Daily Archives: March 28, 2006

Mar 28

The FAQ

1. Why “Tiny Cat Pants”?

I think “pants” is just about the funniest word ever and once, when someone asked me what I thought was funnier than pants, I blurted out “Cat pants. Tiny Cat Pants.” I imagined some shiny gold pants on a stylish cat and it just cracked me up. So, when I started to blog, I thought it’d make for a good, strange name that people would remember.

2. So, are the pants tiny or is the cat tiny?

The pants are tiny compared to normal pants. They are, instead cat-sized. They are tiny cat pants, not tiny cat pants, though, if such pants really existed, I would certainly not dissuade tiny cats from wearing them.

3. For a blog called “Tiny Cat Pants,” you sure do talk a lot about your dog. Why don’t you write more about your cats?

Honestly, my cats are pretty boring, especially in comparison to Mrs. Wigglebottom. One cat goes outside a lot. The other cat sheds all her butt hair in the winter. One of them peed in the drier. That’s about it.

Mrs. Wigglebottom, on the other hand, is always the cutest funniest dog ever and even right now, when I look over at her sleeping on the couch, with her paw nestled up by her cheek, I just about can’t stand it.

4. What kind of dog is Mrs. Wigglebottom?

She’s an American Staffordshire Terrier, it’s one of the pit bull breeds.

5. You have a pit bull?! How can you be so irresponsible?! Don’t you know she’ll snap and kill your cats, kill your neighbor kids, and then kill you with her jaws that are genetically mutated to clamp down and never let go?

Thank you for your concern, but if her jaws are indeed genetically mutated to clamp down and never let go, she would have starved to death days after taking her first bite of solid food. And shoot, as long as I’m third on the list, I’ve got time to run.

I kid.

6. Is she scary looking?

Not at all. In fact, most people who don’t know what kind of dog she is assume that she’s a giant Boston Terrier.

7. Is she nice?

Yes, she’s very sweet, even though she has terrible manners.

8. Are you really an aunt?

Yes.

9. Is the Butcher real?

Yes, everyone I talk about is real and all of the things I say about them are how I recollect them. I’m not saying that everything is 100% factual and accurate, as I come from a long line of storytellers, con artists, and preachers, but they’re how I remember them.

10. Why do you blog anonymously?

It started out as a joke. My audience was people I knew in real life and so it was just a thin verneer of anonymity for the sake of funny. Now, I do it out of courtesy for my family.

11. Can I meet you?

Maybe.

12. Can I make out with you?

Maybe. If I’m drunk, probably.

13. Are you the same in real life as you are on-line?

No, I’m much more awkward in real life, I think.

14. You’re not Christian, are you?

No.

15. What are you?

Let’s just say I’m an optimistic hard-core polytheist.

16. What does that mean?

I’m not sure there are any gods, but if there are, I think they’re all real and all distinct from each other.

17. But isn’t your dad a minister?

Hence one of the reasons I blog anonymously.

18. Jesus loves you.

Yes, I know.

19. But you know you’re going to hell, right?

One way or another, I’m sure.

20. You sell Tiny Cat Pants products. How are sales?

Well, you know, better than I expected, considering that I expected to sell a t-shirt to the Corporate Shill, a t-shirt to the Professor, and a t-shirt to me. How CafePress works is that you have to earn $25 before you get a check and each of my products is just marked up a few dollars. So, keeping that in mind, I’ve gotten one check for $30. With the next batch of money I was supposed to get, I bought a t-shirt from Tim Morgan and one from Flea. And I think I’m going to get a third check here in a bit. So, it earns me about $25 every three months, which I do, usually, spend on beer or other frivolous nonsense I wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.

21. What kind of feminist are you?

The kind with a very cute boob freckle.

22. Will you ever convince the libertarians to sound their barbaric yawps over the roofs of the world?

I hope so. Who more than they is not a bit tamed?

23. Why do you flirt with everyone?

Because I can.

24. Are there any rules for commenting?

One.

You must respect and strive to maintain the frith of the community. We argue, fuss, and fight because there are folks here from a wide variety of backgrounds who disagree on just about everything. The only way it can work is if everyone agrees that having a space like this is worth-while and worth treating well. That can only happen if everyone respects each other, even when, or especially when they disagree.

