Bob's Meme Ends Up All About Balls. Who'd Have Ever Guessed It?

I'm not doing well. I have no inspiration. I'm a total blank. So what do I do? I go to visit Lisa. And what do I find? I find a meme from Bob. And even though I haven't been tagged, by god I'm playing, because what else do I have to do besides laundry and vacuuming and grocery shopping. So instead of doing all those hideous chores I'm going to play this game.

So the book I'm working on is on my bedside table. I grab it. It's Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Just a little light reading before going to sleep. Only it scares the bejezzus out of me every time I pick it up since it is detailing exactly what is happening to our economy right now (thank you, you neocon bastards) and hints at what the possibilities are for us if we don't get a grip and fast.

Anyway, I go to the 25th page, to the 10th word and of all the possible words in this terrifying book what do I find? "Purity." Purity? Holy hell! Then I go to google search and find these images of purity.

Research and Musings

Research and learning on a variety of topics, from health to computers, parenting to cooking, brewing to politics.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

"Purity Balls", AKA "Chasity Balls"

Abstinence only Sex Education increases teen pregnancy rates. This is according to the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP). Providing contraception information results in reduced teen pregnancy rates. Despite the research proving this, many Conservatives insist in believing the opposite, and insisting upon fear mongering abstinence only sex education.

Now, conservatives have created "Chastity Balls" also known as "Purity Balls." The general idea is to have the father vow to protect his daughter's chastity in a wedding like ceremony, where the daughter similarly vows to remain a virgin until her marriage. They dress up, he wears a tux, there's a ring exchange, he feeds her wedding cake and the ceremony goes on to make the whole event resemble "Marrying your father" as much as possible.

Even nine year olds are participating.

There's even an Oedipal version for sons and mothers called an "Integrity Ball" that involves "telling boys to abstain from sex is so they won't defile someone's "future wife.""

The pledge read by the fathers:

I, [daughter's name]'s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.

I guess seeing women as property is perfectly natural to many even in this day and age.

Glamor Magazine has an exhaustive article on Purity Balls.

Bill Maher on the practice:



As pointed out in the Glamor Magazine article, kids who take "purity pledges" are more likely to have unprotected sex and get pregnant out of wedlock. Sadly, Conservatives choose to pretend this can't be the case.

Below is a promotional video advertising one of the firms who put on Purity Balls. Watch it, and decide for yourself.

DiggIt! Del.icio.us

Too bad Bristol didn't have a chance to go to a Purity Ball with her dad and Levi. It might have made all the difference.

I'm supposed to tag some of you, but you may be actually living a real important life with better things to do than play games. Not me. I got nothing to do now that I've put off cleaning for another day. I might read a little Naomi Klein and have nightmares in the middle of the day. But that's something, right?

Oh Yeah??!!!

Here's my latest test from Quizzy. This one is about romance. I thought the time was right since I have just suffered a mysterious romantic meltdown. I'm still trying to process my mistakes: the missed clues, the outright self-deception, the over the top hope and fantasy of a future with someone who would understand me and leave me alone when I need to be alone and be there to support my needs when I have needs for company. Pretty selfish and egocentric, no?

I'm a gemini born in the year of the monkey and bipolar. That pretty much makes me six people residing in this one falling apart body. I can barely manage them all. And they are all air signs. I'm a woman who has always lived in her head. My feet do not touch the ground. It's easy to say, pull your head out of the clouds, but my head is unable to heed that advise. I'm an Air sign. There is nothing in my astrological chart that touches the earth. All air all the time. I can hear a bit of water far down below, but my feet are never firmly planted on the ground. And yet, Quizzy says:

Your result for The Elemental Beauty Test...

Etheral Beauty

42% Water, 17% Earth, 25% Air, and 17% Fire!

You scored 42% Water! Superb!

You have the etheral beauty of a god or goddess. You love things that shine and shimmer, are soft and flowy, and have a dreamy quality about them. You gravitate toward natural fabrics such as cotton, linen, silk, or hemp. You love the colors of the sea like the deep blues and sea-greens. You love the see-through sheer fabrics that you can layer, or perhaps loose shirts and pants when you seek the comfy side.

You inner beauty shows a sentimental side. You have keepsakes and heirlooms and love things that have emotional attachments or a history.

