOT the be-all, end-all of.....US."

I feel so disconnected from my job. Like a hot air balloon held by a distracted child, ready to float off into the void.

20 Days Concludes....

2009-08-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

In my continuing misadventures the never ending saga of Offspring related bullshit continues.

But first, the usual misadventures of the spouse et moi, who headed up to Konocti for The Pretenders, after spending a hectic day driving to Fremont to buy Offspring #2 a nice little car for 3 grand (that we don't have) and packing for the Reggae Rising music festival, only to discover that The Pretenders are indeed playing on the 30th, however its AUGUST 30th, not JULY 30th, so we ended up missing Offspring #2's official birthday for a crappy overpriced dinner at the Konocti restaurant followed by a night in an uninspiring hotel room with the glow of flourescent lighting out the window illuminating the communal ice machine and coke dispenser which was visited noisily throughout the night by trailer trash types on their drunken vacations.

How's that for a run on sentence?

Followed by two nights at the Reggae Festival with five teenagers and my sister.

So. We get home, and Offspring #2 has an appointment to take her driving test at the DMV. But then we get there and they accuse us of not having six months on the permit because its HER SECOND PERMIT, only they have no record of the first one, which she has held for a year, because the second permit was a reissue and the "technician" failed to note it on the second permit. Offspring #2 and her dude blow up and create an embarassing scene in the DMV, until I physically step in and drag their asses out while DMV employees shout "take your damn kids home!" at me as we exit. Offspring #2 calls the DMV in Sacto which sorts out the shit, and gets her an appt for the following day for a driving test. We go back to the DMV, and the same shit ensues, which we sort out a second time while the car sits in the queue blocking the other test applicants. We are asked to move vehicle. Battery is dead. Special examiner specifically elected to test ride white trashy applicant guilty of previous scene in a government facility assists in pushing vehicle to the parking lot where I beg jumper cables from a sympathetic dude. Car gets jumped. Offspring #2 gets test. Offspring #2 fails.

Offspring #1 and Loser ex-boyfriend who got a 15 year old pregnant get pulled over the next night. Loser ex is arrested for his FOURTH DUI. Offspring #1's car is impounded. Weed confiscated. On the upside, Loser ex is down for three months. Yay!

I saw District 9. I like sci-fi, but what a dude movie. Even the aliens were all dudes. One woman in the whole pic, playing the wife role, as usual.

And so wraps up 20 days of Vacay. Back on the J.O.B. tomorrow, as if nothing ever happened.

20 Days of VACAY!

2009-07-28T10:35:00.001-07:00

And I'm kickin' it off with another show with the hottest woman alive and her band The Pretenders at Konocti Harbour in Clear Lake, CA, then I'm off up the highway to Reggae Rising for three days of camping and music in the hot sun along the river. Much pot will be available and given my Fuck You Work attitude, I may just smoke some. And after ALL THAT, I will still have 15 days to chill, y'all!!

Did I mention that I LOVE Chrissie Hynde?

I Got My Report Card At Work Today

2009-07-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

Or what is commonly referred to as a "Performance Evaluation." We have "yearly goals" which are set in July, and then the following July we are evaluated on whether or not we have failed to live up to them. I failed to live up to several of my goals. I also cheerily signed the thing, because frankly I don't give a shit anymore. I did a bunch of stuff that was not included in the eval, but I have to admit I have been less than enthusiastic on the ol'job for a long time. Morale is down, and I said so.

In this economy, most employers are trying to milk the public fear by assigning employees chores outside of their job descriptions, breaking contract agreements with employees, and re-assigning tasks to cover personnel shortages. You are expected to do this happily, knowing full well that the raise you agreed to forgo "temporarily" ain't never coming back and those "extra duties" will forever be part of your job description. You are expected to agree to these things cheerfully in order to "do your part" for the company and the economy. Some people take the "God I'm so glad to have a job!!" mantra to the extreme and run around boot licking and groveling all the time. I'd be concerned about my lukewarm eval except we have a hiring freeze going on, and the odds of it being lifted within the next year are dubious at best. What can they do, fire me? Not likely. Too bad, tho'. I'd love to do a stint on unemployment. I'm sick of being in the Tax Bracket of the Reemed, if ya know what I mean.

I'm gonna take a lunch break and go get a sandwich.

More Shit I Can't Fix

2009-07-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

I was watching the tube the other night and I happened on a program titled "Sex workers or Victims?" Now, first of all, the show highlighted the plight of teenage girls forced by circumstances into prostitution, so I object to the question mark at the end of that title, as well as the implication that a teenage girl would choose to be a "sex worker." Some of the girls interviewed for the program had been "in the life" since the age of TWELVE. According to the documentary, for every foreign born woman who is trafficked across state lines for the purposes of prostituion in the U.S., there are 100 U.S. born prostituted children also trafficked across state lines. Once they are taken to an unfamiliar place and have no way to get back home, they are easily controlled. Why the hell did they title this documentary this way? There is NO DEBATE. These children are victims of sexual assault and battery, and you have to be a moron to even suggest that there may be some choice here, unless its the choice between being assaulted by strangers and being assaulted by your own family members.

I must say that I came in to the program sometime after it had already started, around about the time that some well meaning dudely sheriff did some incredibly insightful study into the arrest records and discovered that SURPRISE!, over 80% of these teenage girls that they were arresting for prostitution were runaways. No fucking shit, Sherlock. Ask any woman and she'll tell you the dream of nearly every girl child enculturated into mandatory femininity is to be a damn princess or a ballerina, not to run away and get the shit kicked out of her by some shitbag pimp and get raped repeatedly by johns. How does a girl go from a pink tutu to a pimp? Its not rocket science that most of these girls have had sexual trauma in the past. 12 year olds do NOT CHOOSE PROSTITUTION AND CALL THEMSELVES "SEX WORKERS!"

I'm serious. Two of the girls said they got started at the age of 12, one after running away after being raped at age 11. Raped by whom, I wonder? They said the mother was home at the time and didn't know about the rape, and the fact that they didn't say who raped her makes me think they don't want to accuse someone like her Stepdad or whomever without him having been formally prosecuted. Or whatever. At any rate, Rapist Dude gets to remain invisible, of course.

One former Raped Child said that no matter what you or your pimp negotiated for the money, (blowjob, etc.) it didn't matter once you were in their cars, behind the bushes, in their hands. The Johns would do whatever the hell they wanted. They would knock you out, rape you whether you were conscious or unconscious. They would bash you in the head and rape you when you are twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, fifty.

One girl on the show, who had been getting raped for money to turn over to a pimp from her thirteenth birthday, was hoping to get out. They led her into court in SHACKLES. Why the hell in shackles? What the hell? I'm so angry that a young woman at the age of seventeen, who has been a RAPE VICTIM since the age of thirteen, is shackled like a fucking murderer in front of some judge who gets to decide whether her fate is incarceration in the juvenile detention prison or a return to the streets "on probation," where her pimp will inevitably find her again, because there's no other place for her to go. Probation from what? She's a victim, not a criminal. How is treating these rape victims like criminals much different from countries like Pakistan where rape victims are shunned, stoned, or killed? Its only a matter of degrees, y'all.

