evil cat robots have feelings too!

: scarycatmecha; July 25th, 2008

Current Mood:: contemplative

So, in an attempt to put off writing syllabi (which brings me one step closer to another semester), I found myself watching The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet. The debate du jour was whether or not teenagers could handle casual sex. So, and consider that the opinion you’re getting is FREE, here’s my thang:

First, the ‘debate’ experts were handled horribly. They had two doctors who had written a book about the myelinization of the brain. For those who don’t know, basically, when you’re young, the neurons in the brain lack a protein sheath—sort of like the plastic coating on electrical wires. As you get older, more and more of the brain becomes myelinized. Some other scientists have argued, pretty convincingly to me, that young men myelinize slower than young women, and that THAT might account for their poor impulse control (recklessness, fighting, drinking, driving like madmen….) So they were trying to connect poor myelinization to long term effects of oxytocin-release from sex. I’m not sure about that, but it’s plausible.

In the other corner, they dredged up some psychologist who proves EVERYTHING I hate about the breed. He immediately attack the other experts, saying THEY were sick from this condition of trying to make money off poor science. So he characterizes them as pathological, greedy, and in the pocket of abstinence ideology. A little unnecessarily rude, but, what got the catrobot here, was that his very next sentence had the phrase, “Now, in MY book….” So, when others write a book, they’re greedy. When you come on to pimp your book, you’re just trying to illumine?

His point was that in other cultures, and other eras, we didn’t seem to have this hangup about young folks being immature.

Okay, half a point for him. It’s true: in the Middle Ages, for example, young women (and I must indicate that every teenage sex guest they had on this show was female—does that mean they feel that young boys CAN handle casual sex?) married at age 12 on average. One could go on and on.

But here’s what Mr Perspicacious Psychologist somehow didn’t get: since the 1900s we have ‘invented’ more life stages. The Victorians had no concept of child labor laws (read your Dickens). Children were little adults and were treated as such. A young person of the working class in the Victorian age would have most likely slept in the same room as his parents, seen them fight and have sex. They were not ‘protected’ in any way resembling what *we* consider to be ‘humane’ and ‘civilized’. The Twentieth Century, then, more or less *invented* childhood. Then the ‘50s invented teenagers as a life stage, and boy, haven’t we just taken that Age of Rebelliousness and run with it? And now, marketing has invented the ‘Tweens’—preteens with lots of cash and a liking for Miley Cyrus.

It’s worse: the twenties, which if you ask your parents were the age to settle down, get married, and start a family (my mom had been written off as a horribly Old Maid because she didn’t marry until age 27), have now become the Drunken Orgy Playground. Responsibility? That's fuddy-duddy stuff for the thirties, man. (Almost a direct quote from one of my students). So, Mr Psych hasn't realized that since his 'evidence' of early maturity, the human species has had a sea change where we protect and insulate (for good or bad) young people from the Facts of Life. Trust me--when was the last time YOU had to kill what you ate? This *creates* immaturity. By definition, practically.

Okay, so enough about that nimrod.

Onto the issue at hand. Pretend like you asked me how I felt about teenaged girls and casual sex.

I'm so glad you asked. Now, in one way, I have no ethos to answer this question. Why? Because I was an HUUUUUUGLY teenager. I think I radiated Bubonic Plague or something. Casual sex wasn't even an option for me because it takes two to do that particular tango and I was greasy-haired, brunette, overweight and wore glasses.

This doesn't mean I didn't WANT to, though. Oh My GOD I wanted to have a boy notice me. I did one guy's French homework for an entire year thinking maybe he'd finally (John Waters film-esque) see me and dispense some sort of physical affection on me. Pathetic, isn't it?

Because of lack of male attention, I became a really good student. How do you become valedictorian of your high school class? Have NO social life. I literally had nothing better to do than study. And besides, my teachers gave me positive comments on my schoolwork. At the risk of sounding cheezy, isn't that what adolescence is about--wanting approval? Let's face it: your body changes into something you don't even recognize. Suddenly your boobs get in the way of *everything*, you can't run as well, you have pains where you never had them before.... I think we all desperately want someone to tell us that this freaky new body with hair growing in weird places is all right.

But here's why I don't think casual sex is the way to get it. And no, it's not about man-bashing.

We all know (and if this is news to you, then I'm glad to Spread the Word) that limiting our self definition to only one facet of ourselves is damaging. That's why you see these soccer moms prowling the self-help aisle at the bookstore--spend how many years with your identity being subsumed under chauffeur/house chef Perfect Mother and sooner or later the parts of you that want to paint or keep up your French from college or have a get together with your college roomies or be sexy will either explode to the surface or fester in a nasty boil. None of us are flat people. All of us have brains, and bodies, and desires to create, and a need to have fun, and a need to express ourselves. Forcing attention to just one aspect starves the others.

So, take your high school girl who has casual sex. She's getting positive feedback on her looks and body, but what about the rest of her? What about her brains? What about her artistic ability? What about her shot-put skills? Moreover, let's be honest, shall we? Our society only values your looks until you're about age...20, I'd say. Go on and insert your usual favorite diatribe about Youth Worship. I'll wait til you come back.

Okay, back with me? So, we value only hot nubile young women. So...when we give positive feedback to a young woman based on her body and looks, what we're doing is praising the part of her with the shortest shelf life. Which leaves the longer-lived parts of her starved and by the time she's oh, say, MY age, she's too long in the tooth to be toothsome. That can't be good.

Other reasons the catrobot doesn't sanction casual sex among the young: let's face it, even adults can't handle sex that well. Watch the national news for a week and you'll hear probably half a dozen stories about people killed because of sexual relationships--husbands killing wives, boyfriends killing girlfriends, stalkers, etc. (I know women kill men, but I'm just sampling THIS week's news--the female killer du semaine killed her own kid, not a man). Even when they've broken up and let go, they bump each other off. What does that say? It says to me that Sex Causes Connections. It's a tautology that girls will have sex and think of it a relationship (watch Maury if you don't believe me). "I'm not your boyfriend, you were just a booty call." If people are murdered over it, I don't think sex is that 'freewheeling' and happy-go-lucky. If someone would rather see you DEAD than schtupping another guy, that says that sex ain't just about...sex. So what about 'casual sex'? Ain't nothin' casual about it.

I'm not trying to be preachy, because I did go through my casual sex phase myself in college. I'm just saying that to have sex, you have to make yourself vulnerable to the other person. If only by being naked, you are still presenting yourself as a body to be judged (which is, of course, America's NEW favorite pastime). Sure he may say the Right Things at the time, but what does he say to his friends? What does he text to his buddies? Or the next girl he wants to hook? (Of course in the name of gender equity, women are just as harsh, if not harsher, in judging women's bodies). So even just gettin' nekkid you are opening yourself up to a world of possible pain. And if the sex is to be worth your time you have to open up emotionally.

That's the part I think these kids don't get. I'm not sure, but this is my gut feeling. I think they boink and boink and it's no big deal, because, in a way, they Aren't Doing it Right. It doesn't rock their worlds because they're keeping their worlds nicely separate from the action. It's just a physical pleasure to them. There's no emotional contact, there's no whole-person validation. They're just using each other as onanistic devices. And that's about as healthy as using a blow up doll. Only less sanitary.

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Yeah, sorry about that.

: scarycatmecha; July 16th, 2008

Current Mood:: cranky

Sorry for spilling my Tommy related angst all over you. Hopefully it won't leave a stain. What I actually came up here to write/kvetch about was Obama. Because he's really starting to worry me.

Like, okay, the New Yorker came out with a magazine cover that depicts him in Muslim garb and his wife with a machine gun and a belt of ammo. And Obama's flipping out about it. My question is...WHY?

Okay, is it offensive to portray someone as a Muslim? No. If we were portraying someone as a Nazi or member of the KKK, yes, offensive. Because those people are dirtbags. But I thought the whole point is that Muslims AREN'T terrorists. Thus, being portrayed as a Muslim is offensive... how? He said it was offensive to Muslims, which confused me even more: so, Muslims should be offended by being portrayed as presidential hopefuls? Me, I do not see that at all.

Second, it's a bloody cartoon. Get over it. You and I know about people who flip out over political cartoons. Remember those riots in Denmark? Wacky people (who HAPPENED to have been Muslim, but again, they do not represent all Muslims) get offended by idiot cartoons.  And wasn't there that guy down at Guantanamo who made the court artist do his sketch over because he didn't like how his nose looked? Vanity or idiocy: those are the things that make people care about how other people draw them. Obama should be above both.

Third, if he can't handle a teensy bit of criticism, whoa buddy. Is HE not ready for the world stage! If he gets elected (a month ago I would have said 'when' but recent polling makes it kinda iffier), do you think every political cartoonist from around the globe is ONLY going to Norman Rockwell him? Puh-lease. And it's the sworn duty of political cartoonists to take *whoever* is in power down a peg. When Clinton was president, they drew enough nasty cartoons of him. Bush? I don't think I even need to mention that there are negative political cartoons featuring the current Man.

Fourth, the New Yorker said it was satire. It's satire. Get over it. It's not about *you*, it's about the idiots who would look at you and think such dumb things to begin with.

Fifth: it's the New Yorker, for the sake of crisp toast. Who reads the damn thing other than pretentious dipshits anyway? Seriously. I have a PhD and I can't think of any of my friends who read the New Yorker. In fact, I bet the New Yorker is thanking Obama right now for the free publicity. You watch the catrobot's prediction right heah, chilluns: I predict that THIS issue of the New Yorker will sell more than any other in the last year.

Sixth, last time I checked my food bill has skyrocketed, and I'm in serious terror how I'm going to afford to heat my home this winter. And you're getting your knickers in a twist over an unflattering cartoon? Don't you have, like, POLICIES to be pitching me? I'm pretty sure my rage will only keep me warm part of the way, but not all the way till the crocuses croak.

Seventh, this whole tempest in a teacup really underscores how out of touch Obama is with you, me and the rest of the world. This is the guy whose wife insists the six hundred dollar tax rebate checks would only cover 'a pair of earrings'. Huh? Where does she buy her earrings? I'd be able to get at least forty pairs out of $600. But instead that rebate check went straight into my household economy. Groceries, bills, etc. It kept me afloat. I'm not *happy* about it, and I'd really rather have NOT gotten the check and kept the national debt down a bit (but I figure however I spend it, it's secretly mostly going back to Uncle Sugar in terms of tax, salestax, etc) , but it was more than 'a pair of earrings' to me, and I dare presume to you, too.

