Fangs and Feathers

Greetings, People of Webdom!

I had my first ever acupuncture appointment this morning.  Pause for reaction.

My friend Kali, who is a psychotic ball of the kind of hummingbird energy that is normally reserved for people in the throws of a crack meltdown, started going a few weeks ago to control her stress level.  The day after she came slithering into my house and melted onto a chair proclaiming she was a different person.

It should also be noted that Kali has a severe needle phobia. I can safely say as a witness that most of us would do better dumping a bucket of spiders over our heads, and she's somehow totally cool with the acupuncture poke.

I emailed the lady that de-stressed her for an article for Fertility Authority, and ended up emailing her back & forth just regarding general shenanigans because she was awesome.  SO I went in today.  It was cray cray.

While my body can be super lazy (thank you, dead thyroid) my brain never shuts the fuck up.  It would be counter intuitive for me to believe that someone shoving a needle in my forehead would cause me to relax, but that's what happened.  I am a convert.  If you're in L.A. and looking to give it a try - girlfriend's info is in the Fertility Authority article.

I did not think I could outdo the initial discovery that needles not containing heroin could be hella relaxin' - but I did.  They had a wall of old ass photos as well as magazines, and as a result of looking at the room at just the right angle, I discovered Michael Cera is a vampire, ladies and gents.  This completely explains his skin tone and inability to complete puberty.  My acupuncturist helped me take the photo - you heard it here first.

The cray cray needles also helped me return to my usual self a little bit.

I do not do well on birth control.  All the heavy duty IVF drugs, I'm fine - give me a wee bit of Progesterone or birth control and I turn into a she-beast of the netherworld.

I have what you would call a 'quick wit'. I'm a very, very mellow person (I do not sweat the small stuff) however if you put me on something that makes me sweat the small stuff... 'Quick wit' works against me and becomes 'razor tongue'.  I'm basically a domesticated rattlesnake - it takes a lot to poke me, but when I'm poked I bite.  Hard. A couple of times this week my mouth/hands worked faster than I would have liked them to, and at least one person got bit.  I felt terrible about it afterwards, so I'm thrilled to pieces that a delightful woman armed with needles and an ability to deal with my saying "I have a needle in my fucking face! What am I doing?!" has helped.

Enough of that - on to lose some followers.

This morning, as per usual, I groggily rolled over and dicked around on my phone in bed.  Turns out that quite literally, I woke up in a better state and world in general than the one I went to sleep in.

DOMA and Prop 8 were turned over, and I am so happy that I could explode into an epic mushroom cloud of glitter and feathers and unicorn farts.

DOMA - the Defense of Marriage Act - was a federal law barring the U.S. Federal government from recognizing gay marriages legalized by states.  So yesterday, when it stood, even if you had been legally married elsewhere, you couldn't leave your spouse money or assets in your will without that spouse having to pay huge inheritance taxes. You couldn't jointly file taxes, receive social security benefits as a couple or tax breaks for workplace health coverage. If you were a legal citizen, you couldn't sponsor your spouse for a green card. (An example of that would be this heartbreaking video over here).  Today, hallelujah, you can do all these things.

Prop 8 was the horrendous bill my usually much more progressive state voted on, not allowing gay marriage. As a result of being ruled unconstitutional, California couples should be able to be married here within 25 days.

And wouldn't you know it, I woke up in a world with more equal rights and somehow - amazing! - my heterosexual marriage still seems to be intact.  Bubba didn't disappear into thin air, our marriage license wasn't made void, our house didn't burst into flames or whatever the fuck else was supposed to happen.

If any change did occur? My marriage is better this morning because it's not being soiled and shat upon by being used as a platform to discriminate against others.  It's not being used as an arguing point for pure fucking evil - it's a little bit more mine and a little less political tool.

As always, I'm genuinely disgusted by the arguments against it.  My Mom is 100,000% Mexican and my Dad was white - had they been born a smidge earlier than they were, it would've been illegal for them to marry.  And back then people were holding up Bible verses and shouting about how it was the beginning of the end, too.

If you're that worried about the sex life of two consenting adults that have nothing to do with you, I really, really don't think you're screwing correctly. Maybe instead of typing angry Facebook statuses you should be using your hands to google "what is a clitoris?"

As grossed out as I am by any of the arguments there is one that tickles me.. The bestiality argument - that's my favorite!

First of all, we should all be concerned that so many 'happily married' heteros jump so quickly to man-on-chicken sex.  It's alarming.

Second of all - I totes agree with this argument!  Everyone knows that women's suffrage led to an epidemic of hamsters voting.

Some people are claiming they are upset because since Prop 8 was overturned, obviously the state of California just doesn't care about voting anymore.

First, we should never have the right to vote on whether or not another human being should have equal rights simply because we disagree with them.  It shouldn't have been put up to a vote in the first place - as reiterated today, it's an infringement on our constitutional rights. There's nothing in our constitution that says I or anyone is a second class citizen, and other people get to vote on whether or not I have a right to be married to Bub.  If we get to vote on who gets to be married based on who's sex life grosses me out?  A lot of heteros are being voted off of sex island.

Second, if we left the matter of equal rights up to the general population, if we sat around waiting for people to come to a majority agreement on whether people not like them are in fact people at all, a big part of this country would still be using separate water fountains.  I'm sorry it's taking some people a long time to figure out that someone unlike them still gets to have the rights that they enjoy - you take all the time in the world you need to figure that out, it is your right as a citizen to be a bigot, but we're just going to go ahead and afford people rights in the meantime.

And by the way, I dislike bigots on account of their opinions - not their race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.  If we're going to dislike people, we should give them the opportunity to be an asshole, first (and asshole is an equal opportunity employer). If someone tried to strip an asshole of their basic rights?  I'd also be rioting.

Isn't the opposition usually full of people who do not want government poking their noses in everyone's business?  Just so I have the priorities straight... Soooo, government should let me die of a treatable disease because to concern themselves would be meddling, but yes, absolutely, get in my bedroom and tell me who I should be sleeping with and/or falling in love with. Totes.

On a personal note?  The main argument against gay marriage made in legal cases is that they don't procreate.

Fuck off.

Neither can I.  How long do I get to try before my marriage is considered null and void?  (And as a sidenote, I really think the 'uptick' in homosexuality is probably mother nature's way of balancing out the fact that there are morons who think that despite depleted resources they should be churning out as many babies as nature allows.).

I know I'm not religious.. but no.  Do not hold up verses as an excuse to make decisions about the personal lives of others.  If you think it's wrong - don't marry someone of the same sex.  Simple as that.  And unless you have never had a haircut, don't believe in autopsies, are free of tattoos and/or have sold your daughter for a certain number of cows (and made sure to eat all your sacrifices within 3 days), don't even bring it up.  Do not.