So there is this place, called Children of the Night, that's trying to help prostituted children. Its in L.A. and they try to get child prostitutes off the streets and prosecute the shitbag pimps who victimize these children. Its an incredibly daunting task, because once you have been told for years and years and years on end that your role in life is to be someone's cumbucket for hire, you probably don't believe that you have any other value. You haven't seen much else. I don't think there is any other facility like this one in the country. You can donate if you want. Go Here. There should be one in every city. But there's not.

Another thing that struck me while watching this, and plunged me into a quagmire of introspection and confusion, was the dark images of the young girls walking the street at night clad in short skirts and super high heels. It struck me that short skirts and super high heels are markers of sexual availability. More specifically, prostitutional sexual availability. While you are alone, of course. Walk a street alone at night in short skirts and high heels and you will be sending a"I am a prostitute" signal. Which got me to thinking about high heels in general. They aren't called "fuck me" pumps for nothing. Wear "fuck me" pumps and a pencil skirt with your husband to an event and you are saying you are sexually available to the man you are with. Wear "fuck me" pumps in a crowd of girls at a club and you are saying "I'm looking for a hookup." But wear "fuck me" pumps on a street alone at night and you are saying "I'm a hooker." Wear "fuck me" pumps alone at night without a dirtbag pimp to negotiate your rape and you're saying "you can rape AND murder me."

Here's another thought. A young girl gets raped and beaten by a pimp, essentially in exchange for food and shelter. A lot of wives and girlfriends get raped and beaten, essentially in exchange for food and shelter. There ain't a helluva lot of difference, really. Only a matter of degrees y'all.

In the News......

2009-07-23T13:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm watching The Telly last night and caught a couple of tidbits of interesting info. At the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, they now have a new program on Thursday nights wherein the over 21 crowd can show up, gaze at all the fishies in the aquarium or zone out in the Planetarium and get shitfaced on cocktails.

Thats right: Every Thursday, the Academy is transformed into a lively venue filled with music, provocative science, mingling, and cocktails, for visitors 21 and older. Activities and performers change week to week. You can check it out here.

In other news, the City of Oakland is gonna tax the pot at the pot clubs. They expect to add, like a million dollars or something per annum to the city budget. Yay! I tell ya, between wine, weed and the hemp industry, California could have the number one economy in the fucking western world. If we grew hemp, we could produce paper products and take over a significant part of the lumber industry. If we produced inexpensive solar panels so that homeowners could afford them and made them a mandate on all new housing, we could store energy and sell it to other states.

Wine, Weed, Hemp and Sun. We've got all we need to become our own country. Now if all these bipartisan asshole politicians got their heads out of their asses and put an environmental agenda ahead of bickering over whose republican and whose a democrat and who wants to marry whom, we might actually get somewhere and save our economy.

Oh, and by the way, I am encouraging y'all to default on your credit cards. More on that later.

Sunday at Work

2009-07-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

I need someone with 5 or 6 billion dollars for resort property. If I find this person, I will retire early, and be rich.

I'm not kidding.

In other news, Offspring #1 is, thankfully, not hooking up with the Loser. I think she's coming to her senses a bit. She is looking for a new car because the old one is "too well known by people I want to stay away from." She got a medical marijuana prescription, so now at least if she gets pulled over and they find her pot, she won't be arrested. Life in Cali...why don't they legalize it already?

Now here's the thing. I think that your employer can still fire you for testing positive for weed, even tho' you have a prescription. So how can they do that? Why can they pick and choose which meds you can use and which meds you cannot use?

I smell a lawsuit coming on. Someone needs to bring that shit to court so we can get rid of all this ridiculous drug testing. You can get drunk as hell on your day off and roll in with a massive hangover on Monday morning, but smoke a J on your ol' vacay and three weeks after the fact, you can get fired.

I'm told there's gonna be something on the November ballot legalising growing and possessing pot in Cali. You'll be able to purchase a permit and grow your own. The state will make money off of pot permits, and taxing Cannabis Clubs. The possibilities for revenue are endless!

Offspring #1 can now legally grow 12 plants. 6 in flower and 6 seedlings, but not all twelve harvestable at a time.

So that's whats going down in CALI!

Workin'

2009-07-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

I have done absofuckinglutely NOTHING at work today. Seriously. This is more of a tweet than a blog post, but, ya know,whatever.

Why the hell don't they fire me? Oh yeah. Public sector.

Offspring #1 Reunites With Loser Boyfriend

2009-07-11T16:40:00.001-07:00

Okay, to be fair I am not sure they are “together” again, but they sure have been spending a lot of time together since last Wednesday. For a recap of this dude’s non attributes, read my post “Drama On The Home Front” from Dec 24, 2008. (I don’t know how to do the link). Now, add another arrest for DUI (that’s three total) plus a charge for possession of a controlled substance, and you get a nice picture of this asshole.

And here’s the real clincher: While he was still dating Offspring #1, he knocked up a girl barely 15 years of age. (He’s 27) The girl is currently in the hospital, 26 weeks pregnant (still 15 years old) about to undergo an emergency C-Section, while he is stranded somewhere on Highway 80 with Offspring #1. Her car’s transmission has given up the ghost. Her car, because like all losers, he ain’t got one.

So there ya have it. He is a class A Sexual Predator loser and Offspring #1 still gives him the time of day. And probably a lot more.

I assume they are “consoling” each other. Him with his babymomma troubles, and her with her murdered boyfriend troubles.

Offspring #1’s current boyfriend was violently murdered last Wednesday night, gunned down in front of his apartment at 9 o’clock in the evening. Police can’t find a motive. No suspects. They were dating for four months.
Offspring #1 says “its this area.” I say “it’s the company you choose to keep.”

Sometimes I feel like a failed parent. I did everything I could for her. She was a joy to me when she was born, even tho’ I was in a crappy marriage and trying to get out. I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone in my life. My little baby girl.

I took her to water baby classes, and she could do flips off the diving board, surface and swim to the side before reaching three years of age. She actually passed the test to use the diving board by swimming one lap of the pool freestyle at two and half. I put her on swim team and worked all the meets. I drove her there even tho’ I worked sometimes 60 hours a week what with the mandatory overtime. I took her to gymnastics lessons. Basketball team. Horseback riding lessons. French summer camp. I worked in the classroom, volunteered at the school. I went on all her field trips. Baked shit for the fucking parties. Showed up to Back To School Nights and Open House.