And Obama keeps saying that drilling won't help lower gas prices. Well, surprise surprise. In the two days since the current President has lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling, hrm, it looks like crude oil prices have gone DOWN. Sure, it's not because we're supplying our own, but declaring our intent to do so sends a clear message to those creeps in OPEC that the gravy train's days are numbered. And if we'd done it five, ten, twenty years ago--am I the only one to remember the '70s gas crisis?--we wouldn't be in QUITE this pickle now. We probably wouldn't be pickle-free, though. Maybe just gherkins. Anyhoo, Obama says we shouldn't drill because we won't see results for a while. I don't know about you, but I'm kinda in this country for the Long Haul. Maybe he just plans on being president for four years, but I plan on staying here til I croak. That means I've got all the patience in the world. That means, also, that I realize that if gas companies got the greenlight to dig offshore, they would give a good solid boost to the economy. To drill offshore they'd have to have platforms, and boats, and people, right? Someone's got to build those platforms and rigs. Someone's got to make and sail those boats, right? Someone's got to work the rig, right? And someone's got to keep books for them, make sure they get supplies, etc, etc. A huge move like this would accomplish WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT exactly what the WPA was trying to do in the thirties--get people to work, and moving. Progress! Jobs! Even incentive for innovation!

But no, Obama's against it. Maybe it's because he can afford to fill his tank and doesn't realize you and I can't. Maybe it's because he likes polar bears more than he likes me (I'm pretty hard to like: it's completely possible). Maybe, and this is the most disturbing, he lacks the ability to think Big Picture and Long Term. And those are qualities I REALLY look for in a President.

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My head hurts.

: scarycatmecha; July 16th, 2008

Current Mood:: depressed

I've got a stray cat I've been feeding for about four years. He apparently came with the house. He's probably in his teens. In the last few months, he's started looking *horrible*. He's lost a lot of weight. You can see his vertebrae on his spine. His fur is falling out (but not in mangy patches, just all over). And I'm torn.

Is it time? For the last two years now, I've said to myself every fall, you know, self, Tommy isn't going to make it through another winter. And he's pulled through. But now he's just looking ratty. Gaunt. His eyes are sunk in his face.   And I know that he's just OLD. If I took him to the vet hoping for a cure they'd think I was bats. There is, alas, no cure for Old. BUT (before you write this off as a no-brainer) he gets up to come over whenever he sees me. He purrs when I pick him up, and kneads my shoulder when I hold him. And up until today, he's been eating fine. In fact I started giving him three meals of canned food a day, figuring maybe his teeth were bothering him with the dry food and THAT was why he'd lost weight.

Today, he didn't eat lunch. He had a few nibbles of dinner and stopped. And I still don't know what to do.

Ideally, I'd like him to go in his sleep--just have a massive coronary while he's in dreamland and never wake up. No suffering. No pain. Second-to-ideally, I take him to vet and put him down. (Only condition is, I HAVE to be in the room with him. I have a THING--complex, neurosis, whatever you want to call it--about no one I know dying alone or surrounded entirely by strangers). BUT isn't it cruel to put him down if it's just that it's hot today and he doesn't feel like eating? Isn't it selfish to put him to death, basically, because he looks ratty (if you offed me every time I looked crummy, I don't think I would have survived childhood)? How do I make the call? How can I possibly decide someone else's life for them? How can I take away snoozling on the porch to the sounds of the breeze through the daylilies and the random sounds of the windchime? How can I take this away from him? How do I know it's time?

A friend of mine said, "you always wait one day too late," making the decision to put an animal to sleep. I know why, now. You have to measure their suffering, their ability to enjoy life and your ability to bear this tremendous responsibility.

My mother's best friend died this morning (and yeah, I feel stupid crying over a frickin' cat when a real human died, but that doesn't change the fact I'm snurfly). She was diagnosed in December, went into hospice less than a week ago. It's too soon for anyone other than my tact-challenged mother to say it, (and believe me, my mom is very sad--this is her only friend), but it was time. Everyone knew. The woman had a chance to say goodbye to her family and friends. She had a chance to put everything in some level of stasis. Some would say she suffered too much: she spent the last three days in and out of consciousness, never able to speak. Excuse the travesty here, and imagine instead of a human, she were a cat. Not only with a terminal diagnosis, but clearly suffering. Unable to get out of bed. Legs swollen. Unable to eat. Unable to respond to her children. In that case, it would be clear. I could make THAT call and put THAT hypothetical cat to sleep. This woman suffered more than my little Tommy does. But no one talked about, no one had to even weigh the idea of euthanizing her.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here, really. Does this mean I should treat Tom like a person and let him, like this woman, choose his own time and way to go? Hell, am I arguing for human mercy-euthanasia? I have no idea. I just wish, hell, I wish I'd get a telegram from God (or St Francis or someone) telling me 'yes, take him to be put down,' or 'no, let him go'. (Is it a matter of real autonomy--do I want him to have the freedom to choose just like a human, or do I just want to shed that responsibility?) I want a sign. I can do the right thing; I WANT to do the right (merciful, compassionate, loving) thing. But I swear I don't know what it is.

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Oh, some handy hints...

: scarycatmecha; July 14th, 2008

Current Mood:: embarrassed

There's not much in life that the catrobot does well, which is why she does not frequently dispense advice. However, it has been brought to my attention that I have accomplished SOMETHING beyond the realm of the common: grow my hair really frickin' long. So I thought I'd toss a few tips in the line of how to grow your hair long. (I'm sitting on my braid as I type--it's not as fun as you think).

Things you need:

* Boar bristle brush.  If you have thick hair you may get one with boar bristles and longer plastic bristles to reach your scalp.
* Wide toothed comb. Mine's wooden, but you can find good quality plastic for cheap. Just think super big teeth.
* Scrunchies. You'll use them all the time.
* Hair sticks. I can't figure out bobby pins to save my life, but I can do a hairstick bun in 30 seconds. You can get some starters at Claire's to start cheap. You can find super expensive (but GORgeous) ones on the web. And you can make your own. (I make most of my own from stuff anyone can get at a craft store).
* Hair oil. I bought jojoba oil at a health food store and mixed in a few drops of rosemary essential oil. I have dark hair, and rosemary helps with dark hair. If you're blonde, you might try lemon oil. Redheads....ummmm. I read somewhere beets? Do research.

Things to avoid:
* Metal clips--they can often tear your hair and snag. I'm not saying chuck your cute clips out, just don't wear them every day!
* 'Naked' elastics--no rubber bands! Ouch!  If you want your hair to be nice and healthy, avoid even the 'ouchless' thin ponytail bands. Trust me: scrunchies. You can get the cheapo drugstore kind.  You don't want anything that's going to pull and pinch and snag one or two hairs--first, ouchy! second, they encourage breakage. Before I figured this out I had a LOT of flyaway 'whiskers' that were...suspiciously...just to the point of my ponytail. When I switched to Scrunchies Only, voila!
* Peroxide and hair dyes. If you MUST color your hair, go with henna.  It's good for your hair and colorific. It does smell like a cow's stomach, though.
* Hairspray. It makes your hair brittle. If you must control flyaways, try a good leave in conditioner, like Infusium 23. If you have that much flyaway, you're washing your hair too frequently. And are using snag-errific stuff in your hair like metal clips. Naughty!

Here's what you do:
Wash your hair less frequently. I wash mine every other day in summer. In winter, when the air is drier, I may go 3-4 days without washing. The first few weeks your hair may seem greasy, but it'll calm down.

Never sleep with your hair loose. Tangle city. My pre-bed ritual is to undo whatever I've done with my hair, brush it with a good brush (boar bristle preferably, which will move the oils away from your scalp and down the hair shaft where it's needed--which will degreasify your hair at the roots) and then braid it. I finish the braid with a scrunchy.

Some people swear by satin pillowcases, not just for hair, but for avoiding 'bed face'--those wrinkles on your face when you wake up. I never tried this myself, but hey, it might work.

Brush your hair from the ends to the roots. You don't KNOW bad knots until your hair reaches almost to your waist. (This is the point where most people give up on growing their hair and stick with the more manageable shoulder-blade length, I think). When you brush, start with the ends, and work your way up. This will prevent breakage.

People will tell you when growing out your hair to get it trimmed all the time. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's not. I had my hair trimmed for the first time in eight years last week, and had a measly four inches trimmed off. When I started growing my hair (from a crewcut, basically) I did it the cranky way and just never ever let anyone near me with scissors.

When you wash your hair, condition it as well. To shampoo, apply shampoo to the roots of your hair only. As you scrub and rinse, the cleansy part of the shampoo will work its way to the end without damaging the ends. Condition the opposite way--apply to ends of hair. I condition the last ten inches, and then twist my wet hair (still in shower) and let conditioner mixed with water move down towards the roots.

Before you get out of the shower, give the old mane a cool water rinse. This seals the hair shaft and makes your hair shiny and stronger. I say cool--some people say cold. Cold as you can stand it.

No brisk toweling for you! Unless you want a tangled mess. I have a 'superabsorbent' towel just for my hair. I get out of the shower, and put hair into a turban in this towel. Yes, it sticks out from the front of the turban. I fold it back under and squeeze. Don't wring your hair, just squeeze the roll in a towel.

Avoid hair drying. Why? It's DRYING. God is your hairdryer! Use your handy wide toothed comb, and very gently comb through your hair as little as possible into what I call the Drying Configuration. Mine is a low-on-the-neck scrunchy ponytail. I comb my hair off my face just to the point where I make the ponytail. I don't mess with the longer parts until it's dry.

Once a week, oil your hair. You can buy a hot oil treatment from the drug or grocery store if you'd like and follow directions. If you're lazy like me and a hot oil seems like too much work, once a week (or so, as needed--do this less frequently if your hair is shoulderblade or shorter) take a golf-ball sized amount of jojoba and essential oil and apply to hair. Using your brush, brush it through. Your hair will look unbelievably skanky/oily--don't do this on any night you're expecting company! Braid your hair as usual, go to sleep. When you shower in the morning, let the warm water really penetrate your hair and scalp before shampooing. If you find your hair really drying out due to weather, etc, you can do this any time. One time in Israel I used swiped mayonnaise packets. I smelled like a ham sandwich for a night, but my hair was touchably soft.

Learn how to braid your hair. While it's growing, French and Dutch braids help hide uneven layers, and can look really classy, especially if you add in little things like jeweled pins and pearls and flowers.

