…and my husband and I have come up with no fewer than fifty “plot” lines for bad pornos.
Archive for March, 2008
Why I Don’t Argue w. Idiots
2008
03.30
03.30
This post should probably be called “Why I don’t post much about politics, argue with retards, or stomp around the blogosphere like an infant threatening to ban IP addresses” but that seemed a tad unwieldy so let’s settle for the title above, ok?
So I have a few readers – those from Canada specifically - who have gently inquired in the polite way that I have come to know as being characteristic of our friends from the North about why I would allow a certain ridiculous comment in the last post to stand unchallenged.
The answer is easy: Like the title above suggests, I don’t argue with idiots. It’s a waste of my time. If you are a decent human being whose mama has raised you right it is a waste of your time too.
Not that I have never argued with idiots. There was a time when -as a vigorous young college student – I felt it my sacred duty to put the verbal beat-down on anyone who disagreed with my point of view. It wasn’t hard for me to “win” in these exchanges, seeing as how I was a graduate of the James Michener school of verbosity and have always possessed the energy of ten thousand yapping chihuahuas.
(Typically my sparring partner would give up: not because I was right, but because I had a habit of physically outlasting anyone who challenged me.)
Since then, however, I have changed my mind.
It happened one day while I watched one of those Explorer documentaries on the National Geographic channel. The subject of this particular program was white supremacy and while I can’t remember the bulk of it (the documentary wasn’t one of NG’s better attempts) there was one scene in which a group of be-sheeted KKK members had rallied on the steps of some public building. Or at least they were attempting to, because while the march may have originally been intended as a recruitment event it was clear that it was better attended by hordes of angry residents (both black and white) who were absolutely pissed that their streets had been taken over by a bunch of swaddled redneck jackasses.
I’d assert here that I can’t blame the residents but that would be digressing.
So anyway, while the embattled members of the KKK (and I refer to these guys as “embattled” in the same way I might refer to Fred Phelps should he ever find his way into a windowless room filled with gold star mothers) worked their way up the parade route I noticed something very interesting; their police escort was heavily manned by men and women from the local law enforcement detail… a good number of whom were black.
So…
#1 – In the KKK you had a group who, no matter how ignorant and disgusting their message is, has an inarguable and constitutional right to assemble peaceably.
#2 – You had the counter-demonstrators who were exercising their own constitutional right to publicly decry the event.
#3 – You had the requisite law enforcement outfitted in riot gear with batons encircling the KKK folks in order to prevent them from being torn to pieces by said counter-demonstrators.
#4 – And! There was nary a recruit in sight. Maybe because even in the South showing up to participate in such a disgusting spectacle without having your identity hidden by mom’s best egyptian cotton is a sure way to get your ass kicked when the cops aren’t looking.
I’ll admit it was quite a sight watching several white supremacists being protected by the very people they deride as inferior. But then again, I thought, maybe it’s not so awful.
Obviously I don’t know any of those officers personally and if the program featured interviews with any of them I don’t recall it. I have no way of knowing what was going through their minds as they performed their duties to protect free speech that day.
That being said, it did occur to me that there was really no reason the KKK should have ruffled the feathers of those officers in the least. When you get down to it, the very reason the police were there was because the KKK and it’s message is so wildly opposed that the group required police protection in the first place. Why should those officers lower their personal standards by engaging in behavior that was anything but dignified? Why should any of them have wasted their breath uttering contempt for a relic of an ugly past that is clearly dying?
In other words, why did I expect any of those officers to waste their time pointing out that the KKK was an ignorant group of hateful misanthropes when the retards were more than willing to throw on a few sheets and prove it themselves?
And that, my friends is why I don’t argue with idiots. If you want to make stupid comments, spew hateful rhetoric, or behave like a bigoted moron then be my guest. So long as you restrict yourself to the realm of free and protected speech and don’t violate the laws of this country then knock yourself out. Your inability to think critically and relate to others in a mature manner is a poor reflection on you, not me.
Also, I don’t know about the rest of my readers but I’m a very busy person. I don’t have the time nor do I have the desire to run around the blogosphere arguing with every bed-wetter with internet access. The way I see it, these folks should be actively encouraged to reveal their particular brand of stupidity since it is only by their words that we can recognize and better ignore them.
Which is why I don’t argue with the jackasses anymore. If those officers could – in the midst of a situation that carried over a century of hurt and ugly history – conduct themselves in a dignified manner while protecting people who hate them then I can certainly ignore a few bigoted and ignorant comments left on a freakin’ blog.
