Friday Beer Blogging

Sam Adams sucks. Negra Modelo is still the Best.

Linkdump from Jenn

My roomie was pretty productive yesterday, and sent me lots of links for amusement:

Curvy Butts Are Great. As someone who's got a pretty bony ass, I can tell you, I'd much prefer having some more cushioning down there.

Luckily, Comcast isn't our internet provider anymore.

And, Bitch Ph.D. already posted about this one, but it really is classic: Check out all the exciting career choices deemed desirable for young girls circa 1966.

Finally, last but CERTAINLY not least:

Three guys decided to go to New Orleans for a College football game. One of their fathers works for Roots Canada and gave them each a Canadian Winter Olympic jacket to wear. So with that said, they decided that when people ask them about the jacket they would tell them they represent Canada's Hide and Seek team. Well, they b.s.'d enough to get interviewed live during the game on ESPN.

View the clip.

There's a sucker born every minute. Proof that if you stand up and bullshit like you know what the fuck you're saying, you can make people believe anything.

Good Morning, Chiklits

I need some coffeeeeeeee.

I'm Surrounded By Idiots

Work tends to fuck me off a lot more when I'm tired and irritated.

I'm going to go do something useful and write. I've decided to take up meditating to control some of this anger and irritation and stress, cause it ain't going away anytime soon. In the meantime, here's some more Alaska-themed breathing space:

Yet Another Open Letter To Viagra Guy

Dear Viagra guy:

Shut the fuck up.

I do not want to talk to you.

In fact, after two days of up-and-down hysterical roommate antics, long hysterical conversations with the boyfriend last night, five more freaked-out e-mails from said boyfriend this morning, and an out-of-bed alarm at 5:30 in the morning, I really have NO FUCKING INTEREST in exchanging pleasantries with you or ANYONE ELSE after I've just stumbled, bleary-eyed and exhausted, into the office at 8 O'CLOCK IN THE FUCKING MORNING.

So don't take my lack of "niceness" as a personal affront.

Before 10 am, I don't really like ANYONE.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Evil Psycho Bitch

P.S. DO NOT TALK TO ME YOU FUCKTARD!!!!

Writing Today

Because writing is healthy, and hot damn, this is turning out to be a great book.

For your workaday breathing space, I give you random pics of Alaskan abodes, which I've been thinking of ever since I wrote this post:

Too Bad, You're Fat!

I was at the gym yesterday and saw a guy there who was probably close to 400 lbs. Obviously, this doesn't happen often, or it wouldn't be cause for comment. He was diligently using the lat pulldown and a series of other pull-strength exercises. He used a balance ball to sit on because, well, the machine seats are too narrow and hard for *my* ass, and this guy's twice as big as me.

I thought how cool it was that he was there doing some weightlifting, and wondered why he wasn't doing some cardio, too. And then I took a good look around at the cardio machines. I looked at the narrow handrails on the treadmill and the elliptical and the uncomfortable seats on most of the bikes, and I realized he was likely going to steer clear of those and... oh, and most of the weight machines, too, with their assumptions of "average male" (which works for me, cause I'm about the size of the average guy, but if you're really small or really big, not so much).

We live in a world that gets pissed at fat people for being fat but won't put together exercise equipment for them and welcome them into their facilities. There are very few exercise programs for really overweight people, but rich, usually thin, people like to bitch and bitch about all that "gross, unhealthy fat," while not recognizing we're living in a culture that so stigmatizes the fat that some women haven't had the nerve to get in a swimsuit and swim in 20 years. How screwed up is that?

Anyhow, it was cool to see him there, making the routines work for him. It would be great to see more big people at the gym. Gym culture tends to breed a lot of people who look really alike, and it's nice to see some variety. In the real world, people are a lot more diverse.

In Good Company

It's good to know that other writers felt like this:

The teenage me was cast into deep, dark despair by this. On my seventeenth birthday I had a midlife crisis. There I was seventeen years old and still no novel published! I was a complete and utter failure! What was wrong with me?

Rest Assured...

Now go get the coffee.

(via Jennifer)

I'm Late, I'm Late

Still bumbling around the house here. B was up at 3am to catch a flight back to NY, so I slept in a bit (as much as I hate my job, you almost can't beat the flexibility).

I need some more coffee.

More later.

How to Survive A Terrorist Attack!