And how flimsy does your marriage have to be to think that it's less sacred if someone else is married too?  Spend your time worrying about your own marriage, please.

(Source).

I'm happy today.

Happy that my marriage is being used a little less to discriminate against my friends, happy that justice is slowly and surely prevailing, happy that people are closer to being treated equally because they are equal. Whether you're a delightful gay, a feather shitting unicorn, a bigot or a carnie with man hands - you should have the same basic human rights.

The people that are a little better than others?  It's not because of race, it's not because of sex, it's not because of sexual orientation - it's because of their capability to love.

Try siding with love sometime, you'll be less miserable.  Take it from a domesticated rattlesnake.

Equal

Greetings blogosphere!

Yes I have been weirdly absent.  There is not going to be any giving up on this blog, so if you're worried I'm going to be one of those ones that fizzles before it dies, it's not gonna happen.  Stick with me I'm coming back slowly but surely, I am I am.

The simplest way to explain it is that I've just been focusing on getting my body and head right.. To be around pregnancy, sure, but mostly to stop totally numbing myself out to infertility altogether.  I would like to not be totally numb and ignore it, and I would also not like to feel every last little thing about it all the time so that it's consuming my whole world, if that makes sense.  And as of late it feels like it's one of those things with no middle ground which for me at least does not make good writing - but I'm approaching middle ground, finally. Methinks.  Hopefully writing it out doesn't jinx it.

But I miss you.  I'm gonna start putting in an effort again because it's weird to not have my free internet therapy. And it's weird because mostly I miss you for all the not fertility related things... It's nice to have people to talk nonsense with and know confidently in the back of my head that no, seriously, if I have a bad day... she gets it.

What have you missed?

1. I have decided to enhance my grocery shopping lists when Bub goes to the store so he doesn't inexplicably come home with none of the items I have asked for, but all the hot sauce in the greater valley.

2.  I've felt weirdly tired and kind of out of it for a few weeks, and then frustrated because going to the gym 3-6 times a week has resulted in exactly the same amount of weight loss that I accomplished when my exercise consisted of running for the remote from couch to coffee table to turn off the sad-animal commercials.  A quick jaunt to the ER on Tuesday from some pain - turns out I have a kidney infection!

3.  Bub went to south by southwest for a few days, where in addition to having music they have some sort of nerd summit that he went to for work.  I feel like I have heard the phrase south by southwest before in passing, but didn't really know what it was and am delighted to report back that it is not, as originally suspected, the name of some cowboy themed whore house (I may or may not have inspected him for glitter upon his return).

4.  I am positively delighted by how many people on my newsfeed have changed their profile pictures to this little gem in the last couple of days:

In case you are living under a rock, or are far cooler and with more self control than I and therefor NOT dancing with the devil known as Fertilebook, people (particularly straight ones) have been changing it to this sassy little equal sign, or one of it's even sassier variants like this -

or this -

in response to the US Supreme Court hearing going on right now about whether to turn over Prop 8 here in California, or possibly whether or not denying gays the right to marry is unconstitutional in the whole country

Ya'll know, unless you're new to me in which case we should get it out of the way now mayhaps, this is a particularly important issue to me. I suppose everyone has at least one issue that they're particularly passionate about, this is mine (and a lot of other peoples... Even ones who don't give a shit about politics, usually).

I freely admit that I do not have the patience to argue about this one, anymore.  It's ludicrous.

Louis C.K. does this great bit about how it had to suck being Abraham Lincoln because when he was arguing with people who were for slavery, he had to approach it like he could totally see why they felt that way. You know, "oh yeah, it's totally awesome that you have people working in the fields for no money or fair treatment, don't get me wrong, but, you know, there's this other side to it...."

I admittedly could not be that person about this.

All my other liberal mindedness I will happily discuss with you, disagree with you, and try to get it from other perspectives.

Not this one.

To me it's not 'liberal' or 'conservative', it's right and it's wrong (as evidenced by the many, many, many conservatives on my newsfeed who strongly disagree with me about everything else and still have this badboy as their profile picture).  It's discrimination, fear and hate vs. acknowledging other people don't have to be like you, love and acceptance.

If you are against spouses of the same sex, then don't get yourself one.  (Although lawdy lawdy could I use a wife).  Much like 50+ years ago if the idea of marrying someone outside of your race icked you out, excellent, you don't have to.

Also, to be clear, I would also like to state for the record that this is not a downward spiral to people marrying chickens.  No I'm not an atheist, I don't agree with everything that he says (though I do enjoy him) and I openly admit that he's kind of an asshole, but my feelings on this particular argument can be summed up with this lovely quote:

Bubs and my favorite argument is, of course, that marriage is for procreation.  So by that logic our marriage is null and void, as is all those cool cats who choose to not have children, or those that get married post-menopause.  (By this argument do my grandparents have to divorce?  After menopause are you just supposed to say 'see ya' and move to your very own cat-and-porcelain-figurine filled apartment?  This is unclear).

I also believe that this is mostly - mostly! - because gay sex 'icks' a lot of people out.  (Again... then don't have it.  Although I think maybe you're just not watching the right porn).

1. If we get to vote on who gets to be married based on who having sex disgusts us, there are going to be a whole mess of straight people I'm voting off of sex island.
2. I'm not particularly into S&M but I don't lurk in front of courthouses with a sign that says 'G-D HATES GAGS'.

Also, I don't understand the need to get up in everybody's crotch anyone.  Aside from all human beings being safe please, concerning yourself with how other people are doing it I'm gonna assume that you're not doing it right.  I have orgasms on a regular basis and I'm pleased as punch that other people are having them.

And as I said on Facebook this morning, I do not understand how hard that last bit is to get.  I have trained my corgi to not go sniffing around other people's crotches.  My corgi.

I realize it's most unfortunately a one-step-at-a-time thing, but I have to say as an adoptee.... Had I gotten stuck in the system, there's not one fucking part of me - not one little nucleus of a cell - that would've thought 'sure I'm in foster care and I feel unloved and unwanted, but thank G-d I'm not in the home of a loving lesbian or gay couple'.

And of course, the mother of all arguments, this will take something away from your marriage.

::sigh::

Here's my bottom line.  I am happily married.  Infertility is a bitch don't get me wrong, but I am deliriously, happily married.  I am so lucky.  I am lucky to have found Bub, as there are people far better than me who have not found their Bub yet.  I am so lucky, and there's not one part of me that wants anyone who gets that lucky to be denied the right to say 'husband' or 'wife', because it's awesome.. and it's hard enough finding them in the first place.

