Opting Out vs being Pushed Out

This is superlong, and I found it on Feministing, but I think that it's a really good read. If you read nothing else today, make sure it's this. It's super relevant and not frivolous.

The headline made me think funny . . . and now I'm just sad.

If they are now "display[ing] psychological traits previously only observed in people" what does that say about us?

Good effing lord

I don't even have the words. I will leave it to someone much more eloquent than I, considering the horrific subject matter.

Reason 756

Reason 756 that I love JB and am so glad that we are married.

The other day, probably about a week ago, both of my alarms went off. One of them is my cel phone and it plays music. The other is an annoying beeper one, and it kind of sounds like an oven or kitchen timer. As I'm grumbling and fumbling around the bedroom to turn them off, he starts moving around on the bed, indicating life as well. I crawl back into bed for some cuddling before I start my day, and he rolls over, and sleepily asks me, "Are you market fresh?"

I think he was talking in his sleep and doesn't remember this.

Dear Prudie Sucks

Dear Prudie,
I am thrilled to be expecting my first child and have just started to really show. I have been fortunate to not have experienced any morning sickness, but have developed a slightly irritable personality for the first time in my life. I can rein it in most of the time. However, I face one increasingly recurring problem that causes me to be instinctively rude almost immediately. I can't stand people, especially mere acquaintances, touching my stomach without invitation. The only person I like rubbing my belly is my sweet husband. I like people, just not having their hands all over me. I don't chop off fingers, but I do jump back and remove the offending hands and tell them not to touch. This results in aghast faces, but I think it's awful for people to assume they can touch a pregnant woman's belly at will and expect it to be welcome. As I still have months to go, I just need some suggestions on how to politely tell people that I am not the Pillsbury Doughgirl. Also, can I get a plug in here for a public service announcement letting people know that they should always ask before reaching for a pregnant belly?

—Hands Off, Please

Dear Hands,
Here's your announcement, and of course, no one should be touched if they don't want to be. Having said that, I have a big but about big bellies. Seeing a woman bursting with new life is so lovely that it can be an almost uncontrollable impulse to pat her belly. I remember feeling really warm toward the (almost exclusively) female hands that reached out to touch my growing baby. The touch was always accompanied by good wishes or another woman's memory of her own pregnancy. Can you try to think of these well-meaning hands as a communion that's been going on since humans became human? When you remove a hand (and isn't it rare for the touch to last more than a moment?) as if it is a dead carp, you certainly get your message across. But if you could relax about this, you will find it is truly a self-limiting problem. In a few months your belly will be yours again. But you should prepare yourself for the time when everyone who patted your stomach is going to want to hold your irresistible baby.

—Prudie

OK, here's the thing. Dear Prudie's take on the situation is that your should grin and bear it while people put their grimy, only god knows where they've been hands all over your nice pregnant belly. Not only should you grin and bear it, but you should relax, because this "communion" of humans is going on.

Two words. FUCK THAT. Here's what I think. I like to touch pregnant bellies. However, I ask before I start to molest so poor mother to be, because she's already got enough shit going on, and who am I to physically invade her space, when she's already hosting another being? I think that Dear Prudie should have instead recommended that this woman slap every person who touches her without asking across the face. We'll call it aversion therapy. As a matter of fact, if all pregnant women started doing this, we would probably be doing the world a favor.

A nip at my toes

Today I went to the ole Barnes and Noble, to spend the awesome gift cards that I received for my birthday. I was in the mood to spend some money, and had none, other than these fabulous plastic passes to bookworm paradise. Long story short, I bought 5 books for sixty dollars. I'm set for 2, maybe 3 months, depending on my school and work schedule.

Even earlier today, I stopped somewhere else to get little birthday details for JB. While I was out, I came across a little cross-stitch kit that I thought my mom would love. I bought it without a second thought, though now it occurs to me that I haven't cross-stitched in over a year.

Even earlier than that today, I was cold and stopped to consider if flip flops were the best footwear option for work today. I left them as they were on my feet, but ending up turning on my little portable heater at work for most of the morning. I just need to find some real shoes. I'm sure I still have some, somewhere.

Arizona winter is on it's way, and subconsciously I'm preparing for warmer clothes and inside activities.

Glad they're caught, sad they're even out there

"Fed Net 125 Nationwide in Kid-Porn Case"

Great googly moogly. Crap like this makes me vomitious, and question the sanity of bring more poor people into this pathetic world. How much rationalization goes on in their sick sick heads? How do they live and function next to people who don't hurt the innocent, without anyone noticing their clear non congruence with all that's supposed to be right in the world?

Who's running over an hour late?

Why is it that when you oversleep that's when you get the best heavy sleep? Does something have to be stolen for it to be good? I slept so deep last night that I felt like I had a huge mass that I had to move off of my chest before I could even begin to think about getting up.

I like sleep. I like beds and covers. I love JB. All of those things being considered, I'm still pretty irritated that he somehow Rubiks cubed his way into owning all of the flat sheet, so that I had only the comforter to protect me from the world, and the flat sheet was halfway down the bed, and you know that my OCD poked me in the back to wake me up and tell that the bed was irreparably damaged and that no more sleeping could occur until it was fixed. Which it couldn't be because when JB sleeps he gains about 300 pounds and becomes an immovable mass of human muscle, bone, and flesh. However, with a little maneuvering, I was able to get part of the sheet back. It's only a small battle in a big war.

I know it's probably not meant to be as funny as I found it, but can you blame me for laughing at this?

"Read the labels on your food. It turns out the healthiest thing you can put in your body is Mark Foley's penis. He was probably the first fruit those pages ever came into contact with that wasn't drenched in pesticide." (from Bill Maher @ Salon)

Mat

Oh yeah, for those who made the jump with me. Welcome.

Good to know, good to know