More reasons why I shouldn't talk to strangers.

Picture this-

I am on the bus on my way to work, reading my book and sipping coffee. This kid turns from the seat in front of me and sticks his head over the divider way too close and says,

"What you reppin girl what you reppin?"

I arch an eyebrow. Lower my book enough so he can see my STFU glare and respond deadpan:

"Vox Celeste, homie."

He gives me a puzzled look, nods and leans back away from me. I resume reading my book.

These are things I say to people.

I was cruising google not too long ago and did you know that there are black people in some of Heironymous Bosch's paintings? Also in a lot of other paintings of the same era. Now generally Africans were portrayed as Magi which is fine with me but that's pretty damn cool and I did not know that.

I also spent some time reading about some black entertainers in the burlesque world. Very eye opening. Read that here.

Matter of fact read her whole site it's very enlightening and educational.

I actually took a minute to write her an email.

What else?

Also why the FUCK did I miss the Sex Worker's Art show? Um wot? Granted it was in Oly but I would've spent four hours on public transport to get there. Seriously. I'm upset I missed that. Go look at the website and if it comes to your town check it out.

I really hope they do it again next year and I will go.

OMFG and I missed Sister Spit? what the FUCK is going on here?

I really need to start reading the 'alternative' papers and whatnot again. How am I missing these things? I also missed Lydia Motherfucking Lunch being in town.

I MISSED LYDIA MOTHERFUCKING LUNCH.

Srsly. When I heard she'd been in town I sat and had a weepy moment.

I also really need to read "It's So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style" edited by Michelle Tea. One of the blurbs says:

It's So You emerges from third-wave feminism, which celebrates not only the frivolity and playfulness of women’s fashion, but also the daring aesthetics of sex workers, out queers, and fashionistas. Contributors include Six Feet Under Producer Jill Soloway, transgender icon Kate Bornstein, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, poet Diane di Prima, NPR regular Sandra Tsing Loh, novelist Beth Lisick, Calvin Klein model Jenny Shimizu, actress Laura Fraser, and writer/herstorian Trina Robbins.

I can get behind that. Srsly.

So now my darling five readers, tell me more about what I can read about this Third Wave Feminism. I've shied away from reading feminist books/anything for the last few years because, frankly none of it spoke to me.

I do not want sitting around arguing about eyeliner kind of feminism. I want the kind of feminism that gives the finger, says cunt a lot and is not afraid to masturbate a lot. I want feminism that will do a crotch grab while yelling fuck you.

You get me there?

The first person to mention RiotGrrl gets their foot peed on. Being a Seattle lady I have heard that term way more times than is ever needed. Really no more.

Judicious use of the phrase may be acceptible.

I also want the kind of feminism that isn't so amazingly centered on white middle class people who only academically know what suffering is. I'm talking about people who don't really know what it's like to be down and out. The kind who'll look down their nose at you when you are buying your 10 for a dollar ramens, then proceed to tell you how bad you are for not using htat dollar to buy half an organic apple. Fuck that.

Also, no anti sex. I don't want to hear about how sex is bad and sex work is bad and what I do with my cunt is bad. Do. Not. Want.

Now another thing I want to know is if my criteria here just automatically shuts down a lot of options? I have no idea. I have my own ideas about feminism. That is a question I've been pondering.

I don't expect anyone to answer my questions honestly. But I do like to think it over and let it all percolate.

Also I am real enough with myself to know that I am kind of a weirdo and that's just fine.

Speaking of weirdness I've been nesting like a motherfucker again.

*Sigh*

I am pining to make my apartment Uniballer and my super goth lair.

Poor Uniballer.

So far I made him hang my giant skull named Mathilda up on a wall. I have plans to make him make me a coffin shaped thing to store my BPAL in that I can hang up.

I also need NEED a shitload of neat candle type things. I've been haunting the dollar store and have some really nice ones.

OI.