Now! With Photos!!

Hijacking of VanderWorld Has Begun

Superkewl.

Starting today, I'll be dual-blogging here and at VanderWorld for a couple weeks (I'm not double-posting. VW and BW will have different content), so check-in periodically.

Who knows? It might even be interesting.

(thanks for the reminder for a reminder, Scott)

Ode to the Lesbian Swans

Boston's beloved pair of swans -- feted by city leaders, residents, and tourists alike as one of the Hub's most celebrated summer attractions -- are a same-sex couple. Yes, scientific tests have shown that the pair, named Romeo and Juliet, are really Juliet and Juliet.

Massachusettes is spreadin' the gay! This proves it's contagious. Interspecies contagious, even.

If we make same-sex marriage legal in Texas, the swans will all turn gay!

Just watch.

There's A "Diet" for Everybody

The McDonald's Diet: health = thinness.

Because at no point in this article to they say her resting heart rate and cholesterol have decreased, at no point does she say she took up exercising, and at no point does anyone with a medical degree say she's lowered her risk of cardiovascular disease by "losing" thirty pounds.

Because it's not about health:

"It feels great," she said. "Because, the truth of the matter is that beauty is power, and if you're fat, or your overweight, then people don't really take you seriously."

At least she's honest.

Feminism: I Can Dig It

An understandable protest, an amusing endquote.

Monday Monday

Oh yes, chicklits, it is Monday. That time when all coffee bites back with that saccharine-savvy aftertaste and the fucktards leer from the rooftops to snicker at your workaday commute from Hell.

The good news is that once again, there's fuck-all to do but blog and write and snicker.

It could be worse.

I might actually have to work for a living.

Could you imagine???

Being Strong is Good For You

'I was shy. I didn't have any confidence. I hid behind clothes that covered up my thin wrists. I remember being pushed about by the boys at school and it was pretty tough for me. I took it hard. For six months I didn't want to go to school. But sport became my revenge. Because I could beat these guys at the high jump, I stopped caring about my body shape any more. It was a good lesson to learn.'

Moral of the Story: Don't Cheat on Your Boyfriend

Following on the weird dreams caused by hot weather post of Wendryn's, here's last night's weird caper:

I dreamed that I met this really attractive doctor who was working with poor people around Lawrence. His sister, who was a reader of my blog, brought me there and introduced us. He was obviously hot on me from the moment I walked in, and we kept glancing at each other as she showed me around.

The sister noticed this and gave us some time together, and we chatted, and he was kind, funny, charming, socially responsible, successful, and smart. He was also quite attractive, not in a plastic-guy way, but in a kindhearted, superkewl way. The sister finally just told her brother to ask for my goddamn number already.

I hesitated, and considered telling him I already had a boyfriend, but Oh! he was soooo obviously into me, and I was soooo flattered, that I gave him my number anyway and when I left, I began to plot what sorts of activities we could engage in before I was actually cheating, and could I ever leave B for this doctor? I mean, this doctor was so polished and normal, and without any neuroses or weirdness at all, and he paid for everything without worrying about it and lived well, and he did all this volunteer work, and he was totally wild about me! Just imagine what my friends would think!

I left Romeo and headed out onto the street to get home, and he ran after me, climbed up a fire escape and yelled after me, saying he was going to call me, I was great, we should do dinner.

We had dinner, and he was sweet and smart and funny, and told me that my brain needed cleaning.

Why yes, he said, everyone did it. He was quite skilled at it himself.

I was still trying to figure out if making out with him would be considered cheating, and if I should break up with my boyfriend, and I agreed to a good brain cleaning. I knew I couldn't have sex with him because I 1) could expose B to some kind of bizarre disease, which was rude 2) I've got an IUD, so if he had chlamydia or something I'd have to have all of my internal organs removed, and I could die.

So, no sex. Not even in my dreams, do I get extra sex!! I have to get it all in real life. Poor B.

Anyway, Romeo then removed my brain and stored it in his refrigerator, where it had strange tubes poking in and out of it that bathed and drained the brain of fluid, washing it super clean.

Apparently, I could live without my brain for 48 hours before my system shut down and I became brain dead, so I could still walk and talk while this guy "bathed" my brain.

But once he had my brain, he started acting pretty weird and controlling. He wanted to tell me what to eat, what to wear, how to do my hair. He tried to convince me to break up with B. He waxed on about how romantic he was, and how nobody would love me like he did.