In short, I did everything I could to give her a better life and more opportunity than I had. I am now thinking maybe that’s the mistake parents of my generation made. Our kids lack what I like to call “healthy deprivation.” When I was growing up, I had NOTHING. No one bought me anything. There were no summer camps, no lessons, no parties on birthdays. The situation motivated me. I learned that if I wanted to be, have or do anything, it was up to me. Everything I have accomplished in my life was all due to me. Never had any help from anyone.

Somewhere things went awry with Offspring #1. She hangs out with losers, white trash, ghetto trash, and Gangsta Wanna-bee. She deals weed rather than work. She thinks somehow she’s above working her way up. She wants instant gratification. She goes to Community College part-time, and has a shitty GPA.

I keep telling The Spouse we need to cut her off financially. We need to stop paying her car insurance, car repairs, and cell phone. He says uh-huh, usually through a stoned stupor, but he’s afraid because he thinks if we completely cut her off financially, she’ll end up in the Ghetto. I’m afraid she’s going to end up there anyway.

I’m done. I love her, but enough is enough. She’s twenty years old in August. I’m done parenting her. I do not want to fix her transmission. I don’t want to pay her car insurance. If she doesn’t pay it herself, she’ll get her car towed eventually. So fucking what. That’s part of being an adult. Accepting the consequences of your actions is part of being an adult. We bought her that car so she could travel safely, and so that she could have access to jobs outside the immediate neighborhood, not so that she could deal weed. I gave her a leg up with that car, no one did that for me. I worked for my first car, and every car I’ve had since.

I have done what I can for her. I tried to raise her with love and opportunity. She says she never really bonded that well with me. I have made it clear to her that I love her and I always loved her and I always will. But at some point, ya gotta cut the apron strings. I’m starting with not bailing her ass out of the current situation with Loser Dude on the highway. She can find her own way home.

So Sarah Palin Quit Her Job

2009-07-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to re-think Sarah Palin. That woman has some fucking guts,y'all. I don't exactly support her politics, at least not all of it, but damn. She quit her fucking job as GOVERNOR. I totally admire her right now.

You know, there's this saying:

At the end of the game, the King and the Pawn go back in the same box.

In essence, nothing matters. Nothing. It ain't about how much money you make, or how many kids you have or don't have, or what kind of house you live in. It ain't about whether you get a big shot career, or never work a day in your life. Its about....(as if I know, but what the hell I have my two cents)...its about enjoying the journey. That's it. Enjoying your brief time on this planet. And more and more I realize I am not, at least right now, enjoying the journey. This lifestyle I am living is not me. And the big thang that chaps my ass is the whole nine-to-five-my- job-owns-me crap. You know, we all just got a mass email from the City about "engaging in outside employment,or other activities" Apparently, if you want a second job you need approval from the City. They get to assess whether your other job or other activities renders you somehow "at risk" as their piece of investment property.What? What the hell does or other activities mean? Can I not go skydiving because if I kill myself the City will have to pay to hire and train someone else. Give me a fucking break already. What am I? Property?

My job is in complete control of my life because my job is in complete control of my time. Time is what I value most. Time here on this Earth. Time that slips inexorably into the past. You can never get it back. I've always known this. Its why I stayed exclusively at home for the entire first year of my Offspring's lives, just to nurse them and be around. Its why I suffered economic dependence until the youngest was eight years old, when I went to work full time. I did it because I knew I could never get that time back. I cherished it and I sacrificed for it. I paid the price, and the exchange was time. So I guess it was worth it, even though I had to put up with all the crap that giving up financial freedom meant at the time. But I digress. Or ramble, whatever.

I've been surrounded by people who believe that a good job with benefits is the be all end all of life. Keep your head down. Don't make waves. Be grateful for that good salary and those benefits. Keep your nose to the grindstone and maybe when you're 62 you can finally have a day or two in the sun. I'm told that I'm ungrateful for bitching about how much I hate this fucking routine. Where are all the people like me who hate fucking routine and don't want to be controlled all the time by what society says is the way to go? There are NONE where I work. Everyone is on the same track. They want to work and put in the years and get the pension. Play it safe. Some of them won't even retire after thirty years with a hefty pension. They want to work just two more, or five more, or whatever, just to up that monthly pension as much as possible.

I say fuck that. I want to live now, not twelve years from now. I'm fifty this year. I want my life back.

If Sarah Palin can quit her job, with half a million in debt for legal fees, surely I can quit my job too. I think I'm gonna quit my job.

More Drama On the Home Front

2009-07-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

Long story short. Offspring numbers 1 and 2 got into a big ass fight over some trivial shit. Offspring #1 demands that Offpsring #2 leave her room, which does not happen. Fight goes physical. Offspring #2 ends up breaking Offspring #1's nose. In a fit of anger, I tell Offspring #2 that the both of them have become more trouble than they are worth. Crappy thing to say, I know, but I'm one of those not perfect parents bumbling through life. So, stressed out by grown children, I end up doing the couch potato wine ritual, which I have eschewed for the last four days as I attempt to stick to my workout regimen. Gawd.

I'm working today. Independence day. And I am so not independently wealthy. YET.

The other day I was walking the dogs in the local regional park, and it suddenly hit me. Summer. I did not notice that it is now summer until that moment. I suddenly took in the smell of dry golden yellow California field grass, and felt the still hot sun beating down on my head. I saw the hawks circling overhead in the still, impossibly blue sky. And I felt some remorse because when I was a kid, summer used to mean something. It meant no school, long days at the pool, riding horseback around town, lying to our parents that we were sleeping at each other's houses, then camping out down at the bay. Summer doesn't mean much now. Theres work, and theres work and theres work.

Why the fuck can't we restructure things so that everyone gets a good long stretch of time off? Like they do in Europe. I had a pen pal in Norway who got two months off work, and that was pretty much the norm. She and her husband would take the kids for a two week vacation to the lake. She would take a week with her sister. They took a couple of weeks off every year just to hang around the house and do home improvement projects. All that and they still had time left! What the hell is wrong with America?

I have an appointment with a CPA on Wednesday. The objective is to see whether its worth my while to work for the rest of the year. If we end up foreclosing on our vacation home, the 1099 will bump our income up into an impossible tax bracket, and we'll owe, like 40K or something to the tax man. So if that's the case, I may as well quit my job and take some time off. I am frightened at the prospect, because I shudder to be economically dependant, but I am not happy at work, so maybe I should feel the fear and do it anyway. It takes courage to change your life. I used to be full of courage, what the hell happened?

I Get Busy With Self Improvement

2009-06-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

Okay folks,

I'm gonna catch up with everyone soon. I've been busy. I am going to join the Body For Life Challenge here. Why? I'm sick of feeling like Jabba the Hut. I got inspired from a book that I found in a thrift store that claims you can completely overhaul your entire body (and subsequently your mind and mental outlook) in a mere 12 weeks of dedication. The premise is that high intensity weight training workouts of 45 minutes each three days a week combined with 20 minute high intensity aerobic exercise workouts 3 times a week can give dramatic results that will energize your entire fucking life. There's testimonials to prove it, mon!