I've also got a serious yen for accessories. I haven't seen too much that made my heart go pitter pat but I've seen a few things I think I would like to wear. Mostly I want to wear rings again. I lost quite a few in a household move and would like to have them back. Or at least reasonable replacements. Although I had one that I loved and is irreplaceable. It was a pretty wide tarnished gold band with runes on it. Very nice.

Ok I think that's enough for now I need dinner and water and vitamins.

Homo Out.

Stumble It!

Grrr...beasty gets ranty. Again.

But before I get ranty lemme just say.

YAY Adam. Getting to spend time with Adam was very fabulous.

Poor baby was half frozen and wet on arrival but recovered and was bolstered by napping and spicy chicken.

So YAY.

Now for the ranty.

I belong to several online communities that are for us poor folks. People living at, on the margin of and below the poverty line for their given locale.

Aside from people with money pretending like being poor is some fabulous lifestyle choice and not an actual economic mother fucking problem, there is one thing that really pisses me off.

When someone asks about budgeting and immediately people start honking their wankers that Oh well you know I only lived on 500$ a month for sooo long and I did soooo well on my budget. Which can be fine. What my problem is when these people (and subsequently other people) don't take into account things like cost of fucking living.

Yes, if you live in Bumfuck nowhere Alabama it is probably entirely possible to live damn well on 500$ a month and have money to spare. Understand that a shitload of people do not pay something like 350$ a month in red. Understand that a shitload of people have utilities that run higher than 10$ a month. Understand that a LOT of people aren't poor for fucking fun.

These are also the people who don't take into account things like children, out of work spouses/SO's, debt that (another one that chaps my ass but I will get to it) they can't repay, transportation, etc. Just don't. Tooting your own wank just to make yourself feel mighty for having "lived through it" does NOT make it okay to then look down on other people.

So this other thing. Credit. I see it ALL the time in a lot of these communities where someone will mention debt, not go into explicit details and then have upmteen people get in their ass about being a "credit abuser" or irresonsible human being.

You know what? Fuck you.

Debt does not automatically mean stupidity or irresonsibility. Don't be a fucking asshole.

There are as many ways to get into debt as there are people on this great big green rock we all live on. Some people get into debt yes because they are stupid, other people simply because they don't know any better while it's happening. Other people lose good jobs, have tragedies happen in their lives, buy cars that get royally fucked up, buy houses that are royally fucked up, have health problems and shitty insurance or worse yet no insurance, have children, move. Any number of things can bring a person into the debtors purgatory.

It makes me so angry to watch these holier than thou jack asses make hard working smart people feel like shit because things went wrong.

Fuck you and the computer you logged in on.

One of the things that if you are in Amerika you should know is that, our econmic system is not set up to get your slice of the Shit Pie. It's just not. I don't want to go into a ton of data research. It's unnecessary. Look around you. This Great Land of Ours is made to reach for the brass ring and get a handfull of shit. The exception in this case does not prove the rule.

Amerika is teat fed on materialism, conusmerism and the all Mighty Dollar. That is the truth of it regardless of whether you're poor and growing up in the hood or rich and growing up in the better hood. We are spoon fed want want want, and when it comes down to absolute need need need, we settle.

I'm not condemning anyone for that because we all do it. We are trained and bred to want the Big Prize at the end of the rainbow when matter of fact i'm willing to be money that 80% of us just really NEED the essentials. A roof over our heads, healthcare, food clothes and a little caring. How many of us forgo those things, if not entirely then subjugate one for another?

How many people do you know who damn near go broke to pay the rent to live in a nice neighborhood where they don't have to worry about getting killed on the way to the Kmart?

How many good hardworking type people do you know who are working themselves into an early grave just to make sure their kids get to go to a school with schoolbooks less than twenty years old?

How many people do you know who suffer health ailments because they can't afford to go to the doctor? Or their credit isn't good enough to go to the dentist to get their teeth fixed? Or the clinic they go to got shut down?

You know these people. Chances are you are these people.

I'm not calling for en masse revolution. What I'm calling for is dignity. One person railing isn't as effective as a population quietly insisting.