25. But what if I’m just a giant jackass who cannot behave?

Then prepare to have your ass handed to you by people who are smarter, quicker, and funnier than you.

26. You’re liberal, right? Don’t you know taxes are stealing? Taxation is fundamentally immoral.

So is exchanging your body for money, capitalist pig.

27. You’re liberal, right? So why are you so hard on liberal men?

Because liberal men claim to be on my side.

28. When are you going to run for President?

Will that get in the way of my being Queen of the Planet? Because, if I can get that gig, I think that’s probably all the power I need.

29. Why is there only one boob freckle?

I have just gone into the bathroom and turned on the light, stood in front of the mirror and scrutinized my tits. For the record, there are three official boob freckles. There is the famous boob freckle, which resides on the top part of my right boob, right where it can peek out when I wear button-down shirts. There is another freckle right at the point where the left boob goes from being shoulder to boob. I haven’t really been counting this one. But then, I also found another freckle on the bottom side of my right boob. Cute as hell, but unnoticed by me, because, unless I was doing a boob freckle search in front of a mirror, I could have never seen it.

These freckles never fade. They’re just there. Occassionally, like right now, I have some faint boob freckles that showed up just because my tits have gotten some sun. I don’t feel it’s fair to call these official boob freckles as I can’t guarantee that they’ll be there when you see my tits.

So, the official count is three. But I’ll be keeping a closer eye on things, to see if there are any changes, since I know how important this issue is to y’all.

Mar 28

Making My One Wish Come True

No, not the wish where the Wayward Boy Scout and Sarcastro and I all go out drinking and they recite

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

to me from heart.

The one where I finally come up with a FAQ for this place. The only drawback is that I don’t really get a lot of frequently asked questions. So, I guess I’ll make some up. But here’s your chance, if you have some, to ask away.

Mar 28

A Long Post in Which I Once Again Flirt with Libertarianism

Y’all, I’m not even sure how to formulate this.

Let’s start with Kevin, who was kind enough to come by and point me to a quick “how we ended up here” when it comes to gun rights. He quotes a very interesting part of the Dred Scott decision, which I quote here:

[Citizenship] would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.

Just keep in mind “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” We’ll be coming back to this.

Then we’ve got Jon, with his Ayn Rand quote:

There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on guilt.

Hmmm, as well.

As y’all know, I’ve been following the saga of Say Uncle’s friend with interest and Blake has said all I have to say about the issue better than I could. Can a liberal heathen feminist and a conservative Christian gun nut find common ground? On this issue, apparently.

Anyway, it was one of Blake’s commenters that made me suddenly go “Well, duh.” This commenter says

If you don’t like the law get em to change it, don’t blame the cops for enforcing it.

As for me, I don’t want felons owning guns or voting.

Posted by: TWM at March 26, 2006 07:50 PM

And I stared at my computer screen dumbfounded.

Then I read this:

the other side of the Republican coin on immigration is the Bush plan to create a “guest worker” program that is nothing less than the realization of corporate America’s wet dream of having a labor force that cannot vote. It would create a permanent underclass of disenfranchised workers

The light went on and I immediately called the Professor and asked, “Why can’t people see that rap music and country music are the same?”

But what I really meant is that–duh–we’ve created draconian laws to “punish” behavior that doesn’t hurt anyone–like say, outlawing drugs–and the result is not a reduction in the use of drugs but prisons full of poor men.

Yes, those poor men are disproportionately black, which means that the war on drugs has allowed the government to find a way to follow the spirit of the Dred Scott decision even now–the war on drugs makes felons out of many black men, which means that they cannot carry weapons or vote. Which means that they cannot legally defend themselves and they cannot change the way they are governed. Both are equally troubling. Black men are left with no way to force the government to hear them.

But it’s not just black men who are fucked by this–it’s really poor people in general. As folks over at Say Uncle and Blake’s have pointed out repeatedly, there are all types of felonies, from having too much weed to killing your boyfriend, but the stoner and the murderer are stripped of their rights just the same.

And who most needs to have their rights protected? The people who are most often chewed up and spit out by various law enforcement entities. Who do we strip of the ability to hold our government accountable? The people who are most often chewed up and spit out by various law enforcement entities.

It’s really brilliant, if you think about it. Who’s going to best know the ways that the government fucks people over? People who have been fucked over. What can they legally do about it?

Nothing, it seems.