So I'm going for it. Not the most interesting post, I know, but that's what's goin' on.

In other news, some random religious dude commented on my blog. I'm inspired!

If you want the book, Its Body for Life: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength

Not Internally Congruent

2009-06-10T21:08:00.000-07:00

I started this post a couple of days ago. I'm going to finish it, but I'm not going to update or edit it. Suffice it to say, I am in a different frame of mind now, but okay, whatever.

I woke up in a funk today, feeling misaligned, if thats a word. Once I was in this group therapy type sich and someone said she felt "not internally congruent." I think I hung on that phrase for the entire session so that I can't even tell you now what the rest of the meeting was about, because even tho' I don't really know what she was saying, I kinda felt it. Not internally congruent.

I took the dogs for a quick walk, mainly to alleviate the puppy's boredom. Intelligent active puppies need stimulation or they act up. Come to think of it so do I so maybe I needed a walk in the park and the puppy is an excuse. Okay, whatever.

My sister called while I was walking and I had to go on about how I hate my job routine and how I am on the verge of quitting. I told her I wanted to go to Turkey and hang out with this chick I used to sleep with whose escaping her husband in Bodrum this summer. They have a place on the Mediterranean and I could totally see myself just cleaning out my drawer at work and buying a ticket to Istanbul. She would be glad to see me. And I miss her.

The thoughts at the back of my mind are these. I feel destroyed in a lot of ways. I feel torn down by expectations. I feel like I have been thoroughly beaten down by the whole fucking social script. The script that sets the bar for being a Nice Guy so incredibly low and the bar for being a good wife and mother so damn high. I feel destroyed by the mind-fuck of male privilege that is so ingrained its invisible. I feel destroyed by the fact that my spouse can do everything for himself first, and then if there's time or energy left over he'll do something for someone else. And then we're expected to fall all over ourselves with gratitude for his being a decent person. In contrast, I do everything for everyone else first, and if there's time left over I get to do something for myself. And I never get extra kudos from society for all the ways I step out of my gender role and do something phenomenal, like earning as much money as he does. Never. I am always led to believe that I am crazy for wanting more than the usual social script set out for someone born female. For wanting more than a white picket fence, a man whose not an asshole and endless years of domestic drudgery and economic dependence.

So I went searching for answers, as I am wont to do on occasion, and ended up on this blog, where I found this phrase:

Because of my heterosexual experiences, I have a deeper appreciation for the incredible mind-control and emotional torture of patriarchal conditioning.

And there you have it. Patriarchal conditioning is mentally and emotionally abusive. Heterosexual marriage is the bastion of patriarchal conditioning. Male privilege is all over the place. For example, I think every married woman has been raped. Believe it. I know I've had sex when I didn't want to, worn down by constant pressure and bad attitudes from my husband.

Here's something else, another example, if you will. Every woman I know with young children has told me they get pissed off because their husband can just leave the house whenever he wants. You can't do that when you are the mother, because at the very least, you need to alert your spouse that he needs to direct his attention to the kids for the duration of your absence. Which puts him in the position of being able to say" Wait a second until I finish this or that," or whatever. . So you wait. And then he gets to ask how long you're going to be gone. Which now puts you in a position of subtly having to ask permission. Of him always knowing where you are and when you are coming back, and he inadvertently says whether you can go or not. Because you end up going on his schedule, not yours. And even nice guys do it. They do it especially when they are angry. You refused sex? He'll make you wait to go anywhere, or he'll leave without telling you where he's going or when he's coming back. You are left with all the emotional shit to deal with, like the kids asking why Daddy is mad and where he went and when he's coming back. You make excuses and cover for him to protect the kids. Men are assholes. And they all do it for a reason: to let you know that they have the power, not you. And with tiny children, you really have no choice.

Also, with tiny children, you almost don't notice it because you love your children so much. And then you get older and go through menopause and realize you don't need men anymore and you confront the assholery you've been navigating for years.

That's when they change and start treating you like a human. For me, I think its too little too late.

Sunday-Hangover With Repentant Attitude Day

2009-06-07T20:42:00.001-07:00

Went out to dinner last night with the spouse and my ex-door neighbor. She's a gas. And a bad influence, you could say. I had some pear cider, which was great, and a martini or four. We went to a new restaurant in a subdivision that resembles a bizarre version of Pleasantville, but the food was good.

We were all relatively okay, inebriation-wise until ex-door neighbor decides we should duck into the local neighborhood bar on the way home. Karaoke night, of course. Fabulous diverse crowd of every age and ethnicity whooping it up, dancing in a crowd everyone with everyone else. And of course we, and everyone else was super shitfaced by the time the liquor store next door got robbed at gunpoint, the cops showed up to look for suspects, and I dropped my cell phone in the toilet. Before flushing, I might add.

Somehow it still works. Yes, I fished it out.

Haven't Blogged in Over a Week! Say It Ain't So!!

2009-06-05T17:10:00.001-07:00

I'm not dead, I swear. I've just been doing the walking dead routine and taking care of the puppy, who I have affectionately dubbed "Remedial Case." My original intent was to fatten her starving little pit bull ass up and put her up for adoption. Not so simple. She has "issues."

Since the poor little dog was taken out of her litter way too soon, she never learned how to be a good dog and play with other dogs, or how not to bite too hard, or any of the other stuff a mother dog imparts to her puppies in the first eight weeks. Pit Bulls used by heinous criminal assholes for fighting are deliberately taken away from their litters too soon because its easier to make them act aggressively. As it becomes "normal" for people to believe puppies can live without their litter mates, lame ass people who don't know any better are doing the same damn thing, creating a vicious cycle for these otherwise great dogs.

She has anxiety issues and is far too comfortable being left alone, which is not surprising since she was basically stuck in a dog bed, locked in a room, seldom fed and largely ignored for at least six weeks. She hyperventilates when she gets stressed out. Every night when I come home from work she meets me at the door. She visits for awhile and then starts to exhibit signs of stress so I pick her up and carry her into the room and put her to bed in her doggie bed. Every morning, Offspring #1 gets her up and takes her outside for a pee and poo adventure, then she runs into my room and lounges on the bed for a couple of hours while I drink tea. This is the only time she appears truly relaxed.

After telling her "NO Biting" fifty thousand times, she's getting it. (She's also teething, so that's part of the problem) And after playing with a big pit bull female and numerous trips to the dog park, she's developing a friendly outlook and getting along with both people and other dogs.

She's a mouthy little thing with a 'tude. If you talk to her in a loud voice, she barks back. Its hella funny.

That's about it. Other than contemplating bankruptcy and credit card default and the short sale fell through today. Other than THAT, all is well with someone somewhere so thats a good thang, at least.