It's frustrating because at the root of all these issues are people who (in my estimation) have never had to worry about paying the rent or eating for the week. The people in charge of seeing to it that ALL of Amerika's people are doing okay don't give a shit. And what's worse is that these are the people we've chosen to represent us.

How is it that the state of this government has degenerated into a matter of lesser evils?

How is it that our fabulous bi partisan government now (way too many people feel this way) come down to not what a party stands for but which candidate is going to do the least amount of damage while in office.

Are we fucking serious?

What do we do?

I think the first thing we as Amerikans need to figure out is to mind our own fucking business. As in the following scenerio:

Candidate A runs for Mayor of your town. Seems like a good person, has experience that is relevant, is passionate about making your town a great place to live, has empathy not just for the fuckers footing the bill for the race but, for that guy that sits at the corner store all day begging for beer money. Outset of the campaign you think, hey, Candidate A, you're all right.

Candidate B runs for the same position. Seems okay as well. Maybe a little older or younger, not enough absolute idealogical differences to really sway you. For arguments sake we'll say these two folks are pretty much neck and neck in your mind.

Then the shit starts.

Rumours start to go around that Candidate A may or may not be gay, may or may not have smoked a joint when they were 19 and, OMFG likes to read trashy romance novels.

Candidate B (not to remain unscathed) may or may not be an atheist, may or may not have gotten drunk in college and tbagged/Vbagged (when you put vulva on someone's face and not for pleasure. Yes I just made that up now SHH) someone and OMFG only reads Truman Capote while cavorting around his/her house wearing little more than a bad wig and a pair of clogs.

Now, neither of their political views have changed. None of the qualifications has changed but suddenly it becomes about who's a "better person" or who slings the most shit that sticks.

This Amerika is where I have a fucking problem. Nothing I mentioned above (in the shit slinging area keep up with me now) has anything to do with what kind of mayor that person may or may not be. Someone might secretly like to masturbate while looking at pictures of naked pinky toes but, it is really none of yours (or my) business.

None.

And the drug thing. You know everytime some "important" politico has some enemy who has some fuzzy frat house recollection it always comes up as "a history with drugs". Okay let's be real shall we?

How many "important" Amerikans right this instant, I'm talking CEO's, civic and religious leaders, community leaders have at one point in their lives or another done something like smoke a joint. Do NOT bullshit yourself.

Remember first and foremost my friends that we are all human and not all of us had Straight Edge embedded in our genes or figured from birth on being an "important" public figure. And a lot of us human beings liked to experiment with the illicit substances in our youth. Hell maybe in our middle age.

Does this make someone automatically have some enormous character flaw? Some people would say absolutely. But come on, no matter what your stance on drugs, drinking, premarital sex whatever. Does someone having been a stoner when they were 19, really taint them for life?

No.

Does what someone does in the privacy of their own home on their own time reflect in how well they can do a job?

Be real.

No.

Here's where we come in folks. Do you know how much steam it would take out of any shit slinging campaign if people instead of freaking out over the next big thing, said.

"oh, well I wouldn't do that but he/she is a good (insert whatever here) And it's really none of my business."

En masse people. Seriously. Make an email template that says something to that effect, save it in your inbox and whenever there's big news about what uber importante person did whatever thirty years ago, send it to every news outlet you can think of. Then have your friends and relatives send it.

Think about it.

How awesome would it be to have say a presidential election where there was no time wasted on character assasination where 10 times out of 12 it's over nothing?

How fantastic would it be to go into your voting area of choice and feeling confident in your vote not because candidate A might or might not have sucked more or less cock in his or her day. But, because you truly feel that Candidate A will be an amazing Mayor and make your town a kickass place to live.

The moral of this part of the story is that you and I folks are supposed to be what makes Amerika.

Not all the rest of the bullshit.

So, in closing before I have a fucking aneurysm. Don't be a fucking asshole. Have some sense, behave like a decent human being.

That should be the New Years resolution for Amerika.

Don't Be An Asshole.

Thank you and goodnight I'm fucking spent.

Homo Out.

Stumble It!