I have much to do…
2008
03.21
03.21
…but first I need several more gallons of coffee. Or crack cocaine. I’m not picky really, so long as it’s a substance that will keep me up for several days on end without making my heart go splat inside my ribcage. So maybe I should nix the whole crack cocaine thing. And maybe even let the Starbucks go and just stick with the watered down Folgers in front of me that isn’t strong enough to enliven a laboratory rat.
So what do we have here?
#1 – First off I apologize to all my Canadian readers for that last post. I never meant to insinuate that bloodthirsty hordes of Canucks were waiting to swarm down and force their funny-looking money on us. (But I still suspect that under all that politeness lurks a nation who is secretly annoyed with being America’s hat.) I even apologize to the wannabes who aren’t really Canadian but moved their silly asses to Manitoba. Although I must admit that I narrow my eyes at a people who – by choice – spend their winters in a place that involves snow, de-icer and this thing, I believe it is called a wind chill factor?
(shudder)
Just writing that makes me want to go lather myself in Coppertone.
#2 – Secondly! MW, of DWSUWF, which happens to be my favoritest political blog ever - even when I vehemently disagree with him (which I never do in a public forum because me taking on mw over foreign policy would look something like a bowl of pudding challenging James Carville to a debate. And not even a particularly bright bowl of pudding at that.)
…but even when, ahem, he’s wrong and I’m right MW has the virtue of always being entertaining. Except when he tags me with memes because anyone who has been hanging around since my last blog knows that I hate the *%$#@! memes so much that I banned them. MW seems to have found a loophole however; he tagged me with not one, or two but THREE of the vile little bastards just after I moved into my new digs but before I could install an effective anti-meme device or even break out the cootie spray.
Yeah, I’m getting around to your memes MW but you’ll have to give me a day or two to recover from this slashing knife wound in my back.
#3 – Thirdly, Lori is spreading her own bloggy virus in the form of a “letter to my body” post which she had great fun writing here. I really liked her post and figured it would be fun to take her up on the suggestion of writing my own until I realized that a letter to my body would read like the amend portion of a twelve step program. So Lori, I promise I’m working on this but it’s gonna be a few days until I’m able to adequately research the statute of limitations on, uh, a few things.
#4 – My brother, you know, the guy who digs up dead people for a living and keeps human heads in jars on his desk? Yeah… he’s finally decided to get away from the lame blogging tool on myspace and head into the murky waters of Blogger. As in an actual blog. On Blogger. So! If you want to read the awesome effort that is my brother’s insistence upon waking up everyday with the singular goal of being perpetually annoyed with his fellow man then hop on over to Anthroslug: The Much Put Upon.
Oh, and nobody can grow a wicked Viking beard the way my brother can. Who doesn’t want to read a blog by a guy whose facial hair makes him look at home in a helmet with horns coming out the sides?
Please disregard that last post…
2008
03.09
03.09
Um, yeah. I think that last post is evidence that the PMS fairy has been putting her foot in my back and shoving me off the wrong side of the bed these past couple of days. It was only this morning that it finally occurred to me that PMS was the culprit when I sat stewing in my yoga class over something this little gem uttered by the instructor:
“Now bend back, fall back everyone. This will help with the back pain we in the West experience too often.”
Now, keep in mind that I – a grown woman endowed with some semblance of a brain AND free will – have been doing yoga for a few years now. I have been exposed to the kooky philosophies of several of its practitioners. I willingly participate alongside many people who believe that crystals, incense and sage are perfectly acceptable alternatives to western medical practices which, by the way, are borne of the Devil. Or Krishna. Or Pele. Or whatever deity you choose to invoke so long as they agree that western medicine is an evil scourge that makes babies cry because the yoga world is filled with Unitarians.
Normally I would have blown off the instructor’s comment and continued meditating upon the gallons of sweat my yoga mat had absorbed. For some reason however, this morning it bugged the crap out of me so I spent the rest of the class with this in my head:
The back pain we in the West experience? Pssssshaw. Like back pain is a uniquely western problem. As if there isn’t some overworked Toshiba exec slaving over his desk in Tokyo and wondering why his lumbar region is singing Ave Maria to him. And don’t even get me started on what’s going on in Thailand with those places where people sit in the dirt and break big rocks into little ones. Oh I’ve seen them on infomercials! Like the ones where Sally Struthers wears some reptile-skin boots while begging for their lives. Are you going to try to tell me those people aren’t feeling the effects of rock-breaking in the ol’ C-5? And how about the tech support desk of every major computer company in the gawdamned Universe? Are you seriously suggesting that the strain of convincing someone that you’re name is Kevin though a thick East Indian accent won’t cause a little lower back ache? Please.
