Lexicon

I really should stay away from the whole "Lad Mag" genre. Really, really. Things like Details, Maxim, FHM, all of those. Trouble is, that I like men's fashion, and each of those publications usually has someone interesting on the cover. I'm also into pop culture, and often there's bits and pieces that I read in the lad mags that keep me plugged into that loop. So I get sucked in by whoever they're featuring and then inside the mag I'll come across an article that is so offensive that it makes me see red.

May's edition of Details is no exception. Orlando Bloom is on the cover, looking rugged and his hair slightly mussed, as if someone had just been running their fingers through it. Niiiice. And inside the magazine is an article about the insult that guys (and women too, I'll admit) sling at one another, one of the nastiest things you can say to someone. "Douchebag". Oh, all right, there are perhaps worse things that you can call someone, but isn't it interesting that the insulting things guys say to one another are all about womanhood? "Douchebag" "Pussy"?

The article's author, Simon Dumenco, does a good job of tracing the word's entomology, and use through the 1930s until today. But he's talking about how most guys dread becoming 'that guy' in the bar, you know, the douchebag.

This unthinking offensiveness, the ease with which we all (men, and women too, I'll admit) sling this word around is to me a statement about women's place in society. Foul language in English, things not fit for polite society but not necessarily curse words, all are about women. "slut" "whore" "bitch". There are no equivalents for the men; calling a guy a slut isn't an insult.

I like curse words as much as the next girl. Perhaps even more so than the next girl. In real life, I have quite the potty mouth. When I list English words that I like, the f-word is on that list, nestled in with things like 'coagulate' and 'prognosticator'. The little thrill you get when you say or do something illicit. So yes, I'm guilty of it too.

I can even curse in several other languages. Italian, French, Spanish, Swedish, German...and each tongue has its own set of words that aren't polite. When you meet someone that speaks another language, what's one of the first things you ask them to teach you? How to swear.

The only society that I am able to compare contemporary America with is Sweden, since I've only lived in those two countries. And while my writing frequently posits Sweden as utopia, I do know that it isn't. I lived there when I was 17, young, naive, and of course I thought it was perfect. But Sweden IS one of the most equal societies that I've ever encountered, women's rights being not a struggle but an assumed prerogative there. So it is interesting to me that curse words in Swedish have lots more to do with hell and the devil than any particular gender. A reflection on the status of women? Perhaps.

The women's movement has made strides in taking ownership of the word "bitch" in recent years. When someone calls me a bitch, the response they usually get goes something like this, "Thanks!! My momma always said 'don't let anybody walk all over you' and I don't!" Much like gay rights activists have urged the homosexual community to take back the word 'faggot'. I see that as a positive, a very positive, thing.

But why is it that words like 'douchebag' remain popular? I was talking to a friend the other day who said she'd noticed a resurgence in the use of the word in popular culture. We were talking about how internet speak has become de rigeur, how each of the forums that she and I belong to have their own forms of acronyms and slang. At a site where she spends a lot of time, she's noticed over the past two years people using douchebag quite a lot. It has wormed its way from the internet into popular usage, you see it used on Entourage, which I think is a look into that quintessential guy world, and even on network TV shows.

If that's the most insulting thing that one man can say to another, what do they both think of women? Not much, is all I can imagine.

Motherhood and the Darkside known as MySpace

Tuesday and it is brain-dumping day!

I opened a MySpace account the other day. And before you call me a fucktard, and tell me that someone my age and marital status has no business being on MySpace, you ought to know why I did it, because that provides so much more fodder for making fun of me.

It can be traced back to my fangirly-ness, and my admiration of Jensen Ackles. He shot a movie last summer that hasn't been released yet called Ten Inch Hero (which is still looking for a distributor, apparently) and the movie's production people have a MySpace page. They also have a blog here on Blogger. The film is about a sandwich shop, not someone who is ten inches long, gutterface. Yeah, yeah, I know you were thinking it, 'cause I was too.

Anyway, on the blog, they announced a contest for fans to try their hand at making some manipulations of photos of Jensen. The film has not actually released any pictures of Jensen's character, Priestly, who wears a Mohawk and is apparently pierced and tattooed within an inch of his life. So fans have been making their own, with hilarious results. And the filmmakers put the submissions from fans onto their MySpace page. But to see them? You have to have a MySpace account of your own.

I don't NEED a MySpace page. I have enough trouble keeping up with this blog, getting my book finished, and taking care of the crap over on LiveJournal that DH and I do for our little piece of suburban hell. I spend too much damn time on the computer as it is. Friends of mine from high school have MySpace pages, and I've been urged to do one before...but there was never any reason to.