Living Your Dreams and Doing What You Want

2009-05-29T18:05:00.001-07:00

Well friends and neighbors, I have been conspicuously absent from my own blog of late but I have an excuse! I have been caring for an emaciated puppy, or sabachonka, as I call her. (Russian) This sweet dog was intercepted on the way to the pound, where she most certainly would have gone straight to the euthanasia chamber. Offspring #1 showed up with the sorriest dog I have ever seen, it looked like one of those dogs from a cruelty bust on "animal cops." She is 10-11 weeks old. Well, after eating non-stop for the last week, she is fattening up nicely and has a regular attitude to go with it. She's cute as hell and coming along nicely in terms of manners. She is almost potty trained already, and I'm working on getting her to quit nipping. She was sold out of her litter at 3 or 4 weeks of age, kept in a bedroom and barely fed, so she has socialization problems. She's high anxiety with all the new stuff she's being exposed to: other dogs, the cat, actual food on a regular basis, walks, etc. Today I took her on a 4 mile walk and she kept up nicely, despite the fact that she was freaked out by the train whistle, the wind, a snake, a flock of birds, and several big dogs.

But that's not what I'm posting about.

I was a-pondering today about what would happen if I did whatever the fuck I wanted, damn it all to hell. I have read (and re-read) this book called:

Why Your Life Sucks: And What You Can Do About It

This book outlines in a very blunt fashion all the reasons why your life might suck, and why its your fault.

One chapter says your life sucks because "You Do Things You Don't Want to Do." Solution: Quit doing it.

So I wonder. If I did exactly what I want to do, what the fuck would happen? Should I do it? Should I go into the boss and say, "Ya know, this job just ain't doin' it for me any more. I've decided its not the highest and best use of my time. I think I'm gonna do something else. Sayonarra!" What would happen? What would I do? Would The World As I Know it fall apart?

If I did not have to go to work every day, I would clean up my house and yard and grow stuff. I'd sell all the crap I've accumulated on ebay or craigslist or give it away and live without clutter. I'd foster a bunch of dogs. I'd launch an internet business.

Maybe I should do it and blog about it and write a book about it. I could be the person who quits the Good Job and goes for an alternative. I could maybe be an inspiration to somebody. Or get them into trouble, who knows?

They say to do what you love and the money will follow. Oprah says it anyway. Is it true?

P.S. the BabyDog is a Pit Bull

Homophobia on "So You Think You Can Dance."

2009-05-22T21:22:00.001-07:00

I love the show, personally. I love the athleticism of the dancers. Really, they are some of the best in the industry, rising stars with incredible talent. They dance beautifully. They have talent. There is incredible artistry and creativity in the choreography week after week. I just love it.

Except.

It is very heteronormative, and I've heard people bitch about that here and there, altho' I've heard its worse on the versions of the show in other countries. They dance mainly in couples for the first five weeks, and the gender roles are pretty much set in stone, but hey, that's the style of lots of dances, like the tango, and the samba, whatever, you get the idea. But one thing I have really noticed during the selection process is that the gay guys had better tone it down, because if you aren't "manly" enough, no matter how talented you are, you're gonna get the boot. Which is sad, because I've seen some good talent sent packing. In fact, guys are congratulated for being "manly" and for bringing "manly" energy. Defined by rigid cultural standards, of course.

Except that I could watch two men doing the tango or two women doing the tango and still love it. One of the most beautiful scenes from "Queer as Folk" that I recall was when Brian showed up at Justin's senior prom (he had attended with his fag hag girl pal) and danced with him. It was a beautiful dance scene.

So last night two guys get on stage to dance ballroom together. The story is that they both danced at the same studio and both happened to lose their dance partners around about the same time, so they decided to dance together. One is straight, one is gay, altho' why that's anyone's fucking business is beyond me, but it was brought up in the "on the street" interview where they highlight a particular dancer or dancers.

They get onstage and are doing a fab job, until they fall, but that's not the point. When they finished the judge called Nigel was visibly disgusted. He tried to hide it well, but it showed in his face, and he tried to cover it up by being " fair" and critiquing the dancing individually. He finished by stating that he was confused by it, and that he preferred to see a man and a woman. He said he was confused because he could not tell which "role" they were playing, the man's or the woman's. One of the guys responded by saying they were switching it up to make it new and interesting and to show they could go back and forth between both roles. Nigel said he didn't like it. I mean god forbid we abolish rigid gender roles!

I can't recall what the screaming bimbo in the middle said, but the decidedly dykey choreographer on the left agreed with Nigel, stating she was also "confused," which sounded alot like the Christian right when they wax on about how they don't "get" same sex marriage. I mean, if two men or two women get married, who will wash the dishes! Who will take out the garbage? I'm so confuuuuseed!! You can't have same sex dancing! It will be taught in the schools! The next thing you know people will want to dance with their dogs!

Choreodyke seemed disingenuous and I only hope that if she is in fact a dyke as she seems to be to me, that she can find a way to expose this hypocrisy. I feel for her if she is. How difficult to live and work among that kind of sentiment.

I have faith in the American public. Lots of young people watch that show, and vote on dancers, and I think the best dancer will win no matter what their orientation.

I'll keep watching, but I am beginning to wonder who funds and sponsors the show. Too much anti-gay shit is creeping in, and the more that creeps in the more I'll creep out. Too bad because I love the dancers!

I'll have to blog about what I watched AFTER that another day, because it was a doozie. When you don't watch much television, you lose touch with how awful it is. Fortunately.

Buyer Backs Out- Short Sale in Jeapordy

2009-05-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

The bank approved my short sale. My buyer, in a burst of excitement, came up to see the house one more time. Finds a better deal. Backs out of my house and leaves me in the lurch.

I'm getting a forensic loan analysis. If they find hinky shit in my loan docs, I can bargain for a loan modification. I hope they find all manner of hinkiness in my loan, 'cuz then I'm gonna ask for a principal reduction.

Why would they not take it? Their gonna lose on a shortsale anyway! Why not just go ahead and whack that amount off my loan, lower the interest rate and I'll keep paying on it?

I've got some lawyer group who used to originate these hinky loans. So now they have sleazily switched sides, because they know exactly what to look for. They fucking invented it.

That's America for ya.

Random Media Encounter Reveals Radfem Truth

2009-05-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

Well. I've been spending some time in the radical feminist blogosphere lately, jumping from blog to blog and catching up on how fucked up and woman hating our culture really is. I was reading some blog or other, can't remember whose, and there was this long essay on porn, and how increasingly violent it has become, and how even violent porn has become mainstream. I was not sure what to think of that, whether to see it as true, until last night's late night teevee on the couch while drinking vodka episode. Well, this particular blogger whose blog I was on the other day mentioned the search terms that brought random people to her blog, and one of those search terms was "rape porn," and variations thereof. "Preteen rape porn." "brutal rape porn." Shit like that.