But I was delighted to see all of those equal signs go up (and they're still up).  I'm a total cynic - you know this - but I think it at the very least makes a nice, quiet, simple statement, without having to argue, that you're behind people that you love, or people that you don't even know but who are blessed to be IN love. (Love is a blessing that I have, and I do not own the exclusive rights to... It does not make me the authority on other people's right or lackthereof to have the same thing that I have.).  People who I honestly didn't think prior to a couple of days ago would have even been for marriage equality.  It makes my grinchy heart swell.

And if they decide that denying people the right to marry is against the law ("no!  We were wrong when we discriminated before, but this time...") then please blame straight people, they're the ones that keep having the gay ones.

Put Your Head to My Breast

Oh, ladies.  Oh ladies.

If we were all in the same room together, I would squeeze the hell out of you in a bear hug and then when your guard was down stick my tongue in your ear.

I am so happy, across the board.

First and foremost, my President, Mr. Barack Obama was re-elected.

On behalf of the gays, uteruses everywhere and my darling European friends, I would like to thank the HELL out of everyone who went out and voted, with particular emphasis on people who waited in line for hours to do so (seriously... now would be the time to ask me for sexual favors).

That being said... You know how I feel about LGBT rights, and in case you didn't get some of the 'smaller' news regarding yesterday's election, some other awesome highlights:

1. The first openly gay person was elected to senate in Wisconsin.
2. Maine and Maryland (whoop whoop Maryland!), and now Washington made gay marriage legal.
3. They of the recent rape comments, Akin and Mourdock, were beaten quite rightly.  (Hey, ladies, I guess we can shut that shit down!)

I am so fucking proud, not to mention relieved this morning, that my biggest problem today apart from trying to clean up my husband's celebratory beer bottles is trying not to verge on smug.

(I am stealing these pictures today from the lovely Bridget.. Bless her heart for voting blue in a red state).

Yesterday morning I was saying I was going to try to do some work, and not watch the news all day.  By yesterday evening, my eyes were bloodshot from alternating between the TV and the internet without blinking and my finger was stiff from hitting the 'refresh' button.  I had to remind myself over and over again that it's like this every election - it looks bleak for democrats at first because the red states are counted first.  

My hometown is D.C.  As I've explained before - D.C. is actually a tiny freckle of a city, and most of us who say "D.C." are from southern Maryland or Northern VA (NOVA). I'm from NOVA and I, she of the robotic emotionless heart, cried in 2008 when VA went blue.  This year it was again considered a swing state - and it was a fucking white-knuckle situation over here in Stork Town reading the facebook newsfeeds and seeing all my VA friends in line for hours trying to vote.  I kept saying it was going to go blue again this year and even with Bub doubting my brilliance, I was right.  (Okay - that was smug).

If you look at the state getting counted - it looks like tiny blue specks at the top of a sea of red.  But everyone lives where the tiny specs are, and while some of those giant red counties certainly have a fair share of peeps, some of them I'm pretty sure consist of just maybe one man and his pet goat.

I also may or may not have been forced - forced I tell you! - to participate in an online argument.

Okay, so I would never ever participate in a completely pointless online discussion.  I wouldn't.  Sure, I occasionally look at the mind numbingly stupid comments on political articles, but I would never jump in.  There's no point.

Allow me to insult myself a little to avoid being thought of as smug - I have Rodney Dangerfield-esque bug eyes, my hair will always be bozo-like, and if you threw a ball at me not only would I not catch it, I would duck and most likely squeal. 

That all being said, my one usually useless gift is being 'witty' or doing a decent job at putting words to things.  99.99% of the time I choose to use this gift for good, but on the rare and I feel called-for occasion, I can use this gift for evil.  (I would like to point out that by 'witty' and using it for 'evil', I do not mean just hurling insults).

What are the occasions I would use this gift for evil?

Gay rights.  I refuse to allow this to be a discussion anymore.  (Did anyone see that Louis CK skit on SNL where he's doing stand up as Lincoln, and says how much he hates having to talk to slave owners, and to pretend like he can kind of see it their way?)

Also, if you are a friend of someone I care about and the two of you get into an argument, I will stay out of it because it's none of my business.  If you completely go over the line and make them not so much angry, but feel like shit about who they are as a human being, I will claw your fucking eyes out.  (Never fear ladies, you're in the 'people I care about' category).

Mr. T, the best friend, is gay, married to a man, and one of the kindest (and cattiest - this is what makes him brilliant) people you will ever meet. He put up a very innocent status on Facebook yesterday to the affect of "Why don't people in places like Kentucky seem to understand civil rights?"

A 'friend' of his jumped in and she said a few words on the subject.  The first few I would've stayed out of - "I'm sick to death of people lumping me into that category just because I vote Republican".  Sure, okay, I'll stay out - I can see how that would be frustrating.  Then she says "I'm sorry but my finances are just way more important than making gay marriage legal.  You'd feel different if you had a family".

(Let's all pause a moment and appreciate the hypocrisy in that statement).

Cut to me ripping off my weave, taking out my earrings and putting on my brass knuckles.  A few of the gays and I jumped in, and being the only straight person I started out by assuring Mr. T that there's no fucking way my finances are more important than his whole life, and while there are so many laws restricting him from even having his 'own' family, he sure as shit still has one and We. Are. PISSED. 

She then proceeded to crawl up her own ass in response, and say that this is why she didn't get into any discussions on the matter because people just think their beliefs are more important than hers.

My friends rights are more important than your beliefs.

To explain this in the most extreme way possible, I use the slavery analogy.  (Yes it's extreme, but it's the one everyone thankfully gets.  If you just use women or gay rights at face value - I mean, throw in a vagina or some fellatio and people get confused).

To those of us in support of gay rights, saying you are voting for a candidate who is openly against gays altogether simply because you believe he has a better economic plan (and thankfully, I don't, which makes shit easier) is like saying to your slave friend "Hey, it's nothing against you - I have a lot of friends who are slaves - it's just I really believe in this whole cotton thing".

So for people this morning who are confused about why someone like me can't vote for someone like Mitt Romney, let me make it clear - it's the social issues.

(Again stolen from the lovely Bridget).

Again let me say that I don't personally think this man had a better financial plan (or a plan, for that matter) but even if I thought he had a slight edge in that category, he and his friends have made it impossible - I repeat, impossible - for 'someone like me' to vote for him.