With water emotions run deep. It is a feeling sign. (Astrologically signs for this include Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.) Your emotions can be like a hidden treasure hidden below the surface in the subconcious. This may cause you to have some mood swings. But the beauty of what you are is that you will, in spite of fears, look inside yourself.

You also scored:

17% Earth: Earth is the natural beauty. They tend to stick to classic styles and colors. They tend to be more grounded. 0% Earth may indicate that plain old common sense is not your strong suit. Even percentages between Earth and Water indicate someone that is a hard worker that requires security and an attachment to possessions.

25% Air: Air is the fearless beauty. They are offbeat and funny. The mix old fashions with new and love to make new trends. They aren't afraid to be new or crazy. 0% Air could indicate that you have trouble looking at things objectively. Even percentages between Water and Air usually indicate a dreamer-typer person who tend to be fantasy prone.

17% Fire: Fire is the alluring beauty. They like to wear bright colors and show some skin. They are sexually minded and spicy. They use a lot of charm to get what they want. 0% Fire can often be seen in someone that pushes and tries to force self-expression. Equal percentages of Water and Fire show a person that is rather impulsive and shows a great deal of emotion.

Take The Elemental Beauty Test at HelloQuizzy

I'll take this test again later so see if this was just some morning aberration--not enough coffee on board or something like that.

From the Pen, Please Take Action

If you'd like to take this viral be my guest. But I keep signing and writing letters and it's mainly because I get email alerts from so many good sources.

Real Prosecutors Don't Let War Criminals Walk For The Price Of A
Confession

One of the most sappy ideas we've heard in a long time was the
suggestion of a certain Democratic Senate leader last week that the
worst criminals at the top of the Bush administration should be
effectively granted blanket immunity in exchange for "fessing up". We
can only hope Leahy's actual strategic intent was to have the
proposal get shot down, as it quickly was by others, for being pretty
much totally toothless. We need to make sure that message was not
missed. Indeed, we need to put an exclamation point on it.

The fact is that without prosecution, the top war criminals in
American political office of the future will presume that they can
always get off the hook by the so-called "truth" commission route.
And yet the people who are in the media calling for non-enforcement
of the laws against torture and illegal wiretapping are the SAME ones
who are "zero tolerance" fanatics when little people get in trouble.

Prosecution Commission Action Page:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum936.php

One of Leahy's non-arguments was that prosecuting all the criminals
in the Bush administration would take 10-15 years. Oh, really? Did
they commit THAT many hideous crimes? That's all the more reason to
get moving on it as soon as possible. As a former prosecutor himself
he should know that immunity is granted to GET testimony against the
criminal kingpins, not to let them skate themselves entirely.

Thankfully at least John Conyers on the House side, and other
senators like Whitehouse and Reed, have come forward to stand up for
the principle that ONLY prosecution is any deterrent in cases like
these. Did the pardon of Nixon send a message for the future? Of
course it did? It led Cheney and Rumsfeld, who were IN that
administration, to believe that they would have their own chance to
get away with mass murder.

Need YOUR Submission For New T-Shirt Design

To go along with "Convict Dick & W" caps we are already mass
shipping, we had the idea of doing a t-shirt as well. The idea would
be a graphic of the faces of Bush and Cheney wearing unhappy
expressions, either behind bars or perhaps in striped prison outfits,
as a way of visualizing that reality.

We want to throw this out to our most creative participants. In our
mind's eye we are looking for something with an imaginative design,
perhaps in the realm of caricature. If you would like to submit a
design, please email back a reply.

By the way, all the cap requests from the last week are being shipped
tomorrow, but if you have not requested your "Convict Dick & W" cap
yet, here is the page for that.

Convict Dick & W Caps: http://www.peaceteam.net/convict_cap.php

And of course on that same page you can also find the new local
county prosecutor lookup, which we are using to call, write and email
local district attorneys, asking them to bring murder charges against
George Bush and Dick Cheney as urged by Vince Bugliosi. At the top of
all these pages, there is a link to a terrific YouTube video you can
watch on this of Bugliosi's House testimony. After watching that
video, the words will come to you that you will need to say.