Now, I'm not a porn consumer. I am not against erotic images per se, but on the few occasions where I went looking for them, I found the porn to be very dood centered, and not really appealing. Some of it was downright horrible. Once I was in a hotel in SoCal, and the only channel was a porn channel, for which they charged you by the minute without warning you, hitting you up for extra cash when you checked out. How embarrassing is that? Anyway. I turned it on and there was this skinny girl who looked like she was about 15 getting fucked by some dude and he was contorting her in various ways that looked painful. She looked like she was on drugs and I could see her wincing. Occasionally he'd slap her on the ass and grab her hair and call her a little slut or something. It was low budget and I really felt sorry for her because I could tell she was most likely not there by any reasonable choice that could be considered good. That's about the last time I forayed into the world of porn and it was a long time ago.

But I am digressing here.

After reading the blog about violent porn, I decided to google "rape porn," and see what the hell is going on. I was disturbed and disgusted with what I saw, I could not keep my focus on it for long. Men actually get off on this shit? Really? It really must be true: Men hate us.

So last night I fell asleep watching a show on the whole Da Vinci code thing. I think the last words I heard were: "There is no such thing as the sacred feminine." I kid you not. Some fuckwad jerk was disputing all the theories that Jesus and Mary had a girl child, but, no need to go into that.

I woke up some time later and decided to surf the channels and I came across one of those true crime shows where they re-enact stuff and tell you how fucking awesome the police department was for cracking the case, and in most cases they are fucking awesome. I highly respect detectives who get things solved.

Anyway, this episode was about a violent rapist who murdered one of his victims. The show opened with long lingering camera shots of a 14 year old victim, the murder victims' sister, who was gruesomely disfigured and covered with bruises, stitches, swelling, blood. Of course, they made sure you knew that these were "good girls," they spent time on how studious and accomplished they were and not sluts or anything like that. The show chronicled how they caught this rapist, who preyed on Asian women. He was a white dude married to an Asian woman with 2 or 3 kids and a minivan. You know, the guy next door, your average Joe. Classic creepy.

As part of the story, they re-enacted the brutal attack on one of his other, earlier victims. Of course, she lived alone so there's that same old cautionary tale embedded in the story line, live alone as a woman and you're gonna get it. He put a pillowcase or something over his head with the eyes cut out, broke in to her house brandishing a knife and "demanded sex." He brutalized her, beat her, raped her, injured her, threatened to kill her. The scene showed her cowering, screaming, crying, begging. For. Way. Too. Fucking. Long.

And ya know what? Except for the lack of a pussy shot, it looked EXACTLY like the rape porn I was so disgusted by on the internet.

The mainstreaming of violent porn. Just disguise it as a cop show.

Interns and Resumes

2009-05-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

My fave co-worker and I had the assignment of pouring over 160 applications for internships at our workplace. Its a summer gig and pays pretty well. The apps were from all over the country, and were submitted online, along with uploaded college transcripts and resumes. It was a total hoot. Its been awhile since I've seen any resumes and boy were some of them a gas. The format seems to have changed over the years. People have sections like "Leadership," where they list every fucking instance of whatever the hell they did that counts as "Leadership." "Ingenuity" was another one. "Proactive Self Starter." We had a damn good laugh at some of the bootlicking crap too. "My goal is to gain further experience in this field by totally dedicating myself 110% to this internship utilizing my strengths as a team player!" But I can work independently too!

Anyway, there were scores of resumes from overqualified dudes from impressive ivy league colleges. They sing their own praises and wax poetic about how wonderful they are and how many fucking elitist awards they have won. I threw most of those out. I don't want to hear how fucking great you are. I want you to tell me what you can do for us for crissakes.

We also totally passed up the applications with no resumes uploaded. No resume, tough shit.

We narrowed it down to 11 resumes. There was one resume from a young woman that caught my eye. Her address indicated an apartment in the dangerous part of town. She went to a crappy charter high school. Her job experience included sorting packages for UPS. I know someone who did that and its a fucking hustle. You have to work hard and fast. She listed her attributes. "Fast Learner." "Hard worker." "Take pride in contributing." In other words, what SHE COULD DO FOR US. She had a small amount of experience working in a similar establishment to ours as a high school student in some work study program for poor kids. She said she "wanted to build on her past experiences."

I tell ya, after wading through resumes from privileged dudes with money and power on their side, it was a refreshing change. I threw hers in the "yes" pile.

Note to Self

2009-05-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

STAY OFF the comcast community message boards. You will get caught up arguing for gay marriage with bigots located in Armpit, America. You will become embroiled in discussions on the joys of parenting with Stepford Wives who claim eternal maternal bliss while denying they are on drugs. You will encounter people who think fags are equal to murderers on the scale of social decline, also known as "the downfall of American society" as we know it. You will get in ridiculous circular discussions with anonymous internet posters who claim to know the entire history of civilization while claiming marriage was always about the nuclear family. (NOT) These same anonymous internet posters will feel free to make sweeping generalization about you based on whatever floats their boat in the moment. You will be accused of being a lesbian, a pedophile, a dog-fucker, and a man. Stay the fuck off the comcast message boards.

This Is It

2009-05-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

Get up. Domestic drudgery. Go to soul sucking job. Come home. Get up. Domestic drudgery. Go to soul sucking job. Come home. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Something's got to give and soon. I am so unmotivated at work, and have been doing the proverbial "fuck all," as they say. I am the most unproductive team member and I am not proud of that fact. I just don't know how to plan for a change. I have always been a rash decision maker. I'm the type that will fuck things up and burn a bridge in order to get the hell out of a situation.

On the upside, rash decision making has its advantages. There's the thrill of freedom when you walk away from something that deadens you. You start to see possibilities because when there's no looking back, you can only move forward. You sink or swim at something new and force yourself to change your life.

But how do you give up a fucking good salary with benefits, especially in this economy?

I took Offspring #2 to the doc the other day. I was supposed to go in to work after the appointment, but I just blew off the whole day. I was sitting in the waiting room and there was a magazine with an article on Alaska in it. I was so tempted to call in and quit and go home and pack up the car and head north. Just road trip the hell away from everything and get some clarity of vision.

But I didn't do it. I have loose ends to tie up. A vacation home in foreclosure. Some bills to pay off. But here's the thing, and I was talking about this to someone the other day. When you get to a point in your life where you look at what you've got for all your hard work, and its nothing, you start to figure...why bother? All these years and I have no savings, no equity, a teeny tiny 457 account.

I should just move the fuck to slab city and hang out.

Gobsmacked

2009-05-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

Good word. Its British, I think. And its what I am feeling lately. I am gobsmacked at how much of my life has been defined by being female. I've been too busy taking care of kids for so many years that I didn't notice it, but its the reality. And that's part of the whole conspiracy against women. Keep us too fucking busy to accomplish anything of any real worth. And I am not denigrating motherhood here, but our culture pays lip service to the importance of motherhood so we'll keep on doing domestic drudgery and working for free. If its so fucking important and honorable set us up already! Give us free quality childcare and social security contribution credits and medical and dental and somewhere to live free from assholery. I know so many women who stay in crappy marriages just because the man has become the only way to fund their retirement. Its a man's world. Always was and probably always will be, unless there's some radical change in the world and I doubt that is going to happen.