I want you to have the right to be icked out by gay sex.  Shit - one of my favorite games is 'what would it look like if these people had sex?' and 75% of the time with gay or straight people, I get icked out and question why I continue to wonder these things in the first place. (The other 25% of the time though....)

I also want you to have the right to be disgusted by abortions.  Do it!  Think it's wrong, yell about it, read articles that claim fetuses are a key ingredient in Pepsi.  G-d knows I need an abortion like I need a hole in the head and I have no freaking clue what I would do if I had an unwanted (ha!) pregnancy.

But I am not for telling anyone they can't get married because I'm icked out.  I'm not for telling anyone they can't have an abortion because I wouldn't.  You don't want a gay marriage?  Don't get in one.  (They're crazy though.. I'm looking at you, Sunny and Emhart).  Don't want an abortion?  Don't get one.

And while I don't agree with Romney's financial 'plan' (which again makes shit easier - much like boycotting Chik-fil-a was easy because their food is atrocious) but 'people like me' couldn't agree to something that involved sure-fire better finances in exchange for our friends' lives.

Even if there was a guy saying my IVF could be paid for as long as I agreed to let Mr. T be a second class citizen, or tell other women what to do with their uterus, I wouldn't have the stomach for it.

So please oh please, if this morning you're surprised more of us weren't converted and are wondering how exactly to fix that four years from now, take the social shit off the table.

Okay, I vented.  I feel better.

My most optimistic hope for the next four years is that we can stop talking about social issues that I promise you are going to be humiliating in a few years, stop voting on people's genitals in general, stop assuming that I'm a 'moron socialist' looking for handouts, and do our very best to accept that black is as about American as it gets.

Just trust me, from the mouth of a true liberal, I would love nothing more - nothing more! - than for my biggest concern to be the economy.

I Voted, I Voted, I Voted

I got my ass up this morning, I got Bub's ass up this morning, and off we went to our local polling place.

This is the first year, mind you, that we have been voting in the appropriate place - the last couple of years we've still had to go to Hollywood to vote.  So this was the first time I got in and out of voting in less than two hours (it took maybe 20 minutes).

But it was 8 in the morning, in the middle of nowhere, and crowded!  And we're in California... It's basically a line for everyone to say to the country 'no seriously, we're liberals'. So G-d bless everyone in swing states right now, hot damn... I'm looking at you, Virginia, make me proud.

I'm also, for the first time ever, registered under my new, ridiculous, no-chance-in-hell anyone in the state other than Bub has the same last name.  So much easier.  (For the record, I've been married 6 years and it took me 5 to change it for no other reason than that's how much I hate going to the social security office).

I finished before Bub did, snuck up behind him voting in a large crowd and whispered "the answer is 7..."  Normally I do this when he's working, and apparently he does not find it helpful in voting, either.  Harumph.

And as you can see from my growing sticker collection in our bathroom, it also means we have been in this house for 3 years:

I originally thought I would post about the election after it was done, but some thoughts whilst we are still all hopeful and hopped up on patriotism:

1.  Delighted to see that Facebook is full of people having happily voted.  The cool thing, also, seems to be complaining about all the election statuses.  We're all sick of it, but come on.  I don't know that flooding my newsfeed with "I'm so sick of it" posts is any less irritating than the political ones.  And if we take away irritating facebook statuses... for me that would be babies, sports, and weirdly vague statuses pointing to some sort of emotional trauma you're having but don't want to share.  So that leaves... 5 people.

And as I said on Facebook - if you're sick to death of political posts consider what it's like, year round, for those of us not into sports.  At least when this is over there won't be yet another election starting in a few weeks just with different uniforms and a different sized ball.

2.  Just a thought -  there's been a poll running around that says 20 out of 21 other nations polled would vote Obama in.  In case you were about to think it, I don't think countries like France want Obama to be elected so they can take us over and jail us for thinking about Christmas. As I - read?  watched? - somewhere, if you try on a skirt and 20 of your friends say "that skirt sucks you should really wear the other one" chances are that would at least give you pause. (Also - I interpret this to mean "if you're unhappy the man hasn't cured cancer fast enough, perhaps the solution isn't voting back in cancer").

3. Specifically, I voted for my patootie and yours.  (As in - invite who you would like into your vaj or not, evict who you would like from your vaj or not).

4.  I'm going to pretend like I'm not going to spend the whole day watching news.  Honestly, if there was some way to knock me out until tomorrow morning.. Mostly because I'm not sure what's worse, getting bad news all at once or slowly watching bad news strangle the life out of hope.  (If infertility has taught me nothing else, it's to lean towards all-at-once... and yet, I will watch all day either towards slow-relief or slow-fear).

5.  Tomorrow I will be relieved and delighted, or hostile. And whichever way that goes, there will be people who feel the exact opposite way as me.  If you really want to be worried about obnoxious facebook statuses - think about what tomorrow will bring.


And in the event you want a distraction from all the chaos and you missed my post yesterday - go check out my little sister's blog.  She's amazing (and thus I voted on behalf of her young patootie, as well).

Get Your Bologna Out of My Vaj

Greetings ladies.

I'm going to explode.  No seriously you should back up otherwise you're going to get something on you.

Warning - this is going to get quasi-political.  And though I can sense out in the ether some followers perhaps clicking the 'unfollow' button, some lurkers deciding that their time is better spent hiding in someone else's bush (pun intended and awesome) and some ICLWers innocently arriving here and falling victim to my wrath..  This is, after all, among other things a place to vent, right? Today you are going to get my not altogether organized and somewhat hostile thoughts.

I need old men to stop talking about my vaj.  Like, yesterday.

Who knew - all these years I've been thinking my uterus was empty, getting sad about it and working myself into a frenzy that can only be compared to a woman that's been watching Steel Magnolia's (the Sally Field version, please) for 2 days straight and this whole time it's been occupied!  It wasn't empty at all, ladies!  It was occupied!

By an adorable growing baby with Bub's brains and my wit?  No.  By hundreds of tiny decrepit aging white men in suits and invariably red ties.  They have crawled up there in the middle of the night like little uterine elves, raised up an American flag and have since been making discoveries - okay sure, they defy the logic of science, common sense and any form of morality but discoveries just the same! - and coming to quite the interesting conclusions.

Oh, and I would abort them but apparently that's going to be illegal soon.  I'll get back to you on what they decide.

For those of you who may have missed it, or those who are the delightful residents of countries that do not have the access to time machines and therefor aren't dealing with men from the 1950's (and earlier) popping up like a sudden colony of unstoppable cockroaches - a sweet looking bumbly man named Richard Mourdock, who is a representative in Indiana, made a fascinating little declaration yesterday:

"I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that’s something God intended to happen."