The local prosecutor initiative is an important long term back up
action, intended to keep the heat on at the same time for a special
prosecutor at the federal level.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We are not asking anyone to file a "formal" criminal
complaint yourself. Common sense tells us that a state prosecutor
will only act, in the exercise of their OWN discretion, if they
believe there is a non-frivolous case to bring. But by speaking out,
we can let them know there is community support for them to do so.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm

Borrowed From Eugene Robinson and The Washington Post

This is a presidency on steroids. Barack Obama's executive actions alone would be enough for any new administration's first month: decreeing an end to torture and the Guantanamo prison, extending health insurance to more children, reversing Bush-era policies on family planning. That the White House also managed to push through Congress a spending bill of unprecedented size and scope -- designed both to provide an economic stimulus and reorder the nation's priorities -- is little short of astonishing.

And yet I read liberal bloggers criticizing him for not doing it a certain way. His been mocked in the blogosphere here for making nice with the Republicans only to have them stab him in the back and vote unanimously against the Stimulus package.

This week, executives from General Motors and Chrysler are reporting on their progress in transforming themselves into lean, mean carmaking machines, capable of leading American industry into a new golden age. They will also explain that they need some more money, and fast, if they are not to crash and burn. GM, which got a $9.4 billion cash infusion from the government just two months ago, wants the remaining $4 billion that the Bush administration approved; Chrysler, which got $4 billion in December, urgently needs $3billion more.

I have mixed feelings about the American auto industry. Why have they been so slow to adjust to changes in the market for smaller, more efficient, better made cars and trucks? It is not the problem created by union workers making too much money for working on the assembly line. It's the fault of the executives who have been unwilling to lead the industry with hybrids and other alternatives to the big bloated gas guzzlers of the past. It's the salaries of the men at the top and the poor decisions they've made that have made the U.S. auto industry a failure. Off with their heads. Keep the workers, fire the CEO's and designers. Start over.

Thanks to an amendment that Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) inserted into the stimulus bill, Washington now has control over bonuses and severance packages at financial companies that have taken funds from the Bush administration's $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP): No more eight-figure bonuses for Wall Street "geniuses" whose cleverness helped drive their companies, and a good deal of the economy, into the ground.

Dodd added a measure that makes it easier for firms that chafe at Washington-imposed restrictions -- on executive compensation, for example -- to pull out of TARP. The details are complicated, but what's important is that banks and other financial institutions that are relatively healthy may well begin to leave the program. The impression would be that the firms remaining in the program are relatively sick -- and people tend to be uncomfortable keeping their money in banks that can be described as relatively sick.

I'm in favor of nationalizing failing banks. I want no more gobbling up of smaller banks by the likes of Citibank. The only healthy banks I know about are the small local banks. I've heard of no problems with the credit unions, like the one I am a member of. It's the big bloated financial institutions that are causing the problems. So nationalize them or let them fail.

Then there's the housing problem, which may be the most difficult of all. Foreclosures and plummeting home values are at the heart of the economic crisis. Either millions of Americans are going to lose their homes or millions of mortgage contracts are somehow going to be modified. That's not an attractive choice.

All Barack Obama wanted was to be president. He may have to become an auto executive, a banker, a mortgage broker and who knows what else before this crisis is done.

So what do we expect of our new President who has yet to be in office one month? Miracles it seems to me. I'm happy with his work so far. My complaint is with the Congressional Leadership. I say if the Republicans do not want to be part of the solution, do not offer them plums to sweeten the deal for them. They will take credit for the weakening of your legislation and then stab you in the back. Let the bastards filibuster. I don't really believe that's a spectacle even their deep south and Utah constituents will find helpful in keeping a job or keeping a home or a car in a rapidly shrinking economy. The South is relatively poor compared to other parts of the country. I doubt the filibuster will play well no matter how conservative you think you are when faced with the possibility of moving your family into you mothers home or living in a shelter.

In Utah we have the second richest church in America to run our government. Too bad they won't pony up--they could bail us all out if they wanted to. $500 million to pour into passing Prop 8 in California was just one tiny drop in the bucket for them.