Curiosity over which of the pictures the filmmakers thought were the best, however, got the better of me, so I set up an account of my own. First, let me say that I'm not in love with MySpace's interface. That's probably only because I'm not used to it, and as humans, we're all pretty resistant to change. I digress. Secondly, I have to tell you about the photos...and then I'll get to why this has me thinking about motherhood. And no, the motherhood thing and the fangirl thing are NOT related. (I hear sighs of relief out there...)

Some of the pics are fun, but I've truly gotten old when punk hairstyles don't do much for me anymore. Once upon a time, I was a punk chick, with a bit of purple hair (carefully hidden from my parents) and I greatly admired the day-glo and easter egg shades of hair. My friend V would buy Manic Panic, and I think that Ultra Violet was the shade of purple that I had, but I couldn't swear to it.

In true late 80s/early 90s style, I had a tail of hair that was longer than the rest of my really long hair. (I could sit on it, y'all, that's how long it was.) I went to visit V, and she had just dyed her whole head purple. She had some of the Manic Panic left over, so we decided it would be a fantastic idea to dye my tail purple. With my head hanging over her mother's laundry tub in the basement, we proceeded to try to dye just the tail purple. Laughing uproariously, getting the dye EVERYWHERE, we were having a grand old time. When we were done, not just the tail was purple, but the whole underside of my hair, from about the middle of my ears down. And the laundry tub, and the floor, and our hands, and our clothes were all purple too. When my hair was worn down, it didn't show. Pulled up in a pony, or piled high on my head, you could see it.

So I do have some experience with the punk hair thing, although I never had a 'hawk. I generally put some washable day-glo pink spray or temporary dye into my hair for Halloween, because I like it and can't get away with it in my workaday world. But these pics of Jensen all punked and gothed out don't thrill me. There are maybe two out of 12 or so that I think are cute...and then I just want to cut and wash his hair. Sigh. All I want for my next birthday is to be about 24 again. Because this getting older crap really isn't very much fun. Better than the alternative, but still. Thirty-two vs. 24? I'll take 24.

After looking at all the pictures of Jensen as Priestly, I decided that since I'd bothered to set up the MySpace account, I should pimp out my own page, and began messing around with the settings and my profile. For a brief while, I had a real picture of my real self out there, but I've since removed it. It was not photo-shopped, since I don't have that program, but I did mess with it in the photo manipulation software I do have, MGI Photovista. I think it was still very recognizable as me, though, and my paranoia got the better of me, so off it came.

And then in the profile settings, there are a bunch of things that have radio buttons to click...married...single...divorced...gay....straight...bi....and I clicked all the appropriate toggles....married....straight....smoke, no....drink, yes....and at the bottom was a section about children.

I spent a few minutes staring at the screen, lost as to what I should click. Here are the options.

I don't want kids
Someday
Undecided
Love kids, but not for me
Proud Parent
No Answer

I eventually clicked Love kids, but not for me. But that decision was only after much soul searching. I'm at an age where I am maybe running out of time to have a child of my own. I hear the ticking of the biological clock, loud and clear. Hear it, but I'm NOT LISTENING!

All through my 20s, I was steadfast in my resolve to not get preggers, and in the fact that I never wanted to have a child. And for the most part, I still feel that way. The idea of my body being pregnant really grosses me out. Which is NOT to say that I think pregnancy is gross or disgusting, I don't. As long as it isn't happening to me. If that makes any sense. Carrying a child is the most natural thing in the world for a woman's body, but I don't want MY body to do it. Never? I hear my mother and grandmother ask. You will miss out on so much joy, they say. And maybe that's true.

My cousins are all older than me, and we're a tight-knit bunch, so there were babies being born every time I turned around in the family all throughout the decade of my 20s. A few friends even had kids that young, and co-workers of mine had a few as well. I love babies. Friends call me "the baby hog" because I'll steal away a newborn at a party or other gathering and hold the baby for hours. But I don't want one of my own.

Which makes me feel very strange. Unfeminine. Somehow, I've gotten the memo that in order to be a complete, whole woman, I must be a mother. The roles of my career, wife, sister, daughter, friend, writer, baker, cook, reader, knitter and fangirl are not enough, and to be all that a woman ought, I should be a mother as well.

Isn't THAT a load of bullshit? Do you hear early feminists rolling over in their graves? 'Cause I sure do.

And is it any wonder at all that I'm completely out of my mind if these are the connections that my brain makes every day?