Drink it in, ladies, drink. it. in.

To be fair, the link I included was one that includes his... defense of himself.  (Oh lawdy I need a shower).

Now I have openly admitted on here that I am a bleeding-heart liberal (I can feel some of your mouses hovering over the unfollow button - I'm fairly open minded I swear) but I do not believe this is a Us vs. Them issue.  It is a vaj issue.

That being said - this lovely little picture was circling around the interwebs yesterday which is.. a Greatest Hits, if you will, of the rape comments that have been made in the last year (with a bonus track from the 90s).

Again, I believe this is a vaj issue.  I would like to, in my silly little mind, think that Republican women hear things like this, think it's disgusting and say to the closest man wearing a tie "No seriously, shut the fuck up about rape for the sake of the party, at least".

My writing partner Kali came over last night to do some work, and as we were procrastinating and eating pizza we watched CNN essentially going over some of the things, including yesterday's gem, that has been terrifying women with any sense about them.

Bare in mind that Kali is single, childless, highly successful, Jewish, and in possession of a vagina.  I am loud mouth, for all intents and purposes Mexican, also in possession of a vagina.  This talk is starting to make her think that she is going to have horns glued to her head and it's starting to make me think I'm going to probably end up being burnt for witchcraft at some point.

I don't want to get into an abortion debate, but the argument being made for this comment (yes, there is one) is that he's simply stating his opinion that a life is a life is a life.

Here goes.  I am pro-choice.  And people who are pro-life, while I respect you, you need to start calling yourself pro-birth because most of you seem to want all babies to be born and then not give a shit about them once they are (we don't want to give that poor woman forced into having her 9th child money, after all, we want her to earn it).  And as I've said before - if I had been 16 and pregnant (ha! always the clown) maybe I would've had an abortion or maybe I would've been thoroughly disgusted by the very idea - it doesn't matter because regardless, there's no fucking way I would've told you what to do.

And PS, and possibly my greatest pro-choice argument, by making abortions illegal you are by no means stopping abortion.  YOU ARE STOPPING SAFE ABORTIONS.

The idea that we are pointing at other countries and fully understanding that the fact that they are run by religion instead of democracy, and hold their women (and other second class citizens) up to psychotic standards of taking-it-up-the-ass is wrong and the cause of a lot of grief, is awesome.  The fact that some of these people who thoroughly understand that about those 'others', those 'boogie' men, and then want to turn around and 'fix' this country by allowing it to be run by a particular religion and holding all citizens (believers or infidels) up to those standards is mind-boggling.

If I have to start referring to a certain weird section of America as the Tealiban to get my point across, so be it.

And for G-ds sake - anyone making the argument that our forefathers were Christians creating a Christian nation, read a book. Any book.

This shouldn't even be a religious or political issue.  This should be a batshit insane, get out of my vajayjay issue.

So basically,  women who do not want to have children and can't take care of them are going to have to have them (and get very little help once they do), women who need IVF will not be able to have them, and fuck the gays who are looking to adopt.

So for those of us keeping score - if you are physically able to have kids but totally irresponsible to take care of them, you are born Mothers and should accept G-ds gift.  If you are physically unable to have kids but are responsible, ready, and put more thought into it than a bottle of tequila could provide - sorry, you're screwed.  G-ds will, dontchaknow.

There are people (oh yes indeed) making the argument that this isn't even going to matter to some people because the real issue is the economy.

Not for me.

Frankly, I am fine financially, excellent in fact (and ps - having said that, I do not mind the tiniest bit paying extra taxes to help those who aren't, knowing full damn well that there's some people taking advantage simply because there are people who are not). I understand that jobs are a huge fucking problem and need to be looked at - but on a personal note?  I'll vote where gay rights are, because even if I agreed with a candidate everywhere else (and thankfully I don't) I have no business looking my best friend in the eye and telling him that my finances are more important than his entire life.  I will also be voting for my vagina and yours.

The idea that anyone is wasting any time redefining rape (and that they all seem to have a penis) in 2012 is fucking disgusting.

As women, we are violated far more often than these men can seem to understand.

Even if you have never been raped, the likelihood of you not knowing someone who has been is slim to none (whether you know it or not).  And even if you dodged that bullet, you live with it every day.  We check our backseats before we get into our car at night, shake in our boots when we walk to that car alone, deal with catcalls and aggressiveness, jump every time we hear a creak in our house.  You may not have been a victim of rape, but I guarandamntee you you have at least one daily habit that has become second nature that's sole purpose is avoiding rape.  The bravest of the brave of us have a regular fear that we live with.

I am thinking that a week in a maximum security prison may change these mens' tunes on rape, and do not tell me that if men were the ones who carried children we would even be discussing abortion.  As I read somewhere - there would be more abortion clinics than Starbucks.

This does not become a magical and G-d ordained experience simply if your rapists sperm meets up with your egg.  (And by the way, 31 states still allow, in that case, your rapist visitation rights).

So what makes women feel better about sexual assault in a world where it is an everyday fear to begin with? Why, redefining it, of course!  We've just been too strict and harsh with this concept, don't you agree?  It's nice to think that in this world there are both rapists and men who will view it in a soft light providing it results in conception.  That doesn't make me feel violated at all!

I would thoroughly appreciate it, old men stomping around in my uterus and making themselves comfy, if you could get stricter on rape instead of more lenient, stop associating it in any way with a miraculous child, and for chrissakes certainly don't bring G-d into it (again - Jesus. would be.  MORTIFIED).


Ahhhh... and PS - yesterdays big news items -

1. Donald Trump offered 5 million dollars for the President to release his passport and college records (not racist at all!).
2. Ann Coulter (who is essentially Rush Limbaugh but with a more pronounced Adam's apple) repeatedly called the President a retard and
3. The rape hits just keep on coming

All coincided with a Holiday.  Can you guess what holiday it was?

Anyone?

National Bologna Day.  No shit.

(And if you haven't read it - a special needs gentleman responded to Ann Coulter in an open letter.  It is lovely and awesome, and does not have an ounce of the hostility that I have over her comments.. suffice it to say he could certainly teach me more than a thing or two).

Big Bird: Charming Puppet, or Marxist?

Happy Tuesday, my little baked treats!

I spent the morning at my regular ObGyn's - who I haven't seen in ages.  He is on Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills - read: uber fancy.  This provides many moments of hilarity during each appointment - today, a woman wearing high heeled sneakers (yup) boarded the elevator, which I was in the back of, did not look up from her phone and asked me to press the floor button she was right next to.  (Apparently, Stork gives off an air of elevator-man, even without my top hat and tail coats).  I also have to suffer the indignity of having a man valet park my 10,000 year old car full of trash (seriously - my house is clean, but my car is like the saddest episode of Hoarders, ever) and then charge me $16 (!!!!), which I'm assuming will at least cover the shots he'll have to get as a result of the experience.