Yeah. This is what happens when I can’t use tequila as an outlet.
Dude…
2008
03.06
03.06
…it is sooooo Jay’s birthday today. So be a pal and go over to give him a blowjob.
Ok. Maybe just leave him a comment to tell him happy birthday. Leave the sexual favors to the sheep.
Lookitmeeeeee!
2008
03.05
03.05
My husband is one of those guys that never really grew up. He plays more video games than is possibly healthy, cries when he loses at basketball and needs me to cut up his food. One of his more childish boyish qualities involves his unflagging desire that I witness every achievement – regardless of how mundane or closely related to the human excretory system – with the dreaded phrase “Hey honey, come here, comehere, comeeeer!”
And, like my other two children, he’ll withold all demands on my time until I’m in the bathroom, making dinner or on the phone. It is only when I’m deeply involved in one of these activities that he will he summon me from across the house with the urgency of a man who has just been disemboweled and is holding his slippery guts in his hands while waiting for me to dial 911.
So today I was doing something terribly important - like brain surgery I’m sure – when I heard the dreaded call to drop whatever I was doing. And of course it I ran because I dunno, maybe it was going to be something really stupid like another super duper bonus training score on Madden or maybe, just maybe this time I would get the satisfaction of seeing him lying on the floor with a power drill sticking out of his eye.
So I dropped everything and ran to him.
And he proudly gestured at his latest achievement.
He had installed a shower rod.
And that’s when I ripped the shower rod down from its tile perch and beat him to death with it.
Ok, not really. But I wanted to.
P.S. – My husband has just read this over my shoulder and wants me to include a note about the fact that last weekend I managed to lock myself out of my own vehicle while performing what would have otherwise been a perfectly executed chinese fire drill. I have no idea how I managed to do that but I would like to posit here that I suspect my friends, who had a marvelous time pointing and laughing at me from inside the truck while the light changed and traffic began whizzing around me, may have had a hand in that particular misfortune. Because I is not dum.
“Just in case”
2008
03.01
03.01
As most of my friends and family know, I’m not really the kind of person who is comfortable with one-on-one sap, sentimentality, or pretty much any situation in which sarcasm cannot be comfortably interjected. I’ve been told that I’m “not genuine” and “difficult to get to know”. I would tend to agree with these people though I admit that I am myself confounded by my own discomfort in these situations.
At any rate, this state of affairs led to a conundrum last week when my father finally lit out for the Afghan territories. I went down my emotional checklist and ticked off the following: anxiety, fear, an odd sense of homesickness for my dad. Somewhere in the miasma floated the notion that he is too old for this crap, that after nearly forty years in the service my dad should have been spared deployment and allowed to remain home with his fiancee and grandchildren. (And yes, we’ve covered this territory in the last blog, haven’t we? To bitch about his decision to make the military a career would be disrespectful. So he goes to South Asia and we wait at home and take comfort in the fact that mandatory retirement will ensure that this will be the final deployment of his career.)
All of this was complicated by the fact that just days prior to his departure my dad called me up to apologize for not being a good father. (What?!?!) Seems he’s been carrying a lot of pent-up guilt because he believes he yelled at us too much, didn’t spend enough time with us, didn’t pay for me to go to college. The apology for what he envisions as his insurmountable faults as a father were disconcerting enough without the note of finality throughout the call itself: it was as if her were saying a few final words. You know, “just in case”.
At any rate, all the weird mental crap that accompanies watching your father go off to war and having those ”just in case” phone calls is really poorly expressed in person when you are as emotionally maladjusted as I am. Finally, someone I knew gave me an idea: write a letter to him. Tell him not to open it until he is a world away, say six thousand miles. Or several time zones. Or Oklahoma.
So here’s the letter, which I’m posting on the internet for the world to see because I am emotionally inept and putting this on a public forum makes perfect sense in some odd dimension that has yet to be uncovered by science:
Dad,
The other day you apologized for yelling at us when we were kids. This is not the first time you’ve apologized for what you think are your enormous parental shortcomings.
Please stop carrying those regrets around. You were a wonderful father. You still are. For decades you did your best and all of us kids could see that as plain as day. No matter what the situation you always weighed your options and erred on the side of trying to do the “right” thing, even when the “right” thing wasn’t the “fun” thing, the “easy” thing, or the most “expedient” thing. Just in case you hadn’t noticed, having a dad who does the right thing and sets that kind of an example is a pretty big deal.