I'm Through With Love

Fiction or Fact, Fantasy or Truth

Steve, hang in there with self-discovery. It's good for you. Keeps us from getting stale, ossified. You are one of the best commenters around. If I can entice you to read and comment I am richly rewarded and learn something about my own writing. I think I often believe people are more complex than they might in fact be. So in my imagination as I work my way into an experience I let my mind embellish the words of another. I make them into the character I want them to be. To serve whatever need is unmet in me. I overlook the signals I should be paying attention to. When a man says he's cheap, listen. I heard it twice and twice chose to ignore it. That was a mistake on my part as narrator of my own interior fiction. We all star in our own fictions. We hear what we want. We omit details that might embarrass. We lie in the name of kindness. And so we are inauthentic. We minimize our own flaws to make us feel better or to spare another. Fact or fiction? I suppose to some extent we are all living our own fictions to one degree or another. I'm just living mine more publicly than others. Lisa is a blogger who lives her life out here in the open. Freida too. She has now gone rather private so I feel a bit more like a freak of my own making with one less freakingly real blogger with a life laid open like a patient etherized upon a table to keep me company.

Crow, thank you for the comment. I do write fiction from my real life. I think all our material from our real lives is material that can't quite be called "the truth" since it is only our take on an interaction or observation. We cannot know what is in someone else's mind so we make assumptions about their motives and intentions and even if we ask them, they might tell us what they think we want to hear rather than the uncomfortable truth they really feel. So is Cal real or not? Yes, Cal is real. But my fantasy about Cal was not. Cal is not the man I imagined him to be. So my story is a fiction in that sense. But what I wrote about my feelings is real. Confusing isn't it? I'll tell you my truth, but is it an objective truth? Probably not. It is a bit fiction and bit wishful thinking and a story of my ancient past come back to haunt me.

I base all fiction on my life experiences or close observation of others. I don't have a crack team of researchers to tell me what it's like for a female climbing her way up the corporate ladder in a Fortune 500 Co that's caught in the sleaze that brings her company down. This is a world I'll have to let other's tell. I tell my own stories, but even writing about my real life is only my fiction of my real life. I cannot be objective. So it's the view from my eyes. It's the longings of my heart and other bits that lead me to suspend my own good instincts and allow myself to miss all the clues that this man is not the right man for me and that rather than be angry with the man, I am angry with myself for missing what was so clearly there in the small comments we hear and don't absorb because we don't want to.

These are my responses to some of your comments about the post I wrote yesterday. Your comments were extraordinary. I didn't include your comments because the words you write are your own and without your permission I will not publish them on my blog. But when I'm speaking to you, these are my words and can be used.

It fascinates me that when you believe I'm writing a "real" experience rather than a "fiction" you react differently. When you believed Cal's words were Cal's words you did not question whether Cal was a "real" man or a man of my imagining. As a "real" man you spoke to him. As a "character" you dismissed his words as unconvincingly male.

I have explored some of my own prejudices and my visceral reactions to superficialities of appearance. There are all kinds of silly details I left out of this "story." I gave you a woman who was unkind, but not as unkind as she would have been had she not been concerned about cruelty. She knows that her reaction to this man, Cal, is cruel enough without the revelation of her uncensored interior dialogue. I would like to know Cal's true, deep, interior dialogue, but I wonder if he is capable of it. I don't think Cal thinks very deeply about his feelings, and his reactions, and his expectations. Cal is openly guarded. Cal seems to be an uncomplicated character rather than a real man. If Cal were a real man, this would sound like cruelty. When you think Cal is a real man, you give him a pass. When you think I have invented Cal and put his fictional words in his fictional mouth, you find him inauthentic. This is food for thought.

I'm Sick of Myself

Yes, I'm sick with something I can't seem to shake. When I get sick and don't recover quickly I worry that it is the beginning of depression. But then being sick is depressing. It's a chicken/egg sort of conundrum. Am I sick and is it depressing me, or is it depression coming on that starts as feeling sick? Depression for a person with bipolar disorder is often perceived as illness in the early stages.

We had a period of air so bad that warnings were issued to keep children inside, to keep old people inside, and to keep those with chronic illness inside. I have a friend who is a school teacher who said for weeks they were not allowed to let children go outside for the entire school day. When I first went to my doctor with upper respiratory symptoms I was told that everyone she was seeing was in for the same problem. So I didn't feel so bad. When the air cleared, I would feel better. Now the air is clean and my breathing is getting worse. I have asthmatic wheezing, and my usually husky voice is now a croak.

