Forcing Coincidence

It’s too damn hot.  And too dry.  When I water my herbs in the morning, their dirt is more the consistency of crumbled leaves than soil.  I worry I’m making tea instead of nourishing them.

The tiny bush by the front door probably won’t live and the grass in the neighbors’ lawns is bleached and crackles like tiny bones when you step out on it.

How do rain dances work? I asked.

And he said, you keep dancing until it rains.  And he smiled wickedly, that inviting way men have of challenging you to come closer.  “Whatever you do, don’t sit here next to me…. Okay, but whatever you do, don’t slide your hand across my chest… Okay, but whatever you do, don’t run your fingers across the prickly whiskers on my chin… Well, okay, but whatever you do…”

Only, I, of course, took him at his word.  “Don’t sit here next to me.”  Okay, fine.

My feelings hurt; his feeling hurt. 

I’m a sucker for Catholic boys with old scars and his he kept almost in plain sight, cigarette burns on his arms, mostly hidden under long sleeves.  Maybe this is why men like him need you to back around into things.  Everything straightforward has hurt.

I don’t know.  I thought he liked me.

I liked to write him.  I wrote him emails back when we were just learning about email, back when his brother would call me and I would walk over to the library just to show them how to check their accounts.  I wrote him notes and passed them to him in class.  I wrote him letters over summers and waited anxiously for the envelopes that would come in return with his blocky handwriting.

I think he did like me.

I’m always “not like other girls” though and, in the end, that always seems to be what it comes down to.  I don’t know for sure what it means, but I know when I hear it, that it’s no coincidence that it comes just before the announcement of someone more… something, both more spectacular and ordinary.

What can you do?  You keep falling for the same types of guys; they’ll leave you for the same types of girls.  That’s no coincidence.  The heartache is inevitable.

And that’s what I mean.

Why can’t you do that for rain?  Why can’t you put your heart and mind and body in the same contortions they’re in when it’s raining until the act of acting like it should be raining brings about rain?

That’s got to be a more useful skill than bringing on wives.

In Which I Take It Very Slow for Representative Campfield

Let’s say I’m a jackass.

And let’s say that I’m involved in a very lucrative dog-fighting operation. And let’s say that I don’t even have to fight dogs to get in on the lucre. I just have to breed me dogs that I can sell to fighters for thousands of dollars.

Say I never set foot in a pit. I don’t even train the dogs. I breed them, house the bitches, and ship the puppies out of state to be trained and fought.

What crime under Tennessee law have I committed?

According to the Statute:

It is unlawful for any person to:Own, possess, keep, use or train any bull, bear, dog, cock or other animal, for the purpose of fighting, baiting or injuring another such animal, for amusement, sport or gain;Cause, for amusement, sport or gain, any animal referenced in subdivision (a)(1) to fight, bait or injure another animal, or each other;Permit any acts stated in subdivisions (a)(1) and (2) to be done on any premises under the person’s charge or control, or aid or abet those acts; or Be knowingly present, as a spectator, at any place or building where preparations are being made for an exhibition for the fighting, baiting or injuring of any animal, with the intent to be present at the exhibition, fighting, baiting or injuring.

My purpose isn’t in fighting the dogs.  I’m not going to cause them to be fought.  I don’t show up at the fights.

Or what if I live in Georgia and we organize the fight in Georgia and never set foot in Tennessee until the day of the fight.  How is the TBI or the State Police or whomever supposed to find out about this fight in order to stop it?  Can Tennessee issue Georgia warrants?  Conduct investigations in Georgia?  What if some of the organizers are in Georgia and others in Florida and others in Arizona?  Can we send our state investigators to those states?

And yet, when asked about dog fighting, Stacey Campfield says: “I think that is more of a state law type issue then a federal law type issue.”

How is our state law designed to address multi-state dog fighting rings?  It doesn’t seem to be.

Listen, like the federal government or not, this is exactly the kind of thing the feds are set up to deal with–criminal enterprises that span states.

It doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in our state leadership when it’s not smart enough to realize when a problem is too large for it to deal with.

This Isn’t Easy for Me, But…

All y’all are fired.  Fired.  Fired. Fired.

I was looking for a book the other day and picked up Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.  How come not a single one of you recommended that I read this?

I started it last night and, holy shit, am I digging it so far.

Which brings me to Beowulf.  Since Gaiman is involved, I’m going to trust it to be interesting.

This Baby Sets the Bar Pretty High for Babies in General

Y’all, I cannot help it.  Every time I see a picture of this baby, I laugh.  Is there any child a.) cuter and b.) with a better series of “Oh, holy shit!” faces?  It’s as if she’s growing up in a state of great disbelief.  Hurray for the internets, because without them, I never would have gotten to see said baby.

I Rarely Agree with Jamey Tucker, But…

I have my biases.  If Two Rivers Baptist Church, home of Justice Sunday II and the idiots who still bitch about the Musica statue, were to crumble to the ground tomorrow, it’d be all I could do to not drive out there and dance on the ruins.  Whew, that would be funny to me.

On the other hand, my dad is a minister and if there’s one thing I know, it’s how a small group of shitty cowards can ruin a church and make things miserable for a pastor.

So, today the Tennessean  runs a story about how some faction out at Two Rivers Baptist is trying to run off their pastor, Jerry Sutton.  Interestingly, Tucker talks about how he’d gotten wind of this story some time ago, and the reasons why he chose not to run with it.

I’m not saying that pastors don’t need oversight and that they can’t become corrupted by power and that they don’t take advantage of their positions.  They do.  All the time.

But if you’re going to criticize your pastor in public–and especially if you’re going to try to put pressure on the church to do things your way by going to the media with the story–you’d better have the balls to own up to it or you don’t deserve to be taken seriously at all. 

The other thing that makes me deeply suspicious of this whole thing?

According to Scott Hutchings, in both articles, the church either knowingly approved expenditures or the Pastor was acting on the wishes of the church administration or they’d looked into the allegations and found nothing.

And yet, in neither article is there talk of deposing the whole church administration.

If there’s a problem, it’s clearly not just with the Pastor, since he has the approval of the administration, and yet none of these folks are talking about outing anyone but the Pastor.

So, for now, I’m with Tucker.  There does at first, appear to be a lot of smoke, and usually, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.  But in this case, where there’s smoke, there seems to be a faction of Two Rivers Baptist just blowing it up the media’s ass.

I say, either step forward and make yourselves known or shut up and find a new church.

However You Are Can Be ‘Fixed’

Newscoma directs y’all to check out this site.  I double her recommendation to have a look at their portfolio.

What flabbergasted me is how they fatten up the skinny girls.  Seriously, is there no one in this society who can win?  I mean, yes, I know the answer to that is no.  I just get taken aback by seeing the evidence presented so clearly.

It’s easy enough for us fat chicks to sit around and be all “Oh, you skinny chicks have it so easy.  At least you look right.”  But no.  Look at how the skinny chicks are given plumper bottoms or rounder boobs or the one chick who seems to have been de-ribcaged.  Or how Julie Styles had her arm shortened.

So, yes, everyone knows it, but it bears repeating: no one looks like the people in magazines; not even the people in magazines.