“Resident Spook Expert”

I wonder if I can put that on my resume?

Another Reason Not to Molest Children

I mean, my god, if you can’t refrain from molesting children because it’s wrong and illegal and an incredible abuse of power and unbelievably damaging to the kids, the least you can do is not molest children so that you won’t have to be upset when you friends who cover for you have some hard times because of it.

I keep thinking of two of the mothers I’ve read about. The one who filed the complaint in ’98 and got Sandusky to admit on the phone while the police could hear it, that he did indeed touch her son. That nothing came of that. I cannot imagine. I just cannot imagine your son having the courage to come to you and tell you something is wrong, you go to the police, you work with the police and you get this guy to admit he showers with young boys–your son specifically–and that he touched him, and nothing comes of it. He goes on to molest other kids.

She did every single right thing and then she still had to watch him go on his merry way, continuing to molest children.

The other mother is the biological mother of a kid Sandusky adopted. I’ve not seen too much about her except that she thought something was going wrong with her son, but she couldn’t get anyone to take her seriously because, after all, she’d lost custody of him so severely that he was adopted away from her.

The idea that a child molester could become the legal parent of a child whose mother thinks something is not right with the guy is a nightmare. My heart just hurts for her. Whatever she was going through that caused her to lose custody of her child, her instincts when it counted were right, and it didn’t matter.

The stain spreads, you know?

The Witch’s Teat

I had a thought when I was driving into work this morning. I’ve still been thinking about that Alva Noë piece at NPR and this idea that you can tell something about the state of my soul and make sweeping generalizations about how I can fix my body based on fixing my soul.

I’ve long thought that getting at what fucking sucks about being at the receiving end of people’s bad attitudes about fat is that it is true that being fat can lead to health problems. There may actually be some genuine, though busy-body-ish, concern about your health. But I would say that, if you made a pie chart that was “All the things people say about fat people that are under the guise of caring about your health” very, very few of them would actually be “This could be hard on your knees” or “This could be hard on your heart” or “What if this leads to diabetes?” Believe me, I have been fat a long time, and I have only heard each of those things once or twice. (I’m not sure how or if it fits, but I also want to mention that a lot of people are fat because they’re unhealthy; they’re not unhealthy because they’re fat. And a lot of people are fat and in fine health. As Miranda Lambert sings, there are all kinds of kinds.)

In general, what I get from people is more along the lines of “Because you’re let yourself slip up in this way, I get to say all kinds of terrible shit about you under the guise of everyone knowing being overweight is unhealthy and so anyone who speaks against it is bravely trying to help.”

It’s got its similarities to the usual bullshit–racism, sexism, etc. But it’s not exactly like any of those things.

But, man, you know what the idea that the state of your body reflects the state of your soul is like? The idea that Noë can look at me and tell whether I’m walking the right philosophical path?

It’s a lot like “We get to examine your body for a witch’s teat, which will tell us the state of your soul and whether you’re walking the right philosophical path.”

A lot of the tropes are the same, too, if you look at both history and fairytale. Fat people are dangerous to children–even our own–we’re tempting them with candy. Our appetites might cause us to devour them (or turn them fat). I mean, yes, witches are closely associated with food because food preparation is historically done mostly by women and witches are women. But a lot of fat people are women, too. The idea that we should be shunned or ostracized? Even the idea that we could falsely appear to be “normal” and then become our true selves once we’ve tricked a man. The idea that our bodies betray our unrighteous souls. That we are or need to be kept at the outskirts of things (though this is also a matter of class, but then again, so were accusations of witchcraft).

Hell, even the idea that we can physically transform into drastically different shapes.

Is the “obesity epidemic” run by the witch-scare engine? I don’t know. But I’m starting to wonder.

Was Crowley a Serial Killer?

Honestly, upon reading this, all I could think was how fucking awesome it is that Crowley, who by all rights should have just been born, lived, and died as, I don’t know, a professor or someone else who’s smart but we’ve never heard of, is still being blamed for spectacularly evil things.

I both think that, of course, Crowley did not do this and that, of course, he’d be tickled that people think he did.

Reheating a Hamburger

People, this trying to save money so I can finally pay off my credit card crap is going to kill me. Today, for lunch, I have to look forward to half a hamburger from Red Robin, which I am going to attempt to reheat at work. Never in my life have I attempted to reheat a hamburger. I’m sure the meat will be fine. I’m just concerned about the edibility of hot tomatoes and lettuce. I should live a more interesting life, really. I’m sure right now there’s some lobbyist with huge credit card debt and she or he just rolls over and looks at the sleeping senator by his or her side and thinks “Yep, it’ll be worth it when I blackmail Senator Smith.”

Or Newt Gingrich. I don’t think Newt Gingrich is constitutionally capable of worry and I bet he gets a lot of free lunches.

Still, it was good to see my parents, yet again. Proving once and for all that short, frequent visits are better than infrequent long visits. My mom always has this way of telling stories like you know what the hell she’s talking about. Like she’ll just launch right in with “So, we met Diane’s boyfriend when we made that wrong turn over by Jim’s house.” And you have to stop everything and be like “Jim who? Uncle Jim? Dad’s friend, Jim? When did you see either of them? Who’s Diane?” And then, before you even get any answers, my dad is all “What are you talking about, woman?! That wasn’t after the wrong turn. That was before we got to Walmart.” And then they’re arguing about when it was they met people you don’t know.

This morning, on my walk, I discovered that there’s a giant hole right in the seat of my favorite pants–my overalls. I don’t know how long it’s been there, but it’s possible I have been flashing my underpants at people trying to look at dead people all Fall long. So, that’s not mortifying or anything.

But also, this morning, the yellow leaves on the brush along Lloyd were waving so fast in the breeze that they almost looked like sequins flashing. That, coupled with the red tree in the neighbors’ yard made braving the spitting rain worth it.

It occurs to me that I tell you stories that start in the middle about people you don’t know in places you don’t go. Maybe I should be easier on my parents about it.