I was working on a story that I played out as if it were real. And now that it's over I'm drained. I have yet to put it together as a final unified story, but the pieces are all there. But now that it's over, I feel drained of creativity. I'm resorting to recycled songs that are a comfort to me but bore you. I still follow news but my fellow Democrats are turning on President Obama for not taking a harder line with the opposition party. I too would like him to do more arm twisting than courting, but in less than a month in office he got a stimulus package passed and ready for signing. I'm thinking that's quite an achievement even if the details of this aren't exactly what some of us would have wanted. He has signed orders to close Gitmo, he has stated that America will no longer torture, and he has said he is more focused on the future than the past, but has not closed the door to investigations into his predecessor's crimes. This is a great deal accomplished in a very short time, yet no one seems happy about all this. He is pretty wonderful, but he isn't god. What the hell do we expect?

So it is hard to tell whether this is depression or merely a transient bug that will eventually go away. And if it is depression, is it situational, or is it organic and part of the larger, underlying bipolar disorder? In several years I haven't missed taking my medications. In the past three weeks I have twice missed my evening dose of all my medications--these are all my bipolar drugs, my pills to control the atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Maybe it's just that I'm a little off from having missed those two doses of my medications. But why did I miss them? Taking medications at the correct time of day is like a reflex for someone with a lifetime of most of these health problems. Why have I become careless about taking the drugs that make "normal" life possible?

I feel I owe some of you an apology for playing a trick on you. I have tried to examine my visceral response to a certain type of possible romantic situation and ended up offending some of you, especially the men among you. I wrote a scenario too personal, and full of stereotypes that really did alienate some of my male readers. I claimed that my female character's reaction to her visceral response to the appearance of a man she had talked herself into seducing was "shallow" and that this shallowness was a rather male reaction to a lack of beauty. Surface beauty. I have never lived with a man who wasn't a fan of pornography. When I tried to find out why this was such a seemingly universal phenomenon, my male friends told me that men are more "visually" stimulated than women. So I see this as a shallow reaction to a visual stimulus. Yes, there is a judgement that shallow is not a particularly good thing to base love on, but it wasn't love exactly that I had in mind for my female character. I had sex in mind for her. And attraction that leads to sex is often a mysteriously shallow reaction to the visual. Chemistry is a necessary component for sexual passion and for my female character, the "I" in the story, in her mind prior to actually seeing this man there is chemistry, like the strange chemistry you feel in a dream. But confronted with the actual man face to face, she finds that there is no chemistry at all. And to her this lack of chemistry based solely on appearance is a shock that makes her see herself as more masculine than she thought. She views this as shallow. She equates shallowness as a male trait. She is wrong to do so. Shallowness is a universal. So is depth. To any of you who have been offended by the stereotyping in this small saga, I apologize. To the men who identified with the character Cal, I might have hurt your feelings. For this I'm sorry. But I will continue to work on this story on one of my fiction writing blogs.

I Might Have Known You Forever, But I Don't Know Enough About You

And yet in seconds I know it will never work. You will always remain unknowable. Or is this merely projection? Because...

For You Lovers

And especially you Tengrain, you know why.

Speaking of Sexy Bald Men and Romance

Cal Speaks

Reflections on the Best & Worse date of my life

I thought this just may be the one. We had a 50 year history and our expectations were high. After many telephone conversations we really seemed to be on the same page. We were both adorned in rose colored glasses.

I failed the Audition.

No bucket assed kids here but full grown adults in our mid sixties. Surely by this stage in life we could finally just be ourselves.

I arrived at her home and met her at the gate. We hugged. She felt wonderful. I was in heaven. We talked and laughed with nary an awkward silence. I’m thinking things are going very well. This may actually work. I was so confident that I thought it was time to fish for a complement. WHOOPS!

It seems I have some shortcomings. ME SHORTCOMINGS? IMPOSSIBLE! I’m a fucking hunk! How can this be?

Let me count the ways.

I’m going bald so I decided to let my hair do what ever it wanted in it’s final days. Not making a statement of any sort. Silly Me thinking hair would no longer be an issue. 1961 had come and gone.

Clothes wrong color for my skin tone. Huh? Oh please.