I do bust out my engagement ring for the occasion only because without it, by comparison to these women, I look like I wandered out of the dumpster downstairs because I heard there was an office where men in lab coats would grope me.

I went in because I've been having off and on mild pain in one of my boobs (in, around, under). He told me I'm one of his favorite patients because I make him giggle (it's my defense mechanism, makes things less awkward - even though it's disconcerting to have a man laugh in the face of your vagina).  He poked my boobs and said there was nothing that suggested anything was wrong (proud of myself because I didn't google this - google is basically typing in any symptom under the sun and waiting for the word CANCER to pop up dripping blood).  So off to get a sonogram I go in a few days - I probably pulled a muscle.

(Anyone remember "Unbreakable"?  Apparently I'm like Samuel L. Jackson's character where my entire body is just made of glass.  Though I do have slightly better hair keep in mind I can do the bug-eye Jackson stare with the best of them).

I do not wish to discuss this today, however.  Today, I wish to discuss Big Bird.

I am done with this election. Done.  My feelings for 'undecided voters' as of this point in time can be summed up in an SNL skit, with a series of undecided voters looking into the camera and asking such earnest, unanswered questions as "when is this election?"  "Can women vote?" "How long is a presidential term?  If it's for life I'm not comfortable with that."

As I have mentioned on this blog before, I am one of those evil bleeding heart California liberals.

Before you disown me and join the valet man in getting shots to hopefully undo your exposure, a few things to hopefully keep you digging me:

1. I am open minded on all issues other than the gays (because it's so silly I can't even believe we have to have a discussion) and lurve me some republicans.
2. My Mom's an independent, my Dad was a republican (but an agnostic, fiscal republican - he did switch sides the last election he was around for) and my sister's a socialist.  No, but like, a real one. I dig me some variety.
3. I think John McCain, for example, is an amazing, good man.  Had it been another year and had he not  tapped Palin (honestly I would've been less offended if they just had a picture of a vagina run for VP to try to get my vote) I may have voted for him.
4. I dig me the fiscally responsible side of the republican party.  When it's about differences in money, I get it.
5. I fully embrace and support the idea that people are allowed to dislike this President, G-d knows I wasn't a fan of President Bush.  More power to you, express yourself.  It's when it's thinly veiled racism that it gets me - and you know what?  Had I ever met President Bush in person, I would have called him President Bush and shown him some respect because despite differences, he was the fucking President of the United States.

So this whole big bird thing is silly.

If I let myself get completely paranoid and irrational, my fear becomes that Mitt Romney wants to chop up big bird into little pieces, serve him in sandwich form at Chik-Fil-A to fuel up the men who will inevitably storm up my driveway with torches and battering rams, prepared to go into my uterus and verify that it's full of Jesus and Patriotism.

I can usually talk myself down from this.

Usually.

I get that some things have to be cut from our budget and that the froo-froo unnecessary are the first to be looked at, never mind that getting rid of any funding for Sesame Street would crack such a tiny dent in it that you'd have to invent a whole new type of microscope to get a look at it.

Froo-froo has to be looked at.  And I love the froo-froo, but obviously it has to be looked at.

I just happen to be a woman who's psychotically attached to muppets to begin with, not to mention things that benefit children.  So, yes, I would much rather see other froo-froo being cut, and a giant chunk of the less froo-froo.  I imagine should PBS ever be in crisis-crisis I will be calling you during your dinner hours on their behalf begging you for money.

But I get that this is just one woman's opinion.  What really bothers me, and I think should bother a lot of people, are the articles/op-eds/horrible comments (seriously comments on news articles should be banned - learn to spell socialist!) around the internet where people far to the other side are talking about things like Sesame Street, or the Muppet Movie when it came out, like they are liberal breeding grounds that must be shut down because of that.

You know, the Muppet movie villain was an oil tycoon.  Sesame Street teaches things like sharing (without even pointing out that sharing is a downward spiral to a culture of dependency!)

Seriously, internet?

I get that when I watch MSNBC I'm watching a station that leans to the left, much like I hope people get when they're watching Fox News they are watching something that leans to the right.

Most of the U.S. national/international media primarily resides in NYC & L.A., which are both left-leaning cities, so I get that a lot of media seems left-leaning.  (If the biggest hive of media was located in Alabama, I'm sure it would lean in another direction).

There are a lot of media outlets people accuse of being liberal propaganda where I totally disagree - I mean, believe me, there are things on some of these 'liberal' channels and in these 'liberal' publications that piss this lefty off.

But.. Sesame Street?  Muppets?

When did sharing in the simplest form (as in, if you have two cookies and your friend has no cookies and is hungry, do you give them a cookie) become a liberal ideal?  When did helping someone out, rooting for the underdog, become propaganda?

Because I'm fairly certain everyone reading these words right now was taught those values when they were little - just like I'm fairly certain there are people reading these words right now who still have these values and are not liberal.

So from my most rational, open-minded self, cut the Bird because you think it's going to help this country financially.  But please oh please, liberal or conservative, stop implying that kindness, sharing and helping are strictly liberal values/propaganda.  Particularly when it's coming out of the mouth of a puppet to a child.

Most unfortunately, people are going to raise their kids to hate everything that is associated with liberals... So I think lumping kindness, sharing, etc. into a strictly 'us' trait is super dangerous.  I would not teach my kids that being fiscally responsible is a conservative-only trait, and just to stick it to them they should spend, spend, spend their money like tomorrow the apocalypse is imminent.  (Stick it to those liberal kids and never share anything!  Stick it to those conservative kids and work yourself into debt!)

And from my left, tree-hugging heart... please oh please leave Sesame Street alone.  It does not need to be a political tool and I don't think our financial woes will be solved if it starts getting sponsored by Charmin' ultra soft.

These are not the puppets on TV we need to be worried about.

Oh, and even if you disagree with me, please don't yell too harshly should I accidentally call you during dinner time on behalf of PBS.  Give me a chance - I'm charming, my gynecologist says so.

My September 11th

Today is Tuesday, September 11th, 2012.

If you haaaappen to be coming across this blog for the first time - you should know this is not normally a place for seriousness or introspection of any kind.  I am normally, as I often put it, a dancing bear.  Tune in any other day and you will be tuning into ludicrousness and general shenanigans.