Hairsticks. Again, when growing out, they're great for a French twist. Your hair will get too long for a twist at some point, but keep those sticks! They make a good bun. There are better directions out there on the web, but here's the SIMPLE everyday bun I use. Gather hair into ponytail. Until you get the hang of it, use a scrunchy to secure ponytail. It'll most likely be hidden, anyway. Take the tail and twist and twist and twist and twist until you have a good long rope. Coil it around the base of the rope--where your ponytail starts. (Around scrunchy if you have one). Tuck ends under. Take one hair stick and insert it through coils of hair point straight to your scalp. With the point (lightly!) touching scalp, raise decorative/thicker part of hairstick *up*(roughly toward ceiling). Push point of stick through center of bun and out the other side, making sure to catch part of the coils going out. Repeat with other hairstick. I generally have my sticks at the 2 and 10 o'clock positions, to give you some idea. Done right this will last all day. It *may* soften, especially if you don't scrunchy the ponytail, but it won't fall apart on you. You can decorate this with pins, minibraids, scarves, ribbons, etc. When I'm feeling 'dressy', I'll take a length of lace and tie it around my bun, letting the ends dangle down the back of my neck. You'd be surprised how sexy it looks.

People will try to tell you that long hair is more expensive than short. Not true. I buy shampoo and conditioner, yes, but I wash my hair less frequently, so it averages about the same as if I were a short or medium-haired person who washed her hair every day. And what you're SAVING in not having to get haircuts will easily cover a basic supply of a GOOD brush, a wide toothed comb, and a couple of scrunchies. Anything you get beyond these, your hair oil and a basic pair of hairsticks is just for fun. (Hairsticks especially--addictive to collect!) So, don't let anyone tell you it's expensive.

There. That's just about all I know about growing my hair to 'shut it in car door' lengths. Go for it! Long hair has never been OUT of style (unlike the 70's Farrah cut, the 80s curly do, the Aniston shag, the 60s beehive....) Plus you're no longer at the mercy of a hairstylist. We all know how a bad haircut can make you feel like your life is ruined! Who wants that? (I grew my hair out after a particularly bad hair butchery known as the Chemo Cut of '99. As I sat in my car *crying* I decided I would never again be in a position to cry over what someone else did to my hair.)

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I'm baaack!

: scarycatmecha; July 14th, 2008

Current Mood:: cranky

Where has your neighborhood catrobot been? Long story. Involves colon. Say no more.

So, what's cheezing me off this week? Too many things. A few highlights:

Everyone on the internet is getting greedy as hell. My crazy mother (not that I have an *un*crazy one) wants a few of those crochet mesh grocery bags, because she bought the cheapo ones the grocery store sells, but they (unsurprisingly) broke. So, onto the internet searching for free patterns, just b/c I am too lazy to find one and sit down for ten minutes and figure it out. Of course I found a few--the sugar'n'creme yarn site has a basic one that works up super fast which I am currently modifying (to add carry pouch/pocket). That's not the point; the point is somehow in the last four months or so, nobody gives nothin' away on the internet any more. I blame etsy. The 'free' patterns offered by people are...scary looking. It's always tough with crochet, I know, because most of us American remember crochet as the thing that backstops the Beer Can Hat and the Clown Toilet Roll Covers. Crochet still equals tacky to a lot of people. Amigurumi have done a bit to change that, but not enough. Don't believe me? Google amigurumi and see some of the monstrosities trying to be Japanese kawaii. I think they miss kawaii by nautical miles.

What else? Oh, let's get political. I was thrilled about Obama--Hillary freaks me out and I think that the alternation of Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton would have left many people thinking we live in an oligarchy. (Which we very well may). I liked Obama, and stood by him during the Rev Wright thing, though I'm old school and I don't think politics has any place in the pulpit. I don't like Catholics telling me to pray to end abortion (though I'm okay with praying for the health of the Pope), I don't like that separation of church and state doesn't work *both* ways.

But here's the deal: Obama promised us a New Dude. Change. No more dirty pool. No more sleazy politics. That's why I got excited. A man of character, I said. A rare thing.

Well, I can't help but get a little uncomfortable when the last few weeks have seemed to be nothing more than Obama tripping over his own tongue. He'll say something (he's swiftly running out of people from whom he can distance himself) and then have to run to the podium to 'clarify'. Like the Iraq withdrawal thing. When that broke, your neighborhood feline cynic said, ah, he's staging this to get TONS of press coverage--two press conferences, one day. But I'm beginning to have my doubts.

No, it's not about 'refining' his Iraq policy--I saw that coming for months. It's about FAISA and NAFTA and just today, the sovereignty of Jerusalem. At AIPAC he said quite clearly that Jerusalem should be an undivided capitol. Today, he said the opposite. And then said that he didn't say the AIPAC thing 'very well.'

Hello? This is a guy who has almost no record in politics (one reason we like him). Instead he's got to bank on character and spiffy speechmaking. Character--if he keeps wiggling on his statements depending on who is listening? Speechmaking if he has to have TWO bloody press conferences to say something he 'said badly' the first time? Who writes this guy's speeches? Does he? It's like that questionnaire about his beliefs (which tagged him as The Most Liberal Guy in the Senate) that now was apparently inaccurate b/c it was filled out by a staffer. (This came to light when it seemed that he contradicted himself on gun control).

I'm not Obamabashing. I'm just frustrated. I had hope for this guy, and I'm seeing him do the Washington politico thing--speaking with forked tongue, saying what each audience wants to hear, manipulating audiences, and never revealing what he actually feels or believes. I just want to know the guy I'm voting for. Is that too much?

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If this is how you non-idiots think....

: scarycatmecha; March 20th, 2008

So, clearly someone has even less of life than I do (ALWAYS a sad and scary thought) and has decided to blame me for the fact that my architect ignored my requests and my contractor has some shady dealin's. Yeah, it's apparently the catrobot's fault that she trusts other people to be competent at their bloody jobs. Hrm, if I could build a garage and do all the electricity and so on by myself, I'D DO IT. Since I have a different set of job skills, I do what's supposed to be the next-best alternative: paying a professional. I mean, I could whip out my mad high school shop carpentry skillz, yo, but it wouldn't be very pretty. Or long lasting.  If you want a passage of Latin translated, or the latest in mass media and gender, I'm your man (well, woman), so I think it's only fair that we carry this specialization thing out to trades. As for referrals: you go to your general family doctor and he or she says you need to follow up with someone about your prostate, you don't ask the postal clerk to give you a second opinion (well, the poster who thinks I'se a idjit might, but....) You see a specialist. How do you find such a specialist? You ask your doctor to give you referrals. How's this any different? Face it: if all us homeowners weren't 'idiots', contractors would never work again.

That's okay, because apparently it's Lunatics Come Out of the Woodwork Week at the Old Curmudgeon's Home. At my lovely job, one coworker mildly suggested on a listserve that she was going to stand vigil on Wednesday for the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Then, of course, this mild and tender sentiment was entirely hijacked by the frootloops of the Left, who were debating between burning an effigy of the President and wearing orange jumpsuits to show solidarity for the Gitmo prisoners in the illegal and vicious clutches of the US Army.

Occasionally, even I have to step in. First, you insult the troops, you piss me off. Disagree with the President all you want. It's a free country, so you just go ahead and enjoy that thar Freedom O' Speech you got. But I do, and judge me as harshly as you want about this, think that insulting our troops is crossing the line.

For example: dear friend of mine called the other night from Fort Lewis. The word has gone out from the Base Commander that no one is to visit the Tacoma Mall this weekend. Why? Because a group of protestors has done the legal thing and filed their intent to assemble, wrapped in a threat that any vehicle with a DoD sticker, or anyone who exits from such a vehicle, is pretty much an open target. My friend says his daughter (who is seven) came home from school crying because another student told her that her father (my friend) was a murderer who beat up old women and little girls. One time his wife apparently forgot to lock the car door (that's better than the alternative, that these weirdos are carrying slimjims), and my friend's uniforms, which she'd picked up from the drycleaners, were stolen. She doesn't know what happened, but a few days later, a protest group was seen burning uniforms. Hrm.

So, you terrorize families of soldiers because you care so much about the troops that you want the troops to be brought home immediately. Maybe I am an idiot, as Mr Commentor suggests, because I don't have a CLUE how that goes together.

Let's see if I put myself into their brains.... Okay, it's a little tight in here, and kind of dark, and there's only one very small narrow opening, but I'm in. Let's try that train of thought again.

(As War Protestor and Doubtless Person Who Thinks Homeowners Are Idiots):
I love the troops. I support the troops but I'm against this illegal war. President Bush is an idiot. President Bush owns a home. Yup, he's an idiot for sure. I want the troops home now so no more of our American soldiers have to die in this illegal war. Even though those soldiers are rapists and criminals and thugs. Said so right in _In the Valley of Elah_. And psychopaths who come home to kill their wives and beat their children. And have PTSD forever. But I want to save American lives. Saddam Hussein wasn't a terrorist, so it's an illegal war. They never had any WMD over there, and it had nothing to do with the fact that we'd announced for months we were going to go over there and search ourselves, nor that they had plenty of time and opportunity to shove said weapons over the borders to, say, Syria and Iran, who are not our friends.... They're not our friends, of course, because of our jackbooted foreign policy. We should let people decide for themselves if they want a genocidal dictator or not. It's not our place to judge. And it's certainly not our place to put the lives of Americans in danger. I'm an American and I wouldn't put my life on the line for that idiot homeownin' President Bush, who is a moron and a C student. Of course, there's not a darn thing I would put my life on the line for. Sure, I'll stand around with a sign and set things on fire, and hang out at the mall and yell at little kids, but no one's going to actually hurt me. Or kill me. Worst I'll get is an arrest, but we've filed notice with the city so not even that. I'm just using my freedom of speech. And that little girl needs to know that her daddy is doing bad things over there. They say that for every American whose died 200 Iraqis have died. So like our soldiers are just killing everything over there. It was better under Saddam. Unless you were a Shi'ite. Or a Kurd. Or wanted an education. Yeah, totally better. So her daddy probably kills about a person a day over there. Sick. But I want to bring the troops home, and bring them home NOW, and standing with a sign and hanging out at the mall will totally make that happen. Yeah. Totally. It's not like only teenaged girls and pedophiles hang out at the mall, us cool protestors do too. And murdering raping bastards like those army guys don't deserve to take their daughters to the mall. We should bring them home now and then we'll stop protesting, so all they have to do if they want to go to the mall with their kids or not get stuff yelled at them every time we see them in public is just not go. Yeah, if all the soldiers refused to go, there wouldn't be a war. Some sixties song like that, wasn't there? So all I have to do is convince them to screw up the rest of their lives and desert in a time of war (for which the penalty is death) because if they go they might be killed or injured or crippled and then have to come home to crappy Walter Reed or Madigan and get neglected by the VA. Not like the state or the country could use this money they have to pay to have police attend our protests should go to the VA. Those cops are here to protect US from those crazy murdering raping soldiers. Even though they're probably overpaid, too. I'm just doing my part as an American, dammit.

