The rumor’s flying around the office that Granite Falls is closed.
Which means we will never see the likes of the Patio Burger again.
Encrusted in black pepper, topped with onions, baby spinach, and sour cream, the Patio Burger was the burger of my dreams.
*Sniff*
At least, I think that’s what he means by Gamma Girl.
He also says:
I believe there are a lot of nasty little people out there like the appropriately named Tiny who simply hate anything that excels or anyone who does better than they do.
And I’m a big enough person to admit when he’s right. I’ve never even attempted the difficult “bizarre, out of place threat on people’s lives” maneuver and, as pointed out before, he makes it look effortless.
By the way, another reason that women might do well to give greater consideration to Beta or Gamma males is that those men are much more tolerant of women attempting to control them. Lone wolves and Alphas will sooner kill a woman than submit to one, and the more a woman attempts to exert control over them, the worse their behavior will become. Some men are natural jerks, for others, it is learned behavior.
I’ve been thinking more about the penis movie and I have to say that, not only do I think it was kind of earnest and boring, I have to say that I think one problem we feminists have is that we’re earnest and boring.
Not as a whole. A lot of the third-wavers seem to be having some fun.
But here, in Nashville, I’m not seeing too many third-wavers. More like second-and-a-half wavers, full of earnest boringness, reading our little statements agreed to by committee of respectful patronization of the kids we’re trying to reach.
God, it almost makes me long for a pack of man-hating baby-killers. At least they have passion. They have rage to fuel them.
Wickedness. They have wickedness.
Earnest boring feminists don’t.
And it seems to me that this is a big problem.
Let’s take a scenario: A girl in college comes up to you and says, “I’m going to law school.” And you say, “Oh, you want to be a lawyer?” And she says, “No, I’m going to get married and stay at home with the kids.”
The earnest feminist respects that “choice” as if it’s a valid feminist choice. As if all choices are equally valid if women choose them. As if women aren’t capable of making dumb-ass decisions.
But the wicked feminist can laugh, long and hard, when confronted with such dumb-assery. And really, I think, it’s about time we started doing that.
Feminism is supposed to provide an alternative to the current ways we pretend men and women have always been.
How can we possibly do that if we don’t act like our alternative is more fun? If we don’t embody the fact that our alternative is more fun?
After my Uncle B.’s funeral, my cousin–of the french fry incident–came up to me and asked me to help her carry some of the plants to the car.
“You know,” she said, “I know people mean well, but fuck me, it’s like ‘Sorry your dad died; here’s a plant.’ Like a plant makes up for it.”
And, standing there in the parking lot of the red brick church, each of us with our arms full of big leafy green plants, we looked at each other and laughed until our faces were covered in fresh tears.
“What’s that noise?”
“It’s Elvis Costello.”
“I know it’s Elvis Costello. I mean, how am I hearing Elvis Costello?”
“Sarcastro gave me a CD player.”
“We have a CD player.”
“What?”
“Yeah, that one downstairs under the lawnchairs.”
“But this one has a remote.”
“Well, la-de-da. Why’d he give you a CD player?”
“I think it’s a consolation prize of some sort.”
“Isn’t Sarcastro that old guy who gives you rides?”
“Yeah.”
“Ha, ha, then I think you got the grand prize, there.”
Some of you will be glad to know that, not only did Sarcastro give me an Elvis Costello CD so that I can be properly educated, he also gave me a CD player upon which to play it.
It was a very nice gift.
At least, I assume it’s a gift. It may be a consolation prize of some sort: “Sorry you’re too stupid to understand libertarianism, but here’s a CD player” or “It’s too bad you don’t have your own vehicle to drive back and forth to work, but here’s something for you to listen to music on for those days when you don’t have your car. Oh, wait, isn’t that every day?”
But I’m going to assume it’s some kind of nice gesture.
I’ve seen my share of naked men* and I’ve even, on one occasion, shamelessly begged a sweet amenable stranger to just stand in front of me naked and let me drink in a good look**. I’ve enjoyed the small of y’alls back and the way you hold your shoulders slightly scrunched over when you’re working hard at something. And I like the way you look all asleep with one arm here and a leg over there and your hair sticking up and to the side of your faces.
But I’m tired of how secretively utilitarian the naked male body seems–this ordinary thing that we never get to see. Not yours specifically. Lord knows. I mean naked men in general.
Tonight, I went over to the Professor’s and she cooked up this delicious chicken in her crock pot*** and then we went over to see this documentary about penises. As far as documentaries about penises go, this one was bland and earnest. Really, it could have benefited from a little Monty Python-esque humor, and sadly, for a documentary about penises, there were very few actual penises.
Worse than that, though, is that there were very few shots of the whole bodies of men. Mostly, the camera focused on their faces or just from the waist up, which is really too bad, because, even with the frat boys who sat there in their underwear, it was really cool to watch their whole selves take up space on the screen.
I sometimes get the feeling that men are not used to being looked at as aesthetic objects. I know I don’t look at men I don’t know, usually. And when I look at the men I know, I’m usually responding to who they are as people and making eye contact and trying to be a decent human being.
I can’t think of any circumstances under which I’m close enough to a man to observe him without also having it seem like I want to engage him. I guess maybe baseball games. There’s no fancy padding and the uniforms are tight enough that you can see their bodies move and they stand around a lot and talk smack and lunge and run and saunter and spit and you can get a good look at how a lot of different male bodies doing a lot of different things look. And you can linger.
Aha! That’s what I mean. All the time, my eye can linger on female bodies. I can see us on tv and on the screen and gussied up in real life and on display.
But lingering on men? I guess it seems kind of rude and like it would make y’all self-conscious or think that I was looking to fuck you.
And so, I was hoping this documentary would do that, linger on men, on their whole selves, and let me sit back and take a good look at you.
But, alas, even in this documentary about penises, men were given their privacy. Still, it was nice to see the few naked guys they did show, and to see the diversity of humanity. One guy kept talking about how ugly penises were and it really bothered me. Do y’all think that? I hope not. Because, really, what ended up being very nice about the film was that it reaffirmed just how beautiful ordinary men are.
*Oh my god! Why would I say that? No, I’ve totally seen far fewer than my share of naked men. Send me your photographs, stand outside my house with nothing on but your cutest smile, even up the score, boys!
**To his credit and my eternal regret, he politely declined.
***If you ever get invited to the Professor’s for the pleasure of a meal from her crock pot, you would be crazy to turn her down.
Tiny Cat Pants 