For every regret you have about yelling at us kids I remember afternoons that you would let me come running with you. Or that you built a blanket fort for us. Or took us on bike rides. Or drove us to the “big library” in
I remember you taking us to Chuck E. Cheese once and not eating the pizza. When I asked you why you weren’t eating you said you really didn’t like Chuck E. Cheese pizza. So I asked you why we were all there if you didn’t like the pizza and you said, “because you kids enjoy it here.” Do you remember bringing home all that Plexiglas and making a watertight maze for me so that I could test a goldfish’s memory for the science fair in the eighth grade? Or taking us through the hangar at Aero-Nostalgia and letting us walk through the b
Do you remember pulling the car over to the side of some mountain highway in Calaveras County and having us get out because you spotted a California hairy spider and knew we kids would get a kick out of getting a closer look? Or the numerous occasions that you would take us to the National Guard hangar and let us climb around Hueys, Chinooks, and Apaches?
Personally, I consider the most generous instance of your magnanimity as a father to be the time that you didn’t shoot me dead when I wrecked in the driver’s side door of your truck and then tried to concoct a story about light poles jumping out at me. I thank you for that because I’ll tell you what; if my kids do half the things to me that I did to you I’m going to need to step up my drinking habit and probably throw a few recreational drugs into the mix. For many kids the conclusion to that little fiasco with the truck would have involved an early grave. You let me off with a stern lecture and a body shop bill that only made me wish I had been introduced to an early grave.
Sometimes when you get to feeling bad about what you imagine your faults as a parent were maybe you should think about all the stuff you did right. Like all the times you drove several hours to retrieve your oldest daughter’s car because it went kaput. Again. For the umpteenth time. (Are you feeling the automobile-related theme here?) Or scratched up the money to let me visit relatives in
Or how, when I was a kid and you took me to airshows you encouraged me to try anything once, including skydiving. And then as an adult – after a local woman had been killed skydiving the day before I was scheduled to go - you called to talk me out of it and only hung up when I promised to call you as soon as I was safely back on the ground after the jump.
Or how about all the stuff you did that had nothing to do with us kids, but went a long way toward setting a good example for us? Like pulling the car over to help all those people stranded on the side of the road over the years? Or picking up the tab for a young family at a restaurant because the father was a low-ranking Airman and you knew he didn’t make crap for pay? Or helping put together and refurbish bicycles for kids whose parents couldn’t afford to give them Christmas gifts? Or when you rescued a car from the wrecking ball so that you could sling load it and drop it in front of a crowd at an air show because it was an amusing thing to do?
Whenever you get around to getting down on yourself about your faults I hope you think about all the stuff you did right. I hope you think about reading The Princess and the Pea to me on the first night we spent in the house on Driftwood and wiping fire ants off Matthew’s feet when he toddled on their hill in pursuit of fresh peaches on
I hope you remember telling us silly stories about your first deployment – like when you and your buddies were bored and decided to set your boots on fire to amuse the locals in Korea. Or the family stories such as the time Aunt Carol chased you out of the house with a butcher knife because you shut the power off while she was listening to Elvis. Or the story about Grandpa Armstrong accepting far less than he could afford for a truck he was selling because the man who wanted to buy it couldn’t afford the asking price yet needed the truck to support his family.
I hope you realize that it was only because you were such a good father that I was able to recognize an equally good man and marry him. I hope you know that my initial career path – to be a high school English teacher – was inspired by the example you set for me and when I realized that I would be a disaster as a high school teacher I started down the road to becoming a mortician for the same reason I wanted to be a teacher; because like you, I want to live a useful life in service to others. I hope you know that because you were such a good dad I want to repay the favor to my own kids and be a good mom. I hope you know that my husband’s and my decision to sell our big house and buy a smaller one was made because we both wanted me to be home with our kids so they might know the same kind of love and dedication that my husband and I knew growing up.
You always get so down on yourself for not being able to afford to put me through college but you forget that you raised me to be the kind of person who could spend sixty hours a week waiting tables and still carry a full academic load. (And you know what? It wasn’t always easy or fun, but there was a lot of great experience packed into those years and enough fun times to make it go quickly. I wouldn’t change the ways things happend for the world. Besides, perpetual comfort and aversion to risk never results in a very interesting or worthwhile person.)
At any rate, I had only intended to write a quick note and here I am going on seven pages. Sorry. It’s just that I don’t want you to go one more day dwelling on your faults. You weren’t a perfect parent. I wasn’t the perfect daughter. But you were and still are a wonderful father and a terrific grandfather. I hope this deployment goes quickly for you and you hurry home to us so that you can get married and enjoy a well-deserved happy ending with Suzanne and become a fabulous step-father.
Love,
Your oldest daughter who is named after you so that should earn me a few bonus points in the last will and testament department, no?