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I can't stands no more....

: scarycatmecha; February 16th, 2008

Current Mood:: cranky

Look, people, vote for whomever you want to vote for this election. That's the bottom line. But please don't swallow the codswallop they're offering about education. Both parties currently seem to think that the solution to our current educational issues is twofold: more testing and more money.

Here's why they're wrong: Testing, which is supposed to guarantee a relative homogeneity of education, often does nothing more than merely point out the obvious: which schools are failing. Duh, we already KNOW those. Just track where all of the top-tier graduates in education *don't* accept jobs. Spending millions of dollars and wasting valuable class time to underscore the obvious is bureaucratic waste at its finest.

Of course, this leads to 'teaching to the test', where students learn test taking strategies, rather than mastering the material. There are more invidious forms of corruption--I know of one high school teacher who gives last year's exams to her students, knowing that the test bank is unlikely to make up more than 10% of the test in 'new' questions. Kids don't learn history, they don't learn how to apply theories and information. They learn vocabulary, at best. Ask a student what a simile is, and you might get the write answer--show him a paragraph and ask him to *find* the simile, and you'll get nothing more than a blank look.

This is a new and different form of shit, however, because this shit rolls *uphill*. Meaning, students can bubble-sheet pass their way right out of high school, and are woefully underprepared for college. And I don't mean just informationally, like not knowing the dates of the Civil War. They don't have the basic knowledge of how to be *students*. They don't bring notebooks to class. They don't bring their textbooks to class. They don't read the material, or if they do, they skim it. They certainly don't ever take notes. Result? Colleges are crammed with students needing/demanding remediation.

Parents and anyone who pays property taxes should be infuriated. The very fact that their little Sherry or Todd NEEDS remediation says very clearly that HIGH SCHOOL FAILED YOUR SON OR DAUGHTER. Your property taxes just got wasted. Feel good? Probably not. But let's leave the mass arson of high schools til later, folks. Let's see what this does to colleges.

With an increased demand for remedial instruction, college resources are stretched to the limit and this often creates double-binds. You, as a parent, want the college to put their best professors in the remedial classes, right? Make sure those remedial students get what they need, right? Well, that, unfortunately takes them away from the upper level classes, classes that are for students who have declared majors or courses of study. Are we to let those classes be taught by adjuncts or TAs? Are we supposed to cancel them or schedule them less frequently? That might seem like a great idea, so long as young Todd is in remediation, but when he's a sophomore-year history student, suddenly, you'll want those best teachers to do their best teaching in Todd's major.

Also, there's this idiotic notion circulating that everyone *needs* a college degree. Horseshit. Seriously. If we buy into that notion, then what we're doing is merely making college degrees the new high school diploma--a testament to minimum basic skills, and pushing back the threshold of personal responsibility another four years.

Many students come to college unprepared as students, but also as adults. They're technically adults, by the law--they can vote and buy pornography and be tried as adults for murder, but many of them also have behavioral problems that have my generation shaking our heads. My students, for example, can't manage to sit in the same room for 75 minutes. This isn't, incidentally, 75 minutes of Ben Stein droning lecture: I do lots of small activities in the classroom. Some of them are technically, and that's how I use the term, retarded. Some of them have massive like DSM-IV personality disorders--ADHD, disassociative personality disorder, chemical or alcohol dependency. Guess what? College professors are not trained to deal with that. And guess what? I don't WANT to be trained to deal with that. I have enough to do to prep my five courses, do my own research so I can publish so I can get promoted, and do my required committee work, thank you. Colleges have become the dumping grounds of the irresponsible and in some cases irremediable. I have students who have failed courses four and five times. God bless them for trying again, but sooner or later maybe someone should ask, hey, maybe college isn't for you? Or maybe isn't for you *right now*?

I often have older students in my courses. I LOVE older students. Not just because we swap slang and pop culture references, but because those older students haven't just robotically gone on to college as The Thing You Do After High School. They tried other colleges, maybe, dicked around, flunked out. Or worked for a few years. What they know, they KNOW, mind you, is that they are going to do whatever it takes to pass the class. Not only are they NOT discipline problems, they will do the work unquestioningly. They have clear in their head what they want to do with their lives and how college fits into that picture. They don't take low grades as insults but as challenges. And here's the big lesson, folks: all the testing in the world, all the money in special asinine programs (that let students take courses, fail them, take them again, fail them again, etc, etc), is NOT what separates these students from the others. It's clarity of vision. It's a sense of responsibility, not entitlement. Until we can find a way to legislate THAT, I think the government should keep its greasy paws off schools.

(Oh, and by the way, as a college professor, you know I've got no agenda: if I did, I'd be all about programs that let students in and let them fail, try again, fail again, try again, fail again, etc. Because I get paid each time, whether they pass or not.)

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Okay, I'll bite....

: scarycatmecha; December 28th, 2007

Current Mood:: contemplative

So, it's apparently Dogpile On Will Smith this week. Smith made some comment to the effect that even Hitler didn't think of himself as a bad person. For some reason, this bit of psychology, combined with knee-jerk idiocy, has gotten him into hot water.

The catrobot is here to straighten it out for you, never fear.

IF you get your morality from Marvel Comics, you are retarded. Not since Dick Dastardly and other Saturday morning cartoon fare do we see bad guys who revel in their naughtiness. It's psychologically unreal: the Wicked Stepmother, who's a bitch, because, well, she is. The Wicked Witch, who's wicked, because well, hell, it's in her name. If you honestly think that people who do bad things think of themselves as evil, you probably can't summon enough brain cells to read this post.

Check it, yo: Osama bin Laden, whom most of America (myself included) would happily label as 'one evil bastard' does NOT, contrary to popular belief, wake up every morning, twist his mustachios and gloat about how eeeeevil he is. On the contrary, to bin Laden, WE are evil (we being the great Western world with its waaaaay too much skin and corrupt morality and crass materialism). He thinks, actually, that he's doing good. Heck, he's even got *religion* on his side, if you happen to dig wahhabi mahdi-ist stuff.

Ready for a bit more complexity? Probably not, because most of America can't hack this one either. But hey, let's try. Vietnam. Did we go into Vietnam gloating about how many indigenous women we would rape and little boys we could set on fire and general mayhem we could cause? Nope. We went in because (check your history, kids) we think (and still do, somehow) that Democracy is Good and Communism is Evil. When the Viet Minh (commies) were more or less taking the country back from the French and the non-communist citizens, we thought that going in was a Good Thing. That we would PROTECT the people from the abuses of communism--'disappearings', executions, gulags, Siberia, etc. The Viet Minh, of course, thought we were evil and they were good. As a result, America's STILL in a moral a**f*** about Vietnam, and chooses again and again to think that bravery is choosing the side of flagellation, hence, according to Hollywood, we're evil.   That's hip and cool because, well, it's not really *us* that's evil, it's those sociopathic PTSD riddled Namvets who are evil. We're still good. In fact, we're even MORE good because we can see they're evil. Yeah, there's some f***ed up logic there. We're good because we're *judgmental!*

When I teach Creative Writing, I constantly tell my kids that the villain in their stories (if they choose to have a villain), HAS to think he or she is morally justified. That's what makes stories work. That's what gives them depth. Believability. Power. The fascinating thing is when you create a character who is designed to be 'evil' (a murderer, the rival for the love interest) and make him or her actually think he's doing the right thing or the noble thing, you end up with a character that is often more sympathetic than the hero. So, say I write a story about two guys competing over the love of a girl. Both try to impress her. One guy, the 'villain' will do something underhanded, like sabotage a date or spread a rumor to trip up the 'good guy'. Why? Because he honestly thinks, HONESTLY THINKS, mind you, that he's the better match for the girl and that she's too blinded by money or cuteness or his penis size or the good guy's football jersey to see the truth. He's the bad guy because of his METHODS, yes. Not because of his MOTIVE, however. His motive, at least to himself, is always, ALWAYS good.

We sympathize with the bad guy more, though, because if we're honest, in our lives, we've often done underhanded things in service of the Greater Good. The ends justify the means. So you snoop in your boyfriend's cell phone, or read your girlfriend's diary, or follow her home from work, or check his credit card statement. Are you evil for doing that? You certainly don't think so. You think you're good.   We all think we're good. I bet every one of us can think of at least one human being on earth who personally disagrees with us.

Back to Hitler and Will Smith: Sorry, chumps, and knee-jerk reactionaries: Will Smith was right. Hitler, if you know your history (my students don't--they tell me we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima to stop the Nazis), honestly thought that he was helping the German people. Galvanizing industry. Creating national pride. Creating programs to get the German youth educated and healthy and hiking through fields of edelweiss. He wanted to help the Germans that he saw (and this is the troof!) had been demoralized and crippled by the treaties ending the Great War. He wanted his nation to be great again. Good motive, yes? Even Israel has this motive: they want their country to be thriving and great. WE want OUR country to be thriving and great. What he did was wrong. Notice again the separation of motive and method. His motive was good, (helping his people and his country), his methods disgustingly, viciously, inHUMANly wrong.

Eh, but before you call Bill O'Reilly, ask yourselves this: are we really standing in a glass house when we call Hitler's methods wrong? I'm not saying they were right (this is for you flatworms who stumbled here but don't read above the eighth grade): Hitler was a bloody murderer and possibly the greatest tyrant and sadist in history. His views were filthy with racism and xenophobia.

But here's my question: how are we any different? It seems to me we Americans are pretty racist and xenophobic, aren't we? We enable dictators and then turn them loose--Osama bin Laden. Hugo Chavez. Musharraf. The Mexican Zetas. And on and on. All over the world, America creates dictators who will kill their own people plenty and we don't lose a minute's sleep about it because their skin is a different color or they call God a different name. Our methods, our INSISTENCE that the whole world has to follow American-style democracy (or else!!!!!) is Not Right. In fact, our insistence on democracy is why the rest of the world hates us and thinks *we're* evil. Just because we aren't running the death camps ourselves, but letting Somalis starve, Darfur collapse, Iranian women get killed because they sit in a car with a man not related to them...... doesn't make OUR methods all that clean. But we insist, again and again, that our MOTIVE, the ends, justifies any means.

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Am I the only one offended by this...?