!*@$%

Woke up in a foul mood this morning due to the new neighbor in my duplex POUNDING ON THE MOTHERFUCKING WALLS at 06.45. I'm usually an early riser, and would have normally been out of bed around 05.30, but I've been having trouble sleeping lately and have been going to bed much later than usual. I heard the neighbor in the shower at 06.00, but went back to sleep. The place next door has been vacant for more than a year, so this is new to me. In her defense, DH leaves for work most days around 06.30, so she may think that we're both gone, but I was STILL SLEEPING, goddamit. I understand that you want to hang pictures, but for christsakes, is 8 am not a good time to do that?

How do you politely ask someone to not do that until after at least 7 am on weekdays and preferably 9 on weekends? It is HER home, after all, but she may think that we can't hear it and I don't want to have a confrontation about it, because I hate fights.....

Soundtrack: "11 AM" Incubus

Senate and House craziness.

Had lunch with FGK4 yesterday, and while I was waiting for him to arrive, I picked up a copy of our local paper. My working environment (although not me personally, tack och löv) has been in the news recently, and I wanted to see if there was anything new.

Didn't find anything about THAT, which in this case no news is good news, but I came across this distressing turn of events. Apparently, if you spend more than $250/year on your blog, and talk politics, as I often do, you could need to hire a lawyer unless this law passes. I don't spend any $$ on my blog, but think, if you use Adsense, or have a Paypal link on your blog for folks to donate to you....this could be a real problem.

Now, my local paper pulls all kinds of stuff off of the newswires, and sometimes adds a little local flavor, so I went over to the source (The Christian Science Monitor, something I wouldn't pick up normally) to check the article out, and they copied it e-zactly. HELLO AMERICA!!!! your civil rights ARE being eroded. It pains me greatly when this happens, but I agree with a republican here. And one from Texas at that. (Shudder. Deeeeep breath. OK, I'm past it.) Jeb Hensarling, R, Texas, has a bill before the House that will pre-empt the legal morass, because he says that, "No American should have to hire an attorney just to express their views online."

Herregud, common sense from a Texas republican? Sorry, I'm slipping into Swedish. Herregud is the rough equivalent of "dear God" and tack och löv is roughly "thank goodness". I do that sometimes when I'm at a loss for words. And sometimes the Swedish just expresses what I’m feeling better. But this time, I’m just (nearly) speechless. What a clusterfuck. Really. There’s this big loophole in some federal legislation and so I’m going to have to watch what I say about how much I dislike the Bush administration? What the hell happened to freedom of speech? I could publish a daily little log locally and distribute it, and since I live in the heart of the red states, no one would read it. Or I can rant and rave on the Internet, possibly have a worldwide audience, and still no one (or almost no one) reads it anyway, because I’m not a popular blogger. I believe that will eventually change, but the point is that regardless of how I express my views out there in the wider world, it is still freedom of speech. Helloooo, anyone remember the founding principles of this country? Freedom of the press; freedom of speech; freedom of religion; freedom of assembly…ya know?

I could get real riled up about the PATRIOT ACT too, but I’m going to save that for another day. I think. Let’s talk something else.

Today’s St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not Irish at all, rather more of mixed Anglo European heritage. I’m Swedish, Danish, Welsh, English, Czech, Slovak, and Polish. Two great-grandparents came from England, while the rest came from different countries. Like many 3rd and 4th and so on generation Americans, rather than rattle off that whole list when someone asks me what my heritage is, I stick with the "I'm a mutt" answer. So my heritage spans a big section of Europe. I've talked before about my total lack of understanding about racism, bigotry, prejudicial behavior, so it should come as no surprise that I don’t harbor any dislike for the Irish or for the holiday, rather I just think it can get way too silly. Green beer, urgh. I’ll be passing on that. If I drink anything green tonight, it would probably be a grasshopper, which I liked back in the day at about 17. I think the last one I had was about that time, but it was green and sweet. I’ll have to see if I can find a recipe for it. Don’t ya love Google? Found 3 recipes in about 10 seconds. Here we go!

Grasshopper

1 shot Crème de Menthe
1 shot white Crème de cacao
1 shot light cream

Shake well, serve frozen or over ice.

Vodka Grasshopper
1 shot crème de menthe
1 shot white crème de cacao
1 shot vodka

Shake well, serve over ice.

YUM. As I recall, it tasted something like a Thin Mint cookie, you know, the Girl Scout cookies. But might be a bit too sweet for me now. The vodka one shows promise. But we’re going to a Martini bar tonight, so maybe I’ll stick with a Cosmo. Or something like it. Whatever you end up doing, be safe. Skål! (Cheers)