There was a higher paying job available across the bay, and a former male co-worker who moved over there wanted me to go for it. He told me with great glee that he had inside info that they wanted a woman in the position, because there were no women in the department. He said it as if I was supposed to be happy about that. What the fuck? Its still men in control. Men deciding when, where, why and how a woman will have access to that kind of salary. Tokenism. Fuck you. Even tho' I'm qualified, its a hollow victory to get hired because they haven't seen fit to hire any women until someone makes it apparent they just might be discriminating.

One of the greatest, most defining moments of my life was when Billie Jean King kicked Bobby Riggs' ass in tennis. Many of you probably don't remember that match, but it set the tone for my life at the time. Bobby Riggs strutted around creating a sexist media frenzy about how no woman could ever beat a man at tennis and she kicked his ass on national television. I watched it all alone in the living room on a tiny 10 inch television. It was a victory for me. I felt high as a kite. But I feel like its all an illusion at this point. The women I know who have accomplished the most in their lives are not wives. Hooking up with a man is detrimental to a woman's life.

My career of choice failed because I don't have a wife. Because I AM the wife. Being a wife means that a man has control over your choices. Once you have kids, they have all the power. They have the power to plunge you into poverty by leaving you. They have the power to expect you to be a sperm receptacle because if you won't be one they can plunge you into poverty by leaving you. Child support is not enough to keep you out of poverty. I know countless wives who get fucked every day whether they want it or not. Sex is an expectation. I also know a wife whose husband withholds sex from her. Either way, men use sex for control. At least I'm out of that trap. I make a living so he can go fuck himself.

Then if you get a job, like I did, you end up missing your kids while you are at work all day. Its a punishment for not being a sperm receptacle. Either be a good sperm receptacle or get plunged into poverty or have your kids separated from you by a job. The job keeps you from being controlled financially, but the punishment is you miss raising your own kids. There's no daycare, no national health system, no pay for mothering for a reason. Its to keep women from having personally autonomy. To keep women from freedom from cumbucket status. Think about it. If you had quality free childcare, free medical and dental, and were paid for mothering, or if not paid, at least had someone else, like A WIFE, to take care of the kids and do the domestic labor, (while you are developing skills that people pay your for) you would not need a man. Its a reflection on the system that they have to create dependency in order for women to stick around. I am sure to some of you this sounds bleak, and for women who actually love their husbands it probably sounds incomprehensible but that's the way I see it.

Being female gave my husband the power to have us live our lives the way he wanted to live, not the way I wanted to live. One day I asked him if he would go to swing shift so I could do some entry level work in my career of choice in the mornings. I carefully conditioned Offspring #1 to sleep in to 9am so that he would not have to do a goddamn thing while I worked 5am to 9am other than be in the house in case she woke up, but he yelled at me and said no way and that "now I was trying RUN HIS LIFE!." What about our lives? Here I was, operating under the assumption that we were supposed to be a team, working toward something together, and it was not so. I absolutely understood, in that moment, that my life was utterly irrelevant to him, that he considered me "support personnel" in HIS life. My concerns, what made me happy, what I wanted out of life, didn't matter one iota. I was a third class citizen. But what the hell could I do? I had no choice but to stay since at that time I had few job skills, no college degree, and the "dues paying" work in my career was not enough to support me and a kid.

And I'm still here. Everyone thinks he's such a prize because his public persona is so fucking charming. Offspring #2 gets it. She told me: "Everyone thinks Dad's such a nice guy but inside the house he's an asshole." She also told me that she considers him like a stepdad, like some guy who isn't really her father. "All the raising of me, and everything that influenced me in a positive way was done by you," she said. She wants to take me to Great America for mother's day, which is nice because I kind of hate Mother's day. EVERY FUCKING DAY IS MOTHERS DAY.

Be nice to me all year long, I say. I hate Father's day even more. Both of them are just hallmark holidays to sell greeting cards and force people to call home.

I've never really fit in society. I have always been hyper aware of the inequalities that surround us. The classism, sexism, racism, you name it. That's why I like people who are different. Thats why most of my best friends have always been fags and dykes and queers and other people who don't fit in.

Happy Mother's Day to the moms of people who don't fit in.

Okay, I'm Gonna Quit With the Iris Photos

2009-05-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

ON accounta my meager followers are dropping like flys. Ah well, one cannot reconcile the need to vent in cyberspace with generational positions on privacy. The younger generation seems to feel the need to live publicly whereas the older generation (god! I'm not that fucking old!) seems to have retained some measure of thinking that much of the minutea (sp?) of daily life constitutes private matters which are no one's fucking business. Everyone who facebooks and twitters and keeps all this crap up has absolutely no privacy. Big Brother is, in fact, watching you. Believe me, I know. My profession demands it.

My spouse is not only a dream stealer, he's a dream squasher. Just thought I'd throw that shit out there for random pondering.

Gratuitous Iris Photo on Accounta I Got Nothing to Bitch About

2009-05-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

Other than the usual crap, I mean.

My Realtor is Fucking Useless

2009-04-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

Honestly. He's fucking worthless. I'm in a short sale and have done all the work. He's sitting back waiting for a commission. He is not hounding the Lender to push this through, he is not looking for a backup buyer, he is not communicating with me. He convinced me he was a "top producer" but he treats me like an idiot and the lender won't give me shit to go on despite the fact that I have made myself overabundantly available to them at every turn. I found a buyer, listed the property as the lender insisted, hired a lame ass realtor to convince the bank I was "doing the right thing," and now they are dragging their asses, ruining my credit and racking up fees and penalties. I mean, what the fuck? I DID THE RIGHT THING. I can no longer pay for the property. Due to the housing crisis WHICH I HAVE TO REPEAT WAS CREATED BY THE LENDERS WE ARE NOW BAILING OUT, my property, like many other people all across this fucked up nation, is now worth less than I owe. I am keeping it insured. I am paying for snow removal. I keep it clean, so fucking close the damn deal already! And the lender is clueless. I faxed all the info. They tell me the file is complete, yet every fucking week I get a new letter stating the info is incomplete. I call them and ascertain the file is indeed complete. So stop sending the crap already! I asked the realtor for a copy of the HUD-1. Sure sure he says but I have yet to receive it. The bank told him to call on the 21st. Does he call? NO he did not. I am so sick of realtors I could puke. The buyer is going to get a great deal. The buyer's agent is going to get a fat check. MY agent is going to get a fat check. The only loser here is me.