: scarycatmecha; December 9th, 2007

Current Mood:: aggravated

I think I am. So I think I'll try to explain.

Apparently, our culture has a belief, which I am all for, that men should not go around hitting women. Huzzah. HOWEVER, a recent grading-stint with Dr Phil on in the background (the more I hate something, the harder I work to block it out and thus the better my concentration), I became aware that there's another side to this coin, one that I was previously unaware of. Once I saw it on Dr Phil (shudder), I began seeing it *everywhere*.

What did I see? Not Dr Phil's sanctimonious pate, but this apparently embedded belief that men are not allowed to hit women (thus far, I'm okay with that)...*even if* the woman is hitting them. Whuh-huh-hunh, what's that now? Let me get this straight: it's okay, in the Dr Phil-iverse, for women to beat up on men, but not vice versa? Last time I checked that was called a double standard. And we don't like double standards. Or at least I thought we didn't.

You see, this is where I'm starting to find the deeper problem. I think we've actually REGRESSED in terms of women's equality. I had a student write a paper a few weeks ago that said women had it easier because they got taken care of by men, could get off speeding tickets by crying, and didn't have, in a rather noxious phrase, "the dangers of self-reliance". This was, I should indicate, before you Old School Feminists get your burning bras, written by a woman. Girl.

Do we honestly not see, people, women, that double standards are bad? They're bad when they say a guy can sleep around and that's cool, but a girl sleeps around and she's a whore. That's unfair. It's also unfair, then, isn't it, to say a man can't hit a woman but a woman can hit a man? This is not equality. Nothing like it. If you unpack that belief, it seems to rely upon this notion that women may very well go berserk and do that cat-slapping girl fight thing, (probably because of *hormones*) and that the saintlike man has to be above it and not respond. So, women unstable and prone to violence, men stable and mature. Do you see it yet? You see how pernicious this coding is?

Let me make it perfectly clear: in the Cat Robot universe it is wrong for a man to hit a woman. It is also wrong for a woman to hit a man. It is wrong for anyone to hit an animal. It is wrong for anyone to beat up a kid (though I think a little swat to the rear, judiciously applied, is okay in the right circumstances). Why is it wrong? Not because it's not nice to pick on the weak and the helpless, (though it is pretty pathetic), but because people who allow themselves, who reduce themselves to acting out so childishly are giving themselves the easy way out. They give themselves the permission to act like a brat, not an adult. Little kids throw tantrums. Adults do not. Whether that tantrum is aimed at a wall or a pillow or another human being, it's giving the self permission to run amok. That gets us nowhere.

Reinject gender into it and you get a double standard that hurts both sides: women are painted as clearly not in control of themselves (liable to swipe ya!) and thus less than fully mature. (Read Lombroso and his type from the 19th century if you want a good sign where this route'll take you). Men don't get off easy either: if they respond, in some cases, EVEN IF all they're doing is pushing the woman off them, are arrested for DV. So men have this extra burden to not even make a hint of a gesture towards thinking about nudging her aside gently with one foot....? No. This is a pathetic double standard that hurts men (through police records and rap sheets and prison time and public humiliation) just as much as it does women.

The question is: why can't we come together and see that?

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More Feline Drama

: scarycatmecha; November 25th, 2007

Current Mood:: worried

So Skinny, one of my cats (grey striped tabby with white feet), has been stress licking. I have no idea why. I mean, we moved four years ago (stressful), we had a garage built about 4 months ago (stressful), so why he'd choose a relatively benign part of the semester to start deforesting his tummy-fur, I have no idea. I even did the rare and horrible thing and took him to the vet. $300 later, all I know is, he's healthy as hell. Thyroid fine, blood panels fine, no UTI.... The picture of health. So the vet says, it must be behavioral and tosses me amitriptyline, aka, Elavil. Once a day.

Right. Now, first of all, I can give a pill to a cat with as much ease as you can brush your own teeth. I have six of 'em, for heaven's sake. For the move, they were all dosed with kitty tranqs, and so fast that my mother couldn't keep up with my snatch-and-stuff pill delivery (she was taking notes to make sure each cat got dosed, and only one dose per cat). So, five seconds, and voila, pill in cat's neck.

Well, amitriptylene apparently tastes *horrid*. Almost as bad as when I had to dose them with children's penicillin (black cherry flavor). Cats apparently dislike black cherry flavor *almost* as much as I do. So Skinny foams at mouth, drools, does everything he can to get taste of pill out of mouth.

Okay, so fast forward six-seven hours. It's TV time, when I sit down for two hours and knit and watch TV and play with cats. Normally Skinny is the first one to fight over my lap. He's not. In fact, he's upstairs on the bed. (First unnatural thing). I pick him up and carry him downstairs (second unnatural thing--he HATES being carried). I plotz him on my lap (third unnatural thing--he hate being positioned). I shift around, he doesn't move (fourth unnatural thing--normally I tense a thigh muscle and he jumps off). But the worst of it was....I look down at him and I can see his pulse racing *in his neck*. The damn drugs have given him tachycardia. He manages to splooze down and stay there, but was clearly miserable the whole evening. No moving, no yelling, no following me around.

This morning, he's getting better. He yelled at me while I was making breakfast, he followed me upstairs, he's jumped in my lap and is purring.

I'm a little upset. Needless to say.

Sure, the drug is supposed to be a behavior modificant, but not a) at the cost of a kitty coronary, and b) at the cost of all of the other wonderful and sweet behaviors he has. I don't want Zombie Skinny much more than I want Dead Skinny.

So now it's plan C, which involves dosing him with homeopathic remedy and keeping an eye on him when he goes to lick his tummy.

Now you know why I don't take them to the vet.

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Here's the challenge

: scarycatmecha; November 12th, 2007

Current Mood:: annoyed

How's uber-paranoid Kanye West going to connect his mother's death to President Bush and his 'hatred' of black people?

Now, I don't mean to make light of anyone's death, or anyone's pain at losing their mothers, but, this was just so unnecessary. Dr West, Kanye's mom, an educated, intelligent woman, somehow decided that she *needed* cosmetic surgery (word on the street is a tummy tuck and boob lift). WHY?! Jesus, people, what ever happened to aging gracefully? An intelligent educated woman like Dr West ought to know better. Or else she slept through Feminism 101.

Next, consider this: She approached one plastic surgeon for the job. He refused, because of some pre-existing medical condition. Now, the catrobot doesn't like plastic surgeons--98% of the time, they are merely leeches seeking to batten onto our insecurities and vanity (2% of the time they're doing good work reconstructing people after accidents). If there's one thing a plastic surgeon likes, it's yo' money. So if he refuses to take your bread, it's because the surgery is a serious risk to his malpractice. It's also, if you're ever a patient, a goddam SIGN. That's like Satan himself saying, 'hey, are you really sure about this?'

Dr West found herself another doctor, and with tragic results. She died on the table.

Lessons to be drawn are simple: one--don't cave into your vanity. Getting older isn't getting uglier, that's our pathetic culture's pathological pursuit of youth talking. two--do some research. Make sure your doctor is board-certified. And AMERICAN trained. Make sure you have a REAL anesthesiologist, not a nurse anesthetist. three--be *honest* about any medications you take, any health conditions you have--they literally could stand in between you and life itself one day. and four--no matter how intelligent we women are, no matter how many degrees on our walls, none of us, apparently, are free from the programming of mass media. As the show's called, we gotta do better.

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This is why I never go to doctors....

: scarycatmecha; November 10th, 2007

Current Mood:: cranky

So, about two weeks ago, my students all simultaneously forgot to do their homework. The lesson plans for the day, which I had told them about beforehand, hinged on them doing the homework: Write two possible intros to your short story. We were going to swap intros with as many people as possible, as 'test readers' and they'd all vote on which intro they preferred and why. Useful. Even *fun*. No dice.

The tension of having to pull an hour and a half lesson plan out of my ass in a moment's notice had a price: I pulled a muscle in my neck. (I'm SO not kidding). At first it felt like someone had stabbed me with a railroad spike. I figured, okay, that makes sense, I'll just go home and massage the bejabbers out of it and all will be well.

Ha.

Two days later I can't turn my head and am in excruciating pain. As in I can't sleep pain. And when I can't sleep, I get bitchy. Well, bitchiER. I was also losing feeling in my left hand. Had shooting tingles and numbness down my left arm, and sometimes a feeling like someone was pouring cold water down the back of my upper arm. Weird. Would've been cool if it didn't hurt so damn much.

Finally drag carcass to doctor. He feels me up, and prescribes Vicodin. In the olden days, one had to be near death to get the opiates. Nowadays, apparently the word is 'can't sleep'. Yeah, well, just for the record, Vicodin is apparently medical speak for 'constipation'. OUCH. (Sorry about the TMI, there). He also wrote a 'scrip for naproxen sodium. No way, saith I. The Harmy gave me that stuff years ago. Bad juju. Like small rabid hedgehog trying to eat his way outta my guts. Yeah, well too bad on me, he wrote it any way. Yeah, well too bad on HIM, because I tore it up. I ain't gonna waste my bread on some medicine that's just going to add to my overall level of misery. (I just substituted a comparable amount of ibuprofen instead).

Well, the whole thing had me thinkin' I might need to get myself a Family Doctor. Since I always put down my gastroenterologist as my family doctor on forms, and then get the Weird Look. So, I go back for a physical, glutton for punishment that I am. He takes a history. Apparently two words never to say to a doctor are 'thyroid' and 'diabetes'. I got my thyroid felt up twice, and an extra tube of blood drawn for thyroid function and blood sugar. Hurray.

Oh, but the real fun begins with the oh-so-simple listening to my heartbeat. Since most of my students would debate I have such an organ, I was not surprised that he listened around for a while--probably trying to find the damn thing. He listens, and listens.

"There's something not-right about your heartbeat," he says. "Ever have any palpitations?"

"Oh you mean like when some doctor tells me there's something wrong with my heart?" I reply, because yes, just at that minute my mortality was punching a hole through my chest. So I had an EKG, which caught....nothing. Apparently, according to my sister the 'real' doctor, "Many women have premature atrial contractions. It's no big deal." Who knew?

And whenever they get my bloodwork they're gonna flip, because I have high cholesterol. It's genetic. I don't eat meat. I exercise every day. But you think the guy who doesn't believe I can't take Naproxen is gonna believe it's genetic and give me the CRP test? Or try and stick me on some stupid drugs?