But, today is not really for ludicrousness and shenanigans.  Today is a Tuesday, September 11th, much like it was 11 (Jebus I can't even believe it) years ago.

Since I have only had this blog for a few months, I've never told my September 11th story on here and in doing so I'm going to reveal a few things about myself that you might not know (look out ya'll, Stork is naked). But every year on this day, I watch/listen to other peoples 'where I was' stories because I'm fascinated, and I'm particularly fascinated this year because of my new bloggy universe.

I'm particularly interested in what it was like for people who were not on the east coast of the US when it happened.  If you were on the west coast of the US - did someone wake you up and tell you, or did you wake up and the whole world was on fire?  If you were in a different country, how was it perceived?  What was it like if you didn't know anyone personally in DC or NYC?

Two admissions before I get into my story.

One thing you may not know about me - I consider myself from D.C.  Fun fact for those unfamiliar - Washington D.C. itself is a teeny tiny spec of a diamond - if someone is driving you up the east coast and you take an inopportune 10 minute nap, you may miss it.  Most people who say they are from D.C. (as I do) actually live in Northern Virginia (NOVA) or southern Maryland.  I'm from Nova, but I always say I'm from D.C. - because I am.  I grew up a few miles away from the Pentagon (which again, even though they always call it D.C. is actually in Arlington, Virginia to prove my point).

The second thing to know about me, as with most people who were raised in D.C., one of my parents worked for the government.  My Dad had a very-important & odd position in the government, and for most of my life worked in a building that would most certainly be considered a 'target' place to work.  (If this peaks your curiosity, message me! I will spill in a one-on-one conversation happily).

On Tuesday, September 11th 2001, I was 19 years old.  My family still lived in Nova, and I was going to college a few hours away.

It had only been a few months since I had seen the world trade center in person.  My friends and I took a road trip (it's a five hour trip to NYC from DC - it was a fun over nighter I've done many times) and for maybe the second time in my life I stood in front of them.

Something to know if you were never lucky enough to see them in person - the pictures you see on TV, the holes you see the planes left in them, it doesn't do justice to how tall these buildings were.  I'm frightened of heights - and standing in the courtyard listening to muzak and staring up at them was enough to get my knees to shake.  I had been to the top of them many years before, but for some reason summer of 2001 I was too scared of the height thing to go to Windows on the World.

Anyhow.

I was in my dorm, planning on sleeping in because I didn't have a class until 11 something.  I heard our phone ring, and then my roommate, who we'll call Amy, screaming and hollering and asking me to wake up.  So I did.

Amy had a relative that worked in one of the towers, and her Mom called her because she was watching the Today Show and up came a picture of one of the towers with a giant, fiery hole in it.

So we watched our little TV.  I tried to tell Amy that I was sure her relative was fine, and that I was sure it was just like they were saying - probably a helicopter crash or a private plane, the fire would be out in no time.

In the back of my head I thought about the bomb from the 90s... And I kept thinking of how enormous those buildings were, and that even though it looked like a small hole (alarming, don't get me wrong) on TV, that in reality considering the size of those buildings, maybe I wasn't seeing it in the proper perspective and maybe it was something much, much bigger.  But Stork likes to keep positive.  So I of course kept that thought process to myself, and tried to shut my thoughts up altogether.

Then after maybe 5 minutes of watching, there appeared a silver object in the right corner of my screen getting closer.  I literally thought "what the fuck is that?" and then BOOM.  It slammed into the second building.

Amy screamed, I froze.  Amy's hands went to her face and she kept repeating "Oh my G-d" to herself.  I said nothing - I was in shock, and just thinking along in sync with the voices on television that were suddenly saying 'okay, this is on purpose'.

I sat on my bed, and watched the story unfold.  Amy went out into the now very loud hall and got people to turn on their TVs who weren't awake. One of my hippie guy friends came in and watched with me. Admittedly even with the horror unfolding on TV my thoughts turned to DC.  I asked him if he thought they were going to hit D.C. and he said "nah", but his eyes were lying.

I tried not to think about my Dad.  I tried not to think about the people who were above the floors that got hit.  When someone on the TV said "you can see large bits of debris falling from the building" and hippie friend said "that's not debris" I tried not to think about that, either.  At some point, Amy came back in and we all watched in silence - the only sounds I heard for a long time were the sounds of other people's TVs in my halls, playing different stations but all listening to the same story.

We sat like that, frozen, for who knows how long before Katie Couric cut to a picture of the Pentagon on fire.  That's when, where I was, everything changed.

People rushed into the hall.  RA's hurdled our entire dormitory into two groups - one, people who just wanted to watch the programming together, and two, people who had parents working in D.C.  I fell into the latter category.

My group was ushered into a different dormitory.  When I went outside, all I heard was the sound of fighter jets - that we went to school right next to - being launched into the air.  As we were walking people kept mentioning my Dad's building 'you know that's what they're going to hit next, you know that's what they're going to hit next'.

We went into a study hall (I'm not sure what it was I never went back again - I just remember a large room with tables and chairs) and everyone went to work on our cell phones.

If you were in the DC area at the time (and I want to say the same for NYC) more than likely, after a certain time your cell phone was useless.  So many people were trying to get ahold of loved ones that everything was jammed.  I tried calling my Dad several times, but I kept getting "your call cannot be completed.."

After an hour or so, my Mom got ahold of me.

She had been teaching a few minutes from the Pentagon, and when they heard a blast, the earth moved.  Being from CA her first instant fleeting thought was 'this must be an earthquake' before putting together the obvious.  They were put on lockdown.

She told me that she was fine, my sister was fine, and she was sure my Dad was fine - but I wanted to hear his voice.  Even though it's not where he worked, in my head it wasn't inconceivable that he would be at the Pentagon.

Most of our family was out here in CA - I had no idea if they even knew what was going on yet because it was so early.  When I called my Grandparents because my phone obviously worked a lot better than my Moms - they were clearly awake, clearly panicked, and had woken up to rumors that DC was being bombed.  I told them that Mom was ok, my sister was ok, and nobody could get ahold of my Dad but we were sure he was okay.

Turns out, he had chemotherapy that day and wasn't even in his office.  His work was about to get crazy, but he wasn't there that morning.  After my own family was sorted out, I thought about my high school sweetheart's Dad who worked in the Pentagon ( he once took us inside when we were younger for 'take your daughter to work day' because my Dad couldn't take me into his).  My Dad got ahold of him later that day, and he was fine as well.  Everyone I knew went to college in the DC area or in NYC.  Much of my day was spent trying to track everyone down - luckily no one I knew went to school anywhere near Battery Park.