So I am going to get a forensic audit of my loan docs. Apparently 85% of all loans originating between 2002 and 2006 have federal infractions in them, and if you get a lawyer to find them, they'll give you a loan modification. I found a place where you can get a loan auditfree of charge. So if I find out there's infractions in there, I'm getting a fucking lawyer. Maybe he can modify the loan to reduce the principal and cut those bastards fucking commissions in half. Hah!

Creative Problem Solving at Work

2009-04-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

The soul sucking job sich is looking up. Why oh why you may ask? Well, in a flash of brilliance I decided the only way to keep outta A-hole Control Freak’s hair is to be too fucking busy to be available for his bullshit. BINGO! (picture a light bulb going off over my head.)

I have decided, after much pondering on how to avoid manipulative control freak assholes, to create MY OWN projects at work, instead of having them assigned to me. So I now have two long term things going on with ambiguous deadlines that only I have the background, knowledge and skills to accomplish! And even better, I managed to sneak these projects into a category which affords me an extra two bucks an hour for every hour spent on it! (I intend to be thorough.) And as an added bonus, it is seen as being “proactive!,” and “taking initiative!”

I swear to freaking God, why have I not seen this sooner? Because of my new projects, I’ve been too busy all week to be ordered to do mindless bullshit and I am so over fucking worked, I’ve decided I need next week off.

Damn, I LOVE the public sector.

Life Gets In the Way of Blogging

2009-04-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick post to allow for the fact that I've been decidedly post bereft due to spring break, skiing, playing Barbies while drunk, and dealing with more work than I reallly wanna handle at that place I go every fucking day to earn a paycheck.

But life is looking up! Despite the fact that Offspring #1's best friend (who I treated as my own while her narcissistic mom downed alcohol and drugs) has capitulated to the patriarchy and met everyone's expectations of being a Class A Goldigger by hooking up, at the tender age of 19, with a 40+ year old rich fucker. Her job is to look fabulously gorgeous in a bikini while sticking her ass out, and acting appropriately airheady. She seems really good at it. Oh well.

Its been hot as hell here, upwwards of 90 degrees. I feel like I may be on the verge of coming into some money. One can only hope.

Ciao for now, I'll post something witty if and when I feel witty.

The IRS Ruins a Perfectly Good Day

2009-04-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

I was in a fabulous mood as the sun peaked out after three days of glorious rain, watching my iris stalks grow in anticipation of the joy of my fave flowers gracing my humble abode, when I get a call from my tax lady. Fuck.

"Come pick up your taxes, she says."

So I do. On my way to my soul sucking job. And discover that we owe over three thousand dollars to the fucking IRS and we only have like, 1,500 in the bank. So I guess we'll have to sell something. Anyone want some weed? Guns? Ammo?

Just kidding. But seriously, what the fuck? Why do I bother working? Why try so hard?

If I weren't working, my girls would get fat financial aid packets and get to go to fab universities instead of kicking around at community college.

If I weren't working, I would dig up my lawn in front and plant the most beautiful traffic stopping garden ever witnessed by anyone anywhere anytime. A garden bursting with color all year long. And veggies out back. Organic food to eat. I'd sleep in and take the dogs for a run in the park every day. I'd foster pit bulls from the Bad Rap Shelter.

Hell, maybe I'd even grow some killer pot. My job says I can't get high. Amazing how your employer gets to control your personal life.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Thanks for listening O Blog Readers. Have a wonderful day!

Shit Kickin' Mood Generates Thoughts of Doing the Wrong Thing

2009-04-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

Maybe it was the specter of repeating yesterday’s work angst with another five hours holed up with A-hole Control Freak Boss working on my hated project. Maybe it was the stress of dealing with GMAC over my shortsale which cut into my practically non-existent leisure time. Perhaps it was simply the usual rage accompanying menopause. Or maybe I really was just pissed off that Offspring #2 took my camera and uploaded all my pics onto her computer where I can’t find them that set me off, but I was in a major shit kickin’ mood this morning.

The kind of mood that would make ya glad I don’t own a gun, ‘cuz I’d probably shoot someone. The kind of mood that gets my subversive streak going.

I started thinking about this article, wherein the author, (Sean Olender some economic genius) stated that the entire purpose of these bailouts are for nothing but keeping rich people from losing money. He claims this whole lending crisis is fake. Here’s a quick excerpt:

“To fix this fake crisis, there are fake discussions about what the government must do. The endlessly recycled plan to buy "troubled" assets isn't to get banks lending again, because they haven't stopped lending. The plan seeks for taxpayers to buy worthless assets at high prices to absorb rich investors' losses. That's it. It keeps coming back as a different plan, but with that same goal. There is no goal beyond that one goal: keep rich people from taking losses.

Obama and his economic gurus all chant, "Credit is the lifeblood of the economy," but they don't mean credit. They mean debt. Imagine the president saying, "Debt is the lifeblood of our economy. We desperately need to get more American families deeper in debt." That's what he means, and that's what these bailouts hope to do.”

And I totally agree. After dealing with GMAC and trying to get a fucking response out of them, I am ready to start my own bailout plan. I have done the right thing and took good care of a house that is upside down and found a buyer in order to “do the right thing,” and I can’t get a fucking loss mitigator on the phone much less get them to look at the offer. They want to drag it out, all the while slapping me with more late fees and penalties so I get the biggest 1099 or deficiency judgment possible. Despite the fact that GMAC received FIVE BILLION in bailout money on 12/29/08.

Wanna find out how much your lender has received in bailout money? Go Here for nine pages of up to date information on whose getting what in this bailout for the rich. Look for your lender and if they’ve taken bailout funds, go take all your money out and put it in a local bank. Or your mattress.

I have a co-worker who is getting divorced, which means one less income to pay the fat mortgage, which he ended up with when his wife walked. Then he lost his second job, so there was no way to keep up with both the mortgage and his credit cards. He’s decided to default on his credit cards, in favor of stuffing the money he used to pay on them in his mattress. He found out with this report that Chase Bank received 25 Billion in bailout funds. He printed out the info, highlighted it, then mailed it in with his Chase credit card bill, marking it “paid in full.”

Which makes me wonder how many people are so pissed off that they have decided to retaliate against this bailout plan by defaulting on debt. I mean, if my credit is going to be in the toilet like fucking everyone else, I may as well quit paying my debt down as well, and stuff my money in my mattress.

In fact, I may as well take cash advances on all of them, stuff the cash in my mattress, make a few payments, then default on the lot! Or take the cash and buy one of these dirt cheap condos and put it in my daughter's name. What would they do? Attach my wages? Can’t. Its unsecured debt! Or I could quit my job and launch a business or something. I have A HUGE available credit line and I’m not afraid to use it. HAH! I could default on a ton of debt and there would be nothing the banks could get. My primary residence is upside down by about 200K, so its gonna be awhile before they can try and get blood from that turnip.

Why should we play this game when its set up for the rich?