I try to explain to my all-medical family what it's like being a normal person going to a doctor. How you're presumed to be an idiot. Or not in *that* much pain. Or a neurotic. Or a painkiller collector. (One doctor told me my rupturing seroma was an ectopic pregnancy--completely overriding my insistence that I hadn't had sexual intercourse in over a year!) Anything other than an actual human being needing or wanting information about their health. It's the most dehumanizing experience the average person goes through in life. Basic Training in the Army was better, because they never, at least, presumed I was lying. So, go to the doctor, and come out feeling worse than you went in.

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Only this much irony would cause me to surface

: scarycatmecha; November 2nd, 2007

Current Mood:: contemplative

First of all, if I EVER teach 18 credit hours again, please just have me shot. It'd be a lot quicker and less painful, for all involved.

This week brings us absolutely unmitigated idiocy from the Kingdom of Political Correctness. On the one hand, everyone's running around freaking that Duane Chapman, better known to us lowbrows as Dog the Bounty Hunter, used 'the n-word' in a rant against one of his many sons's choice of girlfriend. I'm not up to parsing how you can use the 'n-word' and mean it as a derogatory term, but not a RACIST derogatory term, which appears to be the bulk of Chapman's weepy defense (more on why I'm not up to that level of sophistry anon), but I AM up to laying that story side by said against two other big news stories of this week.

First, Don (hateful bastard) Imus is getting his show back. This is the dude who referred to the Rutgers Women's Basketball team as 'nappy-headed hos'. And lost his job. But now he's actually $30 MILLION richer than before, thanks to a lawsuit to NBC--see, unbeknownst to you or I (and consider this the next time your contract is up for renewal) it's in his contract to be 'provocative' and 'outrageous'. Just seems odd to me that his brand of provocative and outrageous has always been bigoted. I'm provocative and outrageous, but mostly that involves wearing a motorcycle jacket over a frilly blouse and irritating my students by calling them Dr Phil's bestest buddies. Okay, so lesson here: be a bigot, and get mo' money. Damn. Looks like I'm in the wrong again!

Second, University of Delaware has mandatory diversity training. Now, I loves me some diversity. My NIGHTMARE is a world where everyone is Exactly Like Me. Who would enrage me enough to keep my blood pressure at measurable levels? How could I hone my wits without the likes of Michael Moore and Elliott 'Let's give illegals drivers licenses' Spitzer? (Seriously, does he NOT know that the way THAT scam works is this: Jose goes to Drive By Night Insurance company, pays up for a month, gets himself a license, and then lets his insurance lapse? It's what happened in NC only just about All the Freakin' Time. But I guess he thinks those smarties will all stay in NC and we only have the dumb and law abiding illegals up here...?)

Anyway... Oh yes, Diversity training. Look: there are really only two groups of people I don't want to hear from. Who have lost their Freedom of Speech in my own personal universe: those who molest kids, and abuse animals. If you are a pedophile, you should shut up and die, not necessarily in that order. Same thing with if you like hurting animals (cough cough *michael vick*). Everyone else is groovy. Even if I don't agree with other people, I like hearing from them: I'm eager to hear from them. First of all, because *I* may not have all the information, and they could educate me from an ignorant viewpoint. Second, if my beliefs stand up even after the Worst someone else can do, I feel much more assured of myself. Third, I'm so not Wise Guru Lady, that I'm hardly one to pontificate. I soooooo clearly don't have all the answers to life's questions, I certainly don't have the arrogance to try and shove what I believe down someone else's neck. So diversity-wise, I say, bring it on!

But not UD style. According to them, if you're white, you're racist. They've backpedaled and said that this means that if you're white you enjoy the privileges of a power structure that allows you to enact your prejudices negatively on non-white people. Excuse me a) if I don't particularly WANT that privilege and b) if as a woman I think I don't get to enjoy that privilege very often (which may be why I don't *a*.)

Now, we got ourselves here a little problem, chilluns. If by nature of being white (let's take UD at their word for a moment, okay?) then WHY ARE WE SURPRISED WHEN A WHITE GUY (Chapman) SAYS SOMETHING RACIST?! WHY IS THAT NEWS?!?! I'm not saying a hate filled tirade isn't news, simply that if we are to believe that just by nature of lack of melanin, a caucasian is naturally disdainful and contemptuous of lower-albedo-persons, well, then, it should be Law of Jungle when a cracker says something racist, and not exactly in every news program from _The Soup_ to _The Fox Report_. We have to choose, people: either we're all racists by virtue of our skin color, in which case we should start issuing KKK affiliations with birth certificates, or all us white folks AIN'T racist bastards and it's a revolting and rebarbative INSULT to assume we all are. I'm with the folks who believe the latter.

But, I'm also a member of Second Wave Feminism, and I hate Political Correctness with a passion normally reserved for ex-husbands. Meaning, that quite honestly, I'd rather KNOW if the person I'm working with is a racist, or a sexist, or an anti-Semite, or an atheist, or a devout Christian, or any of the 'controversial' groups. I can work with just about anyone. I've worked with guys so sexist your eyes, dear readers, would fall out. I knew they were sexist, and acted accordingly. Didn't open myself up to their idiotic comments, but I didn't try to shame them (though I did, on occasion, bring up their daughters...) I've worked with devout Christians and atheists and muslims. As long as people can be open about who they are and what they believe, I can deal with them. It's when someone feels forced to fake a position that it gets problematic.

This is longer than I intended to be but...for example: Most of my coworkers are RABID democrats. Left wing 'assassinate the President' 'socialized medicine is good and guns are bad' types. For several years, I've had to hide my conservative tendencies (okay, libertarian, really). I believe, for example, that the function of government to serve as a 'safety net' is insane. That's why I was *amazed* that there were people during Katrina who somehow were naive enough to actually expect the government to protect them. I don't. And I'm probably better off on my own than with the government's 'help' anyway. But this last year I finally started standing up to my coworkers. I'm amazed at their level of ignorance (this is not a slam against Democrats: my dearest friend is a dyed-in-the-wool democrat): They HONESTLY believe that if you walk into a hospital and don't have health insurance, you will be turned away without treatment. No way! I've done it: For several years I couldn't afford health insurance. At least twice I had to go to the ER (once for a UTI--ouch!!!!). I told them right off I had no insurance and could't pay much. I brought a pay stub. They treated me, gave me my medicine and then (only then) sat down with me to negotiate how much I could afford to pay. And if it had turned out that I could afford to pay...nothing...that's what they would have charged me. I tell my coworkers this--my actual personal honest lived experience. And they don't believe me. Okay, I don't care WHAT political party you're on: that level of stubborn ignorance is wrong. (To make it even: Hey,Republicans--waterboarding is torture. Get over it.) I felt very uncomfortable those first three years hiding my political beliefs. So I 'came out' and you know what? I feel a lot more comfortable, and though some of my coworkers think I'm bonkers, they haven't lynched me, or shunned me or shut me out in any way. If anything, they come and talk to me *more*, because they're trying to convert me. My point in this is: hiding or being forced to hide who you are and what you feel or think is a miserable experience for everyone. You're being fake, you resent your coworkers for making you be fake. It's stupid. If those coworkers are ignorant enough not to respect your beliefs (they can challenge them, but at the end of the day, they respect them) then that's their problem, not yours. Me? I'd rather know, and be known. And if there were more open dialogue (some of the best political discussions I've had have been with my dyed in the wool Hillary-is-goddess friend) we'd all see that at the end of the day, all of us want the same thing: to be happy, and to feel like we're leaving the world a better place than we found it in. We just disagree on how to get there. Once we lose all the rhetoric, we see that people speak sometimes out of ignorance, sometimes out of fear, but sometimes out of harsh lessons of experience as well. It's our jobs as HUMANS to be mature enough to listen, even if we don't agree, and to seek common ground, not to pick and choose whom we can hate. (Anyone other than me noticing how it's apparently hip and trendy to be anti-Israeli?)

This is, of course, unless you're a pedophile or animal abuser. In those cases, just f*** off. I don't WANT to find common ground with you, and if that makes me a bad person, so be it. Even my love of diversity 'can't we all just get along' has its limits. I'm only human.

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Sure, I'll talk about Britney....

: scarycatmecha; September 11th, 2007

Current Mood:: annoyed

I'm a little tired (already) of hearing people rip on Britney Spears's 'performance' at the VMAs. Yes, she looked drugged and almost stumbled a few times, and clearly at one point forgot the words to her own song. Yes it was probably painful to watch.

But #1: Everyone who is gleefully bitching about how 'fat' she is, shut up. Yes, she doesn't have the body of an 18 year old any more. Wanna know why? SHE'S NOT 18! She's also had two kids, not that long ago. Take those into account and she looks pretty good, actually. Good enough to be strutting around dressed in HoochieWear (tm)? Maybe not, but if y'all want to play fashion police, hit up your local red light street corner where at least the person you're ripping has a chance to respond.

But #2. A whole other pile of people are mad at MTV for airing it, as though airing Britney's trainwreck is somehow criminal. As IF, I may add, MTV should engage in a conspiracy to protect Britney's collapsing life from the public. Whuh?

I feel (a little) sorry for celebs who just want a private life and to be left alone. It must suck to have all this money (I clearly don't know) and not be able to go to a schnitzy ritzy restaurant without myrmidons of papparazzi ruining the gig. But if a celeb CHOOSES, night after night, to put themselves out there, then they should take it as part of the price of fame. And if they sign up to perform at the VMAs, well, they don't get no protection.

As for MTV's perceived culpability, unless someone can prove that some MTV staffer slipped Britney a Mickey Finn to guarantee wreckage, I ain't buyin' it. Not that I'm defending MTV. But stop thinking like people *pretending* to have consciences. (If we all actually had consciences we'd be talking about Iraq and not about if Britney needs Hip Hop Abs). Think like corporations.

Option A: Britney's 'comeback' performance goes off without a hitch. A total coup for MTV. People raving at how she pulled it together (and actually, the song isn't *that* bad, if you go for pop) and generating buzz about new album. Win for MTV.

Option B: Carcrash caught on tape. Britney flops (which is physically the only thing she didn't do). For MTV? Possibly even solider solid gold. Just think about how many times and how many places you saw that footage? I, for one, did not watch the VMAs: I always seem to have something more pressing to do that night, like wax my toe hair or something. But I saw the damning footage on every major news broadcast. You honestly don't think MTV gave that footage away for *free* do you? Now, people who missed the VMAs are going 'damn! next year I'll have to watch so I don't miss out again!'--buzz for NEXT year's most tedious awards show (let's face it, Britney's flop and Kid Rock clocking Tommy Lee were the news from the VMAs, not who won what award. Can you name a single award winner? I can't)--while as we speak raking in bazillions of bucks in licensing the footage.