Then he went back to the refrigerator to retrieve my newly bathed brain, but he slipped, and knocked the entire brain and petri dishes of fluid on the floor, and the brain burst into a zillion pieces.

He was trying to decide what pieces he could salvage to restore basic motor skills to me when I woke up from my dead sleep and thought:

OMG I'M SO GLAD I'M NOT DATING.

Whenever I worry that B and I are too neurotic to be together, I remember that we both layed out our weirdnesses up front instead of trying to decieve each other until we were both so far gone in the relationship that getting out was sticky, and though he thinks my brain is superkewl, he definately doesn't want the rest of me without it.

And yes, I'm looking forward to an end to this weird-dream-inducing hot weather.

Friday Beer Blogging: Martini Edition

Me, Jenn, the SO and B are all going out for GOOD FOOD and MARTINIS tonight!!! Woot!! Woooooooooootttttttt!!

Sour Duck's Take on Inhibited Writing, Anger, and Brutal Women

Sour Duck had some thoughts on my Intelligent Blogging post. Cool, right?

She disagreed with some of the things I said, and got all riled up to write, and then:

I initially felt very charged and excited by the prospect of writing about some of the issues Kameron inadvertently raised for me through her post; however, as I was mentally formulating responses to it, I also became very aware that I should be careful not to tread on her toes. In other words, I became concerned that if I disagreed with her, she might come on over to my blog and leave a hostile or semi-hostile comment, or post one at her blog. This concern/fear/anxiety, as you can imagine, greatly inhibits your writing. I have no idea how much of it has to do with the fact that she is a well-known blogger, but certainly that has something to do with it.

Dude, if I ever show up on anyone's blog and personally attack them and tell them they're a flaming freakshow, please delete my comment, OK?

Disagree with me, please! Conversation is what this is all about.

Some of her other comments in the post also bring up that funny fear of hostile comments. Apparently, fear of trolls was a big topic of conversation at the Blogher conference. There is a desperate fear that speaking one's own opinion will... make people angry with you.

Well, yea.

Yea, it will.

If you haven't pissed somebody off, you're not trying hard enough.

I haven't had much of a problem with trolls, because I adhere to Teresa Nielsen Hayden's advice about trolls. She's consistently got comments numbering in the hundreds, and the conversation stays civil, intelligent, and relatively on-topic. They're always worth reading:

9. If you judge that a post is offensive, upsetting, or just plain unpleasant, it's important to get rid of it, or at least make it hard to read. Do it as quickly as possible. There's no more useless advice than to tell people to just ignore such things. We can't. We automatically read what falls under our eyes.

10. Another important rule: You can let one jeering, unpleasant jerk hang around for a while, but the minute you get two or more of them egging each other on, they both have to go, and all their recent messages with them. There are others like them prowling the net, looking for just that kind of situation. More of them will turn up, and they'll encourage each other to behave more and more outrageously. Kill them quickly and have no regrets.

This is one of the problems I have trying to read comments over at feministing, because they've let a lot of rather useless assholes propagate, and comments often become off-topic and unreadable.

I know they've got a great hit count there: there's no reason they shouldn't be having consistently great conversations with comments in the hundreds. Unfortunately, one or two assholes are hijacking threads and pissing people off, and a lot of great threads devolve into off-topic pissing matches.

As said, I haven't had much trouble with trolls. Comments like, "Feminists give the best head," and "This is just a FUCKING STUPID POST. U R STUPIDDDD!!!" get deleted outright. Stuff like, "I completely disagree. You're killing babies," might get engaged with if they're willing to get teased out into having an actual discussion instead of just screaming, "U R KILLING BABIES!!!!" over and over again.

I had one persistent heckler whose post I had to delete two or three times. He was a right-winger who tried to start pissing matches at other blogs, and ran in here and guerilla-posted about homosexuality being a "birth defect" and felt it neccessary to give me his permission to go "muff diving" with the nearest "homosexual" I could get my hands on.

Assholes like that aren't looking for an intelligent discussion. They're looking for a fight. And I'm not going to give over any of my time or attention to them.

Delete.

