This Is Exactly Why I Hated New York City

You’re in New York City and you have an idea: I know, let’s dress up like JFK and go eat pancakes in the middle of Time Square!  It’ll be cool.  It’ll be weird.

And you show up and there are ten other people you don’t even know also dressed like a Kennedy eating pancakes or maybe waffles.  Still, close enough that you’re like “Damn, can a girl have an original idea in a town this big?”

The answer is no.

In that vein, I give you Kittenpants. 

Needless to say, I have a thorough case of the heebie-jeebies. 

I am in Love!!!!!

It was nice knowing you all but I’m quitting my job, packing up the dog, and moving to Iowa to throw myself at the feet of one James Hill, who is running for Congress… I should add, who is the only drunken pirate running for Congress.

What a sad testimonial to our political system when a degenerate like me, feels like the most honest candidate on the ballot.

[…]

 Every day I fight the urge to drink, debauch women out of wed-lock and beat people on the street. One urge I do not have is to sell myself to the highest bidder. I see new accounts every day. These ‘men’ who sell their influence like common whores. Duke Cunningham and his bribe menu sound familiar? William Jefferson with $90.000 k in his freezer ring a bell?

I’m sorry.  "Every day I fight the urge to drink, debauch women out of wed-lock and beat people on  the street."  I’m dying!  He has awesome facial hair.  He appears to like to fish in the Mississippi.  And he has dimples.  That’s all I ask for in a man.

 David Weigel, who is guest blogging for Andrew Sullivan pokes fun: "Yeah, whatever. Not that impressive, in this era of ‘YouTubes of the Day,’ until you realize Hill is running for Congress in Iowa. Which is, relatively speaking, totally landlocked."

I would just point out, Mr. Weigel, that Pirates of the Mississippi is not just a bad country band, but an actual phenomenon.  Who do you think that good ole Midwestern boy, Popeye, was beating up with those big muscles?

 

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What I’m Getting Tiny

Shill, Legal Eagle, read no further!

 

 

 

Okay, now that they’re gone, let me just say that I read through their baby registry over at Amazon and apparently they already know they’re having a nerd–all books.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  I just don’t want to get Tiny something it can’t use right away.

So, I’m buying Tiny two CDs. 

The first is The Bottle Let Me Down which is worth it just for the cover. I love this album.  More importantly, both of my nephews love this album and the oldest nephew only listens to country (growing up in rural Georgia) and the other prefers rap music (probably from spending his formative years in strip clubs in Champaign, Illinois).  If you have children and have not bought this CD for them, you clearly hate your kids.  I bet you also give them five dollars and tell them to go play in traffic.

The other is  The Johnny Cash Children’s Album which I have not heard, but will be perfect for them.  At their wedding, they played “Ring of Fire” which was both awesome and hilarious, because, even though these two people had floated gracefully around the dance floor through every other song, they could not figure out how to dance to that one.

Also, I think I’ve come up with the perfect name for Tiny: if it’s a girl–Roxie Bell Pepper  and if it’s a boy–Thomas Edison.

 I kid.  Still, I kind of wish I knew someone named Roxie.

B., Girl Detective

I’m a little slow on the uptake, I have to tell you, but when I do make connections, I make all kinds of them.  Three things I realized when standing, yet again, knee-deep in water in my tub.

1.  The drain is up!  It’s not back to the bad old days.  Just let down the drain and down the water goes.

2.  When cleaning the kitchen, I will take the trash bag out of the trash can and fill the trash can with recycling.  But neither the bag nor the can is full, which means I tend to just leave the bag sitting on the floor next to the can.  But what if I just went ahead and bought another can for recycling?!  No more garbage bag on the floor.

3.  And folks, this one is the worst.  I’m so embarrassed by it that I wish I were making it up.  A while ago, one of you sent me a link to a blog and it turned out that we both knew the writer of that blog.  You, dear reader, signed your full name, and so, I could see that your initials were nm.  You also, in that email, said you lived here in Nashville.  Today, in the shower, having my drain and garbage epiphanies, I realized that the very same person who had the initials nm who write me that email so long ago is beloved commenter nm.

If I had my own Cold Cases show, it’d be hilarious.  I’d get all the clues and then six months later, be walking the dog and BAM! case solved. 

The Good Wife’s Guide

I will admit right up front that, when Tatiana said there was something over at her blog I would like, and I found this, my very first thought was to title this post something like "Tatiana Finds Kleinheider’s Master Plan!"  But then I see that Kleinheider has gone and pissed off the Tennessee Guerilla Woman.  And so I thought maybe it wouldn’t be nice for me to add to his discomfort.  Still, there’s a lesson in there.  I’m not going to spell it out for you, but I am going to laugh about it.

I saw this before Mrs. Wigglebottom and I struck out for our morning walk and our whole walk, it just made me really sad and angry.  I’ve got some questions:

1.  Who wrote this article?  Was Housekeeping Monthly staffed by women or men?  Because if men wrote this, it pisses me off, but I give them props for their ingenuity at trying to insure a cushy life of ease for their fellow men.  But if women wrote this, if women who worked all day actually had the gall to lie to other women about how hard a life the people with "real" jobs have and how those people need to be coddled when they get home, fuck them.

I am not a stay-at-home mom.  Obviously.  But I do have some nephews that my brother has left me in charge of occasionally and I have babysat and from that, I have extrapolated that there’s nothing about my job that is as difficult as spending all day alone with small children.

Really, 1950s wife, unless your husband is a police officer or emergency room doctor, your husband’s job is not as stressful as yours.  No one might die if your husband goes into his office after lunch and takes a nap.

The worst part is that it’s 1955; if that wife didn’t have a job outside the house fifteen years ago, her sisters or mom did.  But let’s all pretend like women never worked outside the home and so life out there is a big mysterious question answered by lies about how hard it is.

2.  I’m struck, also, by how shitty a life this must have been for the husbands whose wives tried to adhere to it.  It seems to me that, as nice as it would be to have someone take care of me from the second I walked in the door until the second I left it again, some of this shit would make me awfully lonely.

"Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night."

"Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity."

Coupled with

"Have dinner ready.  Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return.  This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs."

"Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him."

Do you see what I’m saying?  I have some experience with married men and the thing that strikes me about them is that they like to talk.  They answer questions.  If they’ve done something for a reason, they like to explain the reasoning behind what they’ve done.  Unless they are abusive assholes, they want to hear about your problems and they want to help fix them, if they can.  In other words, they aren’t mysterious.  They’re just people.

And nothing about this set-up is geared towards either the husband or the wife really acknowledging the humanity of the other.

Shoot, gentlemen, think how, whenever we have the discussion about how I can’t understand why y’all would rather be needed than wanted and you all chime in with how ‘want’ can fade or change its mind, but being needed feels permanent to you.

Now think of that home life.  What is that husband needed for?

The whole point of that life is to give the husband the illusion that the household runs just fine without him.  No wonder he stays out all night.  And even him staying out all night can’t provoke the human response he must be so desperate for, because his wife has been told to never bother him about that stuff.

That version of married life is great for abusive assholes–because it’s far easier to treat someone like shit when they’re trying very hard to keep their basic humanity hidden from you for fear of running you off.

But for real people?  Who want very much to love each other and be there for each other?  That kind of life would have to be hard and lonely as hell–a marriage where neither needs the other as a person.