MTV wins either way. Her 'comeback' show was a guaranteed winner, no matter what happened. The only loser, sadly, is Britney.

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where do these things come from?

: scarycatmecha; August 30th, 2007

Current Mood:: sad

First, to understand any of this: I don't really drive very often at night. There's just generally no need, unless I'm teaching a night class. 'Round here, sidewalks roll up at dusk so unless you're in that dangerous driving demographic of 18-24 and have every line to every _Fast and the Furious_ franchise film memorized, there's no reason to be on the roads.

Had late meeting, driving home it's about 9 pm and I realize that I'm low on gas. For once I decide NOT to wait for the little red light of 'O F***!' to come on. So I drive to the local Hess station, which is the only one I know in this godforsaken state where you get to pump your own gas.

So there I am, in the dark, crickets singing up a storm, flooded by industrial strength halogen lights that gas stations favor these days. The moon is a bloated yellow lump in the sky. And suddenly I get the weirdest sense of nostalgia. I'm transported back to four or five years ago, where after teaching my night classes, I'd stop off at the AAFES gas station diagonally across from the infamous Smoke Bomb Hill PX on Bragg. Sure, there are some similarities: summer night, hot wet weather, chirpy crickets, harsh lighting. But nothing accounts for the wave of depression that just washes over me. In fact, I'd been teasing myself that this would be my first approach to parking in my new garage in the dark. So *blam* out of nowhere comes this sense of crushing failure. I'm far away, but I've gone nowhere, and suddenly I wish I were back five years ago, as if that were the point where everything had gone off track.

On one level, it's absurd. I have a decent job up here, and my students (save for the few who rate verbal frying) for the most part are decent kids, whose only failing is they couldn't really care less about college. Hardly their fault: our society feels the same way--pay a lot of lip service to the idea of education, but don't really back that up with thought or deed. I have a house, and more reliable car, and really can't complain about anything in my life. But there it was: this irrepressible sense that I have failed.

Were my students at Bragg that much better? Not really. Sure, you could argue that maybe I felt a little ethically purer teaching them because teaching soldiers is like a chance to give back to people who put their lives on the line for their ideals or our country. But that's not it. I wanted to be back THERE as if THERE was where happiness was. IT wasn't. THERE, I was actually pretty miserable. I had a marriage fall apart on me, and then although I was surrounded by (unlike here) attractive and eligible men, the rejection factor was just too high--I am not a trophy wife, unfortunately, so being surrounded by hot guys was actually worse than it sounds.

Am I just feeling old? Is it just some random clutch of nostalgia when I had yet to tie myself into a mortgage and a contracted job? Is it just some human wish to go back to when I was younger and possible a little cuter? Is it just a reminder, beyond that, that even then I was alone. Always. And that the aloneness bothers me, haunts me, follows me along like a constant reminder of my inability to 'be normal' and 'have a life' and 'settle down' and 'maintain a stable relationship'?

I don't know. The only thing I do know is the guy coming out of the Hess with the bag of Funnyuns who saw me sitting in the driver's seat in tears probably thinks I deserve to be alone.

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Quick? What's sharper than a serpent's tooth?

: scarycatmecha; August 25th, 2007

Current Mood:: confused

A sister with a grudge, apparently. Toss your Shakespeare out the window kids, and hunker down to this story of sisterly *luv*.

Yesterday, my sister got the horrific bad news that the paperwork cretins at her new job managed to bollix things up so badly that the job she thought she'd be starting on 1 Sep won't be happening for at least a month after that. So she's got a month of free vacation, but no income. I guess for once she won't be able to complain about not getting the Jewish holidays off.

Anyway, for anyone who knows The Evil One, aka, my mother, you do NOT tell her anything is wrong. Because it somehow always turns out a) that it's your fault and b) that if you only did....exactly what she said, you wouldn't be in this pickle. I have a vision of an alternate universe where I'm on United flight 93 on 11 Sep 01. I call my mom and tell her we got hijacked. In this alternate reality, my mother would manage to make it all my fault. Yes, terrorism. My fault. She's that good. And before we smashed into the ground, she'd throw in something about being an 'ungrateful little sh** who's getting herself killed just to disappoint her mother and waste her life'. Sooooo, when sis calls me and dumps all of this in my lap, I try to do the Nice Sister thing. I call mom and tell her so she can get at least some of the venom out of her system. OF course the conversation started with what a f***up my sister was, but quickly turned to what a f***up I am. But I took it, remembering my sister's teary incoherence on the phone.

Sister goes radio silent for 24 hours (she's Jewish). To try to brighten her spirits, I send her an email I just sent off to Office Max. If you haven't gone, you should go, because they have this ginormous display of back-to-school items in a cardboard display emblazoned with "expand your pallet." Pallet. Look it up and tell me what the hell that slogan means? I presume they meant 'palette'. Anyway, so I whipped out a quickie nastygram about how disappointed I am at the hypocrisy that they were cashing in (on back to school display) on education, while clearly revealing a corporate culture of illiteracy and laziness (seriously, did NO ONE crack open a dictionary in that brainstorming session?!). I figured sister would get a chuckle out of it. I have a reputation of being the crackpot that emails Foxnews whenever they post something asinine on the crawl.

Anyway, she waits, of course, until Naruto is on. Now, her religion dictates 24 hours where she cannot use machines. Meaning no phones, nothin'. I don't have a religion to hide behind, but goddammit, anime is sacred stuff with me (if you've ever seen my house, this would be transparently obvious). If you know me: DO NOT CALL ME DURING ANIME. DO NOT *EVER* CALL ME DURING NARUTO. EVER. All I ask is a measly half hour of not having to trip over cats and laptop cords et alia to answer the phone per week. Let me indulge my unholy lust of Kakashi in peace, please?

So, you ask, having patiently waded through all of this nonsense. Well, my sister apparently only called (during NARUTO, god&$*(&%$ it!!!) to point out that I'd made a minor typographical error in the email I'd sent. Ummmmm, what? How is that helpful?

Sure, I could come up with a good number of excuses--I make a typo here and there on this blog, too, because I type without looking, off the top of my head, and never correct. Statistically speaking, sooner or later my fingers are gonna get out of order in a word or two. I also happen to have two ganglion cysts in the wrist of the hand in question. I ALSO happen to have spent the day finishing writing a novel (six hours of typing, two hazelnut lattes and an ending that had *me*, crusty old salt that I is, all teary-eyed--I must be PMSing). Etc, etc. Like I said, I could come up with excuses.

But that's really not the point. The point is: WHY would my sister, when I sent her something just to cheer her up a little, feel obliged to shoot me down? It stings especially, ummm, stingy, because I just took a verbal ass-whuppin' for her from my mother. So, a great yawping WTF to the universe, and now the email I thought was just funny has me all upset and embarassed. But hey, if Office Max can't figure out pallet/palette/palate, are they really likely to spot a typo? Why ruin my evening when all I was trying to do was cheer you up?

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It'll do...

: scarycatmecha; August 24th, 2007

Current Mood:: aggravated

Today last official day of summer for yours truly. I face the firing squad of hostile/bored/lazy eyeballs 0800 Monday, bright and early. Oh yeah, an 8 am class. You know who signs up for those in community college? The students who wait until the last possible freakin' minute to sign up and find out there's only ONE class left open. So I see habitual tardiness in their futures, already. And high absenteeism. Isn't it mean of me to prejudge them so? Possibly, but let's add that I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised. Being UNpleasantly surprised has too many health consequences.

Meanwhile, a productive day, I suppose. Translated some Middle English for one of my classes--they can't manage to read SHakespeare, so I'm certain that East Midlands dialect is just beyond them. I get them back, though, because they're going to (all unbeknownst to them, of course) be reading Malory in his original language. I figure the little buggers can't spell worth a damn anyway, and neither could Sir Thom, so they should understand each other just fine. Either that, or I'll have Saul-esque conversion experiences to why people should spell English correctly. Win-win either way.

So this afternoon, as a suitable way to spend my last Friday of holiday, I watched the rather tedious process of the sentencing of John Evander Couey, that sick bastard in Florida who kidnapped and raped a 9 year old girl, and then buried her alive. I did not know this, but apparently, he got her to get into the first plastic bag in which she asphyxiated by telling the nine year old he was going to let her go, but didn't want anyone to see them together, so if she'd just step right in this here plastic sack, he'd just tote her on over. Didn't happen, that second part--instead he dumped THAT bag into another bag and tied it up nice and tight. Kind of ironic (in a stomach churny way) that he tried to argue that her death wasn't premeditated. Really? Where'd that fancy little STORY come from, you pathetic little dipshit?

So the judge had to read and weigh the mitigating and the aggravating circumstances. Mostly aggravating--I think the only one the defense didn't prove was that he had a criminal history. But: premeditation, heinous and atrocious circumstances of death (do not put asphyxiation on your List Of Ways It's Okay to Die), violence to a child under the age of twelve--got 'em all. The mitigating factors submitted by the defense were pathetic. I think there were twenty one of them. First, he claims to be retarded. I think if you look at the above premeditation and planning that went into getting Jessica into that plastic sack, you can toss out diminished capacity. Not saying he should work for NASA (though by strange coinkydink, Lisa Nowak, the 'astronut' had her hearing today as well), but that's a story that as they say 'hangs together'. I bet a classroom of my college freshmen, who are NOT retarded, couldn't come up with a clever story like that.

The most ludicrous by far, and I think that most of the news networks will probably let this one slide through the cracks, but I think it demonstrates perfectly the 'clutching at straws' technique employed by the defense (I'm torn between revulsion for those lawyers who had to defend him, and deep sympathy). Get this: he claims as mitigating factor the fact that growing up as a kid, he had big goofy ears and people made fun of him. He had additionally, as part of a Pathetic Loser Package Deal, brought up that he stuttered as a child. Oh yeah and that his sister didn't pay him enough attention. Okay.

*I* was a goofy looking kid. I got picked on ALL the frickin' time in elementary school. I also stuttered. I won't even touch the sister thing because it's so absurd. So, if you think about it the way Couey's defense team argues, I should be able to commit crimes at will. *I* have no violent criminal record. I stuttered as a kid. I was goofy lookin' and people made fun of me. My parents could quite easily qualify as Massively Dysfunctional. And sometimes I think I MUST be retarded for taking this job. So that means I'm free to go on a crime spree? Crikey!