Wrong clothes. Basically my entire adult life because of my work and because I loved fashion I was always a very stylish snappy dresser. I even went so far as to sport very expensive “Mod” suits in the sixties. Yes I was a slave to fashion. After I retired I broke free from fashion bondage and wore jeans to show off my very hot butt. Then I got into photography so I started wearing Cargo pants so I would always have my camera with me. I really thought no one would care, after all old folks are invisible. Silly me.

Pants too short. Guilty. But my penny pinching self thought spending money on new pants was folly in case this didn’t work out.

Posture. I must have had good posture as a military grunt. We all stood tall and were able tho march around all looking and standing just alike. Being one that zigged when others zagged the posture of Cheech & Chong had more appeal to me And I imagine the weight of sixty six years tend to beat you down.

She really is a wonderful person. I wanna tell her that I love her a lot but I gotta have a belly full of wine. I will always regret it didn’t work out for us.

My Ideal

Yesterday I was shallow, today I'm good with that. I'm not holding it against myself. But I have been thinking a lot about the power of the imagination and all the things we think we want or need from another person especially if we have an agenda, like getting laid. But the secret life of the mind can be your worst enemy by giving you a certain type you find attractive. It could be a scent. It could be the shape of an ass. But there's something there and you can't deny it or ignore it. And if it's missing, you can't pretend or wish or want and make it so. Maybe it is just pheromones. Maybe it is that simple. Truth is when Tom and I were together I used to breathe in the scent of him in his just vacated pillow or hold a T-shirt he'd worn to my face and breath in his smell. I did once follow an old man down a San Francisco street for blocks because he smelled good. Is this shallow? Is this something hardwired? An early imprint that stays forever? What ever it is it's your ideal:

I'm Shallow, So Shallow

I might be more like a man than I care to believe. I am shallow. I am visual. Let's leave it at that shall we?

And if meals could kill, and I know they can, we might be in for some serious trouble. I think the only thing that might save us is that the meal I cooked was so terrible, we only ate a bite or two, if that. I broiled a flank steak so bloody it was barely warm and yet oddly tough. I discovered that I do not have a carving knife sharp enough to slice butter, let alone a flank steak into the very thin slices necessary for tenderness. It is supposed to be a flavorful cut, though tough if over cooked. I did not overcook it, no I did not. Flavorful, I'm not so sure. I served it with runny horseradish mashed potatoes, and a thoroughly lack luster salad. A cheap red wine, and garlic bread. Thank god for the garlic bread. Oh well.

How about those bankers today? Anybody want to talk politics?

Let me just say this about phantasies--they are better left as phantasies. They have value as phantasies. Probably like dreams. My dreams made real would no doubt kill me. Turns out I'm awful. I'd rather flirt than follow through. I keep looking longingly at my computer. I worry about the news I'm missing. And I am terrifyingly honest when asked a question. If you might not really want to know what I have to say, best not ask me. I'll speak the truth. I hope I never meet anyone like me. I might be more like Maggy than I ever cared to believe. She passed along more than genes to me. I am horrible. I will very likely sleep alone the rest of my like. Oh well.

At Last

This could have been Cal and me had I been the guy--the one on the make, and Cal had been me, the girl in this clip, things might have turned out very differently. (This of course presupposes that you leave out the fairy godmother) But then we might have had a couple of kids and then he might have needed to find himself, and I might have resented the infidelity and then we wouldn't be having this experience. So I'm through thinking "What if..." I'm starting to think the timing couldn't be better, at last.

The Effects of the Savage One on a Young Man

Cal sent me these two photos to show me the effect I had on him. The first picture is of Cal a few months before he met me, the second is a photo of Cal a few months after meeting me.

This sweet, innocent young man was toyed with by a careless, wounded girl and then she disappeared.

I hope the old woman is no longer careless because she doesn't want this man to have to join the French Foreign Legion.

.

Travel to France as a couple is another thing all together

Am I Swearengen or is Stella? You Be the Judge.

Okay, I might be a little Trixie too. But Stella left this plum in the comments to Sitenoise's Soprano Swearing Opera. I now give you profane tidbits from my all time favorite HBO Series, Deadwood. In the meantime I'll be on my knees. Scrubbing the fucking floors, what the fuck did you think?

