17 | April | 2006 | Tiny Cat Pants

Via Pandagon, I learn of this awesome exchange between Cyndi Lauper and Deborah Soloman in the New York Times.

Deborah Soloman says: I think of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" as the first feminist-backlash song. It came out in the 80’s and goes against the preachy and high-minded tone of 70’s feminism.

Deborah Soloman has apparently never heard the words to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" as far as I can tell. But this alludes to a larger pet peeve of mine. Deborah Soloman has a job with the New York Times. How does she think she got that job? Does she think that the Good Fairy just bopped her on the head and turned her into a writer for the New York Times? Who does she think paved the way for her to have her cushy job? Those preachy and high-minded feminists.

Also, "80’s" and "70’s"? In the fucking New York Times? What?

My god, I bet some folks didn’t even make it to my third paragraph, so alarmed were they at the apostrophes in the second. When the day comes that I, a girl who can’t spell to save her life is giving grammar lessons to the New York Times, you can bet that the world is on the verge of collapse.

Anyway, it’s not that hard. The apostrophe is used only when indicating a contraction–"I was" becomes "I’s" for instance or "are not" becomes "ain’t."–or indicating possession of something, "That ain’t your meth; it’s Bill’s."

"80’s" is not a contraction. You might have argued, and I might have bought it, that 70’s feminism is correct because it indicates the feminism belonging to the 1970s, not just occurring in the 1970s. But you put the apostrophe in the 80’s as well, thus rendering that argument ridiculous.

And don’t even talk to me about "house style." You can prefer something and it still be wrong. I prefer that everyone email me when they are naked, perhaps that is the "house style" of Tiny Cat Pants. But it is wrong for me to impose my immoral will on my readership.

It is wrong for you, Newspaper of Record, to impose your immoral grammar on the rest of us.

Whew. Where were we?

Ah, yes, this idea that feminists are no fun and thus that "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" is somehow an anti-feminist anthem.

I’ll let Ms. Lauper set the record straight on that: "That’s not true! It’s totally feminist. It’s a song about entitlement. Why can’t women have fun?"

Preach it, Sister Lauper.

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On a mildly related note, did I ever tell you about the time that Dr. J. and I went to see Gillian Welch and David Rawlings did the cutest version of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" ever? It was this kind of mischievously sad lament about how much he wanted to behave, but those girls, they just want to have fun, and who can tell them no?

Shug sent me a link to the myspace page of the guy who stalked me for four years. I shouldn’t have looked–no good can come of it–but I did.

He claims he misses sitting on the porch with me.

He also works at Starbucks, is divorced, and still lives in the little town he lived in when I knew him.

I’ve got nothing to say in the face of that.

I always thought I’d feel better if I knew his life sucked.

But instead, my first thought was “Fuck me. He’s on the internet. I bet he can find me. Yes, because some fucker posted my real name and home address here at this site, somewhere in Google’s cache, my real name is linked to this stuff. Which means, he could be reading this right now.”

That bothers me.

It really bothers me that he still thinks about me.

It really, really bothers me that I still think about him.

It really, really, really bothers me that I’m still a little afraid of him.