This is my space. I own and control it, and it's my job to make it a place where my readers can come and engage in a discussion without feeling like somebody's gonna be able to get away with calling them a "cunt" or an "angry feminist." I don't tolerate personal attacks. Attack the issue, not the poster. You may very well get somebody telling you your opinion omits certain facts, or they disagree with your take on things, but when we get to the "you're fucking stupid" place, I step in.

As for anger, and disagreeing with me, I'll steal my response at Sour Duck's blog wholesale:

Oh, lord, please disagree: goodness knows the boys have no trouble doing it. Disagreement does *not* mean you hate a person, it just means you think differently about their ideas. That's a *good* thing. A place without dissent is a place without conversation, and that sort of place stagnates.

As for the anger bit: don't get me wrong, anger is an absolutely fantastic tool. The problem with blogging while running on sheer anger, however, is that you often don't pause to think over the particular issue you're discussing, so your thoughts are more likely to come out disjointed.

When I blog angry, it tends to take the form of linking others' thoughts without commentary, which often implies that I completely agree with those thoughts (and, again, *completely* agreeing with everyone is the first step to stagnation. If you do agree, try a, "I thought this was interesting, but I had another take on it"). It also leads people to assume what I'm thinking about the subject, since I've just left a link and a curse word and not much else...

Anger is a potent tool. It has the ability to get you up off your ass when the shit hits the fan. It also can cause you to flail wildly and smack anything that comes near you while gnashing your teeth in a feiry, but ultimately, unproductive, rage.

The trick is to channel the anger into something more constructive. Have your anger moment, step back, feel it, and then engage the topic again with the anger running just beneath your rational thought so that what you end up with in the end is a biting, intelligent criticism instead of incoherent screaming.

Lots of people get turned off by incoherent screaming, and they just tune out. My goal is to be read. If I'm not speaking in a thoughtful, intelligent, entertaining way (and the anger can add entertainment value, particularly when irony and sarcasm are involved), then people will go elsewhere for thoughts and commentary. Not neccessarily a bad thing, but talking to myself (as noted in Burningbird's post) can get kind of dull.

What drives me is getting mail from readers who've changed their lives or looked at something differently because of what I've written. Beyond self-expression, that's what I'm in it for, and if I'm unreadable, I'm not reaching anybody.

The issue of the suppression of women's anger is a big one, and an ongoing discussion that's been around forever. It's been around so long that I'm still startled to see both men and women all over the net still use the "You're just an angry woman" brush-off. The first insult you'll get in any forum if you don't tow the party line is that you're being an angry feminist (I was recently taken to task for being "an angry white feminist" at an SF criticism blog, of all things).

I admit that when I get pegged this way, it pisses me the fuck off, and the best retort for something like that is irony and sarcasm. Getting into a bitching match with the offender just ends up devolving the thread into a pissing match about who's got the most degrees and/or life experience, and that doesn't get anybody anywhere.

Please don't ever feel you need to apologize for disagreeing with anybody (especially me - I'm really not all that "well known" a blogger!). That's the pure joy of the net, particularly for those who blog anonymously.

I *want* people to disagree with me, intelligently. I get into huge arguments with those around me all the time about things I blog about, and my take on issues. One of my best real-world friends was actually one of the people who e-mailed me about my lazy blogging style, and I was so pissed off with him for a week that I could barely speak.

In the end, since he certainly wasn't the only one who'd brought it up, I read and re-read his comments and looked at my blog again and realized there was a lot of truth to his comments. I was losing myself to the feminist blog "community" and becoming part of a thing instead of being an individual.

That's not something unique to feminist blogs at all; it happens within many, many communities, usually because of the concern you noted: you start feeling like you "know" these bloggers, and feel that if you disagree with what they're saying, you're attacking them. And who wants to attack people whose opinions they respect?

I remember taking on a post of Amanda Marcotte's (now of Pandagon) just before she won the Koufax Award and being a little leery of doing it, cause I knew she read me.

In the end, I posted my criticism, and she and some others hopped on board, and there was a conversation going on that hadn't gone on before. Doesn't mean I hate Amanda: she's superkewl and I respect the hell out of her, but sometimes I'm going to disagree with what she says, and that's OK.

I love that people disagree with me, and so long as it's well-thought out and worth engaging, I'll totally engage with it. That's the great fun of blogging.

Sitting around with a bunch of people who tell you you're perfect and superkewl all day is a great pat on the back, but ultimately not terribly constructive.