My point being, for those of you without your morning coffee: what is our society coming to when we seriously consider things like getting picked on as mitigating circumstances to kidnap, rape and murder of a child?! I certainly don't think my childhood was exceptional. I think MOST adults today, and most kids too, if you asked them, would say their parents had issues, they got teased in school, and had problems adjusting at some point in our lives. MOST of us, however, don't go around raping and murdering little kids. (Hrm, maybe most of us do, and it's another one of those things like 'shhhhh, don't tell *her* we're having a party or she'll want to come'...either way, I don't know about it, and I choose the path of optimism and believe my fellow humans for the most part are not predatory pedophile scum.) This whole sort of 'psychological' defense needs to go the way of the dodo bird, save for exceptional cases. If John Wayne Gacy was your pappy, you might rate a 'doesn't know right from wrong' defense. If your mother chained you to the radiator when you hit puberty because she feared you would molest your sister, I'll rubber stamp that one too. But the Crummy Childhood 'I didn't get to go to Disneyworld' defense crap is just a waste of time. It took the judge 45 minutes to read through and knock down (because he was a careful and conscientious judge) each of these ludicrous pleas for 'mitigation'. In fact, I wish we would go so far as to start CHARGING defendants who waste our tax dollars (in judge salaries, who, as I understand don't work cheap) by 'kitchen sink'ing their defense.

If I'm ever up for a murder rap, it's up to y'all to remind my lawyers of that traumatic haircut I had back in 2000. That's sure to knock off a few degrees of evilitude.

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National Kill Your Architect Day

: scarycatmecha; July 30th, 2007

Current Mood:: aggravated

Mark your calendars, folks, the catrobot has a new holiday for ya!

As you may or more likely may not know, this year I've been attempting to have a freestanding garage built on my property. The plans for what is basically a box with a sloped roof: $3000. The permits for construction $715. The actual garage itself? Well, let's just say it costs more than the car I'm going to be putting in it. Pricey, right?

Well, today I asked Larry The Contractor if he'd be willing to do, or refer me to someone to install a garage door opener. You know the kind: pressa da bouton, voila, la porte de garage s'ouvert. Because NOBODY and I mean no-ho-ho-body out here actually gets *out of their car* to manually lift a garage door. Are you kidding me? Out here, no one mows their own lawn. I hear my lawn guy hires *another* lawn guy to do *his* lawn.

This is where the architecticide comes in: My idiot architect 'forgot' to put in electrical when he drew up the plans. Now, no worries for him, because he's gotten paid, already. For, again, drawing a big box. With a gabled roof. This is indeed an act of forgetfulness on his part because I distinctly remember standing in my kitchen and him asking if I wanted a window. I said no, because I don't like people looking IN my garage. Also, sometimes I leave Really Freakin' Early (tm) in the morning and if it's pitch black outside, a winder ain't gwine help none. I told him, I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER TELLING HIM, that I wanted a light, even just a bare bulb.

Apparently, he forgot. Ooopsie! Now, Larry Das Kontraktor says this is and is not a problem. It's not a problem because we can install electrical--he knows a guy who does good work and my electric box is about 10 feet away. The problem comes in with this: my permit for construction, and thus the permit which the Final Inspection will follow, does not account for electrical. If you do anything NOT in the permit, you get fined. Some people have been ordered to tear down entire structures (they don't f*** around up here), and fined for every day they did not comply. So, welcome to the Land of Shady Dealings, because his Guy Who Does Good Work will have to do said good work, *after* the Final Inspection. This happens, selon Larry, 'all the time.' In fact, he's relieved, because heretofore, it had been going too smoothly for his liking. This he tells me as he's asking me how I want the side door to open--in- or out-ward? left to right or right to left? Quick! Think! How do your doors open?! Never paid attention to that, didja? Me neither.

Sympathy isn't an excuse

: scarycatmecha; July 25th, 2007

Current Mood:: frustrated

Every once in a while, a student will come to my office with a tale of woe. Normally one which they continue to embellish as they see it's not making a dent in me changing my stated course policies. So, 'I had to stay home and babysit my brother' becomes 'I had to stay home and babysit my brother who as ADHD' becomes 'I had to stay home and babysit my ADHD brother while my mother was visiting my Uncle Moe who's getting chemo' and on and on and on. Sprinkle liberally with a few tears and...nothing. Sorry. Not impressed. Or else they'll bust up with some 'I'm sorry' thing (also liberally tearful). My response is the same: I'm sorry, too, but that doesn't change your consequences. It's a strange phenomenon in our culture that we think that emotion can and must lead to a mitigation of fact. If I feel sorry enough for you (have some dignity, people!) I'll make an exception. The Rules only apply if you don't cry. (Johnny Cochran smiles down upon me as I write that).

Case in point: Lindsay Lohan. In a fit of superlative irony, EVERY media outlet is out blasting EVERY OTHER media outlet for coming down too hard on Lohan. "Don't you see she has an addiction problem!?" cries Pat LaLama. "She's had no parental influence," added some milquetoast on a broadcast news network. As they all busily speculate what her jail term will/should be.

Yes, she has an addiction. That much is obvious. But I don't think it's an addiction so much to a substance as it is for fame. She thought fame would make her happy, would replace the hole her crappy family life created in her. It didn't. So she sought more fame. And more fame. And started clubbing. And drinking and being generally scandalous. She's addicted the same way anyone is addicted: She's clinging on to something she thinks will bring her happiness. That far, and only that far, do I have sympathy for her.

Because let's face it. She's not that good an actress. She's just legal and she's already at the tail end of her cuteness/career, even without all this substance abuse nonsense. She has no SUBSTANCE: so she was perfect for vapid, vacuous flicks like Herbie Fully Loaded. She's got nothing left. There's nothing behind the mask.

Meanwhile, she's worse than Paris Hilton. Hilton is stupid. Lohan has gone to rehab, and blew it off, from what I hear: texting her buddies during group sessions, smuggling contraband in to the facility. When she left 'Promises' nothing was resolved other than a touch of PR. How those poor publicists must be cringing now! THOSE are the people *I* feel sorry for!

So, Judge Catrobot decrees: Rehab will do no good to Lohan. She's been (twice) and didn't take it seriously either time. Giving her a third bite at that apple at taxpayer expense in lieu of hard time? Not on my tax dollar (which thankfully, it isn't, me not living in Cali-forn-aye-ay). Her father's a nutcase. Her mother thinks good parenting involves partying with her daughter. No one, just like with Hilton, has EVER said 'no' to this girl. Why was she allowed to get away with her outrageous behavior at the rehab facility? If I were running a serious rehab, I'd toss her out on her flabby ass if she were undermining my program. Clearly, then,
Promises is a joke--faux rehab. A rehab-mill. The University of Phoenix of rehabs. Don't give her another chance to ignore rehab. I'm all for the scared straight approach. Slap her in State Prison, no county namby pamby bullsh**. Put her in with hard core criminals.

Why? Because she is, in the eyes of the law, a recidivist. In less than three months she has two DUI charges.

Thought experiment, kids: let's paint Linz brown (light or dark, your choice) and make her from Compton or Salinas. Put her in front of a judge with the same charges: two DUI's, resisting arrest, narcotics possession, driving on a suspended license, the whole bag. You think Consuela Lohan would get rehab and community service? You think Shanika Lohan would get a slap on the wrist?

In fact, she should get worse than hypothetical Shanika or Consuela: some women don't have the options and opportunities Lohan has for being white, rich, and (moderately) attractive. Lohan could have taken her posh rehab seriously. Lohan could have hired a f***ing driver. Lohan could afford the best psychotherapists there are to deal with her screwed up family life. She didn't.

Therefore, she gets no sympathy from me.

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Such a surprise....

: scarycatmecha; June 28th, 2007

Current Mood:: cranky

I refused, having some principles, to watch the Paris Hilton interview. First of all because every time I see Larry King I want to rinse my mouth out--he just has this *aura* of filthy ashtray about him. Second, well, Paris Hilton. Did you hear that NYC's "The Learning Annex" wants to pay her a million bucks to teach a seminar on how to promote oneself as a brand? This idea is hi-frickin'-larious: her household name status relies on an anal-sex tape, driving a motorcycle off a red carpet and crashing into innocent people, showing her cooch, and carrying a teeny dog. I don't think male entrepreneurs could utilize much of that material.

And I wonder if The Learning Annex is thinking twice after her interview with King. I told you I refused to watch it, but *hearing* about it was unavoidable. I skim through the major news networks while eating breakfast and generally avoiding getting down to work for the day (since the work for the day is reviewing a book on feminist literary theory, you can see why I might procrastinate) and every single network and every single show covered her interview. WHY do you media idiots keep this woman's name in the headlines? If I didn't know better, I'd think the Hilton family doing payola. Anyway, from what I've heard and the about 70 seconds of clips I endured (which was more than I was technically capable of enduring), it was dull.

WHY IS THIS NEWS? No, not only am I asking 'why is Paris Hilton news?': WHY IS THE FACT THAT SHE'S A DULL HUMAN BEING A SURPRISE TO ANYONE?!?! I guess looking back on it this is the first time that anyone's had to sit down and listen to her talk for an extended period (her catchphrase, you'll recall, is 'that's hot' which is hardly erudite or insightful--hell, HAVING a catchphrase renders one uninsightful). I think it would be Gitmo level inhumane torture to sit down with someone so stupid for sixty minutes and try to pull some level of depth out of her. And Larry King, remember, is not a man for depth. He might be a man of great depth, but he's about as hard hitting as Geraldo. With a whiffle bat. If King was dumb enough to pay her a million dollars (such as NBC had offered) that just proves that adage about a fool and his money. Learning Annex people: even if her 'branding' wasn't a total fluke, even if every move was a strictly calculated 'no news is bad news as long as it makes the news', clearly she lacks the ability to articulate. You'd be paying a neanderthal to say 'fire bad. that's hot.'

You know who I would have watched interview her? Lewis Black. I would pay good money to see that. Heck, I'd've even watched Dr Phil interview her, because at least he would have tried to show her she's a shallow narcissistic spoiled brat.

But the media is 'stunned' that the interview wasn't more colorful, which I take to mean they couldn't cannibalize it for juicy clips. The only part I thought funny was when she expressed how humiliating being stripsearched was. In front of people she didn't know. Has she SEEN her TMZ photo albums?!

But what does one expect of the media--a collective group of idiots who don't even know the past participle for 'to hang'? For the record, people, strangulation involving gravity and a ligature type hanging takes 'hanged' as the past participle (he hanged himself, he was hanged by the neck until dead as you hear in all those old western movies). Laundry is 'hung'. Men can be 'hung' as well, but it means something *entirely* different.

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scarycatmecha

evil cat robots have feelings too!

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