I'm a Little Shorter, But Good To Go

There was no cautionary tale, no warnings of dire consequences. There were lots of questions. Like, "Do you have an agenda?"

Yes, yes I do.

Are you willing to compromise?

Hummm, maybe. It depends on the compromise. I've done an awful lot of compromising. I thought I was through with men. I thought my libido had died. I was fine with that. I'm happy in my own company. But I have never been loved by a man in a way that was satisfying to me. I just might have the chance, at last. I think I'm ready. But who knows? We have yet to meet again.

Can you be vulnerable?

Hummm. (eyes widen) That's a very good question. So far this a prolonged flirtation. Chemistry is so mysterious. When we were young there was plenty of chemistry but so little knowledge. Now there is a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience, but we are mysterious creatures, wounded, carrying baggage. How can I know without an embrace with my face against his skin, maybe against his neck, where the pulse pounds, maybe then I'll know more. But I like him. I love our history and it's absence. I'm glad I disappeared after that one long afternoon forty nine years ago and left him wanting. But that has been my history with every man in my life. I was left by two fathers, three brothers, one boyfriend. That seemed like set in stone pattern to me at that age. I would never let it happen again. I could see the writing on the wall. I never loved a man who took me seriously, or supported my passion for something other than him. I was conquest, accessory, prey, the cleaning lady and cook, the laundress, but never valued as a women with strength worthy of respect. Never valued for my talent as a writer. Never read. Cal has been reading. I don't hold back much in the blog. I pretty much tell all--at least what interests me, what pisses me off, what I worry about. It's all political one way or another.

Can you give a little?

I can probably give quite a lot. The question should be, will I want to?

The Sopranos, uncensored

for those of you watching the sopranos on a&e, here’s what you’re missing.



the sopranos, uncensored. from victor solomon on Vimeo.

this is every single curse, from every single episode of the sopranos, ever.

Head Shrinking All Day Monday

So in my absence, I will leave you with a bit of Utah trivia. Utah is the number one consumer of antidepressant medications in the nation. Yes, the happy valley isn't so very happy. I wonder why the Mormon life isn't as satisfying as it's cracked up to be? That's a rhetorical question.

Another little factoid. I have a friend who has a friend who is the oldest of forty children. Yes, you read that right--forty fucking children! His father only needed three wives to reach this startling number of offspring. Two of his three wives had sixteen each. Yes, dears, each of these two women bore sixteen children the old fashioned way--one at a time, out her vagina. Now think of the number of cousins this man must have.

I have a friend who grew up in a modest sized polygamist family, but her daughter has thousands of cousins. Yes, thousands as in many thousands. Three or four I believe, but this is kind of like billions of dollars, after you get to the b for billion, what's a few hundred b and s for billions more?

I have had to postpone my date with Cal for a day. He was perfectly charming about it. I have a plumbing problem. Of course this plumbing problem would be in my sparkling and probably sterile as an operating theatre bathroom. The rooter guys will tromp in with their wet muddy boots and stand in my tub to root that drain, and I will have to start over. I'll need all day Tuesday to clean up after them if I'm lucky enough to get scheduled for Tuesday. And so far in the big room, the one I live in, the one with the big brass bed in the middle of it, I have only gotten around to the cupboard and drawer cleaning. I've had two dogs full time as the snow melts and the mud gets a little squishier. It comes into the house caked between their toes. The rugs and the floor will have to be cleaned after Melea gets home tomorrow night from her vacation. Then I won't have Roscoe for a day and will have a better chance of actually getting the floor clean and possibly having it remain that way for maybe 24 hrs with minor paw cleaning. And I'll be changing the bed at the last minute just because. Wipe that smirk off your face. He might feel faint and want to lie down. I am cooking you know.

Then there is the cooking. Since I have postponed my date with Cal for another day, I will need to shop again. By Wednesday, the strawberries will have wilted and so will my lilies. I may change the menu anyway. Not everyone loves eggplant.

Blog Rolling Paul Krugman

I have done it, so can you. But if you haven't read this, from Conscience of a Liberal--check it out. As I'm sure you can tell Krugman is my economics go-to guy, plus, I think he's sexy. Smart, outspoken men are a turn on.