Others were obviously not so lucky.  A girl in my dorm lost her Father who worked at the Pentagon, and two others lost people in NYC - my friend's cousin was an EMT, and a girl I didn't know had a brother who I want to say was a waiter.

The rest of the day was spent watching the TV in silence, and listening to our military's planes outside.

The 11th happened to fall on a stupid anniversary with my college boyfriend, and he thought it was a good idea to just get out for a bit, anyways.  We went to a restaurant in town where they wouldn't serve us because he was 'muslim'.  (He was muslim - in the sense that I am Catholic, which is to say ish at best.  And not that it matters, but he didn't look middle eastern at all - he looked like a mixed person, which he was, so I don't even know to this day how they put that together).  We didn't make a stink about it because horrible on top of horrible was too much to deal with, and we suddenly lost our appetites anyways.  They did write a story about it in the school paper though, a few weeks later.

In the weeks that passed I remember reading about a man who spent 3 days searching for his wife in the Pentagon wreckage without stopping to sleep.  I remember SNL coming back on and Lorne Michaels asking if it was okay to be funny, and mayor Giuliani saying "why start now?".  I can't remember if we were hearing them directly yet or just hearing about them - but I remember learning of the phone calls people made from the planes. I remember thinking how strange it was that all the fictitious TV shows that took place in NY or DC didn't acknowledge it at all.  I remember thinking about growing up close to Dulles airport, the millions of times I had taken a flight from there to L.A., and thinking the likelihood of me not having taken flight 77 at some point was pretty slim.  I remember being scared for my Dad in an entirely new and permanent way.


Even though you know me well enough by now to know that I try to keep things light and airy, every year I make sure to watch a special, read a story, do something to stare at it.  Others would think this is macabre and to remember people for the lives they led.  But I'm one of those people if there's a viewing before a funeral, I go to the viewing.  I need to see to believe, I need to face down the awful in order to accept it.

But tomorrow I'll go back to dancing bear.

Talking to Chairs.

Fabulous Friday, Fellow Fertility-Challenged!

I have slight suspicions that what I'm about to say may offend people, but since on the weekend the blogosphere seems like a carnival that everyone's abandoned and I am more than likely talking to myself, I'll say it anyways.

Did anyone watch the Republican National Convention last night?  The Clint Eastwood part, specifically?

What was that?

Okay so I've already admitted that I'm an evil bleeding-heart liberal (if you're a conservative bloggy friend I dig you, and respect you, and I will make you dig me - come put your head to my breasts) so it's at times a smidge uncomfortable for me to watch.  I also must admit that long before last night, I've seen what I perceived to be old white men having arguments with a completely hallucinated version of President Obama - it aint new.

But I saw Clint and got excited about him talking.

I like it, on either side, when people get up and address all Americans, merrily refrain from accusing me of being un-American because I'm not exactly like them, and just state what the damn platform is. Admittedly watching some of the other speeches I locked my doors in fear that a large group of white men from parts of the country I've only visited by-way-of-layover would come storming up my driveway with torches and drag me into the streets for a hangin'.

So when good ole Clint got up on stage (who I find to be a lovely & talented director) I thought 'well looky that - a reasonable old school republican who will explain it to me in a way that I can understand without immediately describing me as a 'them' that must be stopped'.

You understand I don't want to take your gun away from you - don't you Clint?  And I understand that you're probably not going to hold me under baptismal water in a church somewhere until I accept your religion or my inevitable drowning.  We have an understanding, you and me.

For the first two minutes.  Then you had a hallucinatory conversation with a chair.

For those of you who missed it - he pretended an empty chair was President Obama, and that the invisible President was telling him and Mr. Romney to go fuck themselves. To watch, click here.

I've also already admitted that I dig weird.  I DIG WEIRD.  I do think that he was, even with this, the least offensive speaker in regards to people who disagree with him, and that labeling this whole chair thing  a super big deal is blowing it a bit out of proportion (and it's actually kind of funny).  I SO wanted to get it because it was as though someone had hurled my Grandpa up on stage two minutes after he learned he was going to give a speech - which was sad and uncomfortable.

But it was that all-too-rare form of weird that leaves, even Stork, Queen of Weird, just going... "What... was that?"

I am an improviser.

If you were to invite me to speak at your wedding, I would write down a couple of bullet points that I want to make sure to get to, but I'd still go into it thinking "nah, I'll just wing it".

I am way better at improvising words then I am at planning.  Same thing goes for my style of writing.

Don't get me wrong - occasionally I think things out.  A lot.  And some of my favorite writers/comedians are the ones that really think things through.  They're beautifully written, sometimes serious, and they do an excellent well-thought out job of making you feel like you're IN the place/time/situation they're talking about.

With my personality, often when times/situations call for that sort of thing out of me, it's forced and a little dishonest and after many years o' writing I've noticed that the things people seem to respond to the most are the stuff I just kind of crap out.

Writing, to me, is like taking a poo in a public bathroom.  If you worry about the kind of splash you're going to make or whether people are going to be offended by what kind of stink you leave, you're not going to get any real relief.  (And in the end, it all just tends to be crap, anyways, so might as well save yourself some constipation).

I'm a little choosier when it comes to speaking-speaking, but in my opinion the best, funniest things come out when people are a little out of their head.

For example - Billy Eichner.  Yes, yes, I have a sick and annoying love for him and nothing that man has ever said didn't make me laugh, but he's the most recent example of something someone said that didn't really make sense and therefor made me pee.

He was talking about how he detests Rachael Ray, and just made a face and said "that woman is like a demon... trapped inside a goat!"

I die.  Makes no sense whatsoever, and yet somehow it makes perfect sense and I die.  I laugh now just thinking about it.

My roundabout point:  I'm a devout improviser and I totally think improvisation works for funny.  But mayhaps when it comes to things like political speeches people should find a happy medium between robotically reading off a teleprompter with no feeling and just fucking winging it.

I think with some degree of thought-out, on both sides, they would further give themselves a chance of not demonizing the other group or the undecided, and with a little wiggle room for some improv there'd be space for some passion to rile up the already devout.

I'm just sayin'.... Maybe that way we could avoid borderline disrespectful conversations with chairs and exploiting the bewildered while still allowing both sides to see that you're passionate.

Sidenote:  Do you think when Mr. Romney said "Mr. Chairman", he was in fact talking to the invisible man in a chair?  Just a thought.

As my friend said on his Facebook page, "Not since Morty Guffman has an empty chair had so many eyes on it".

Send me Secrets!  We may be on a Secrets hiatus for a week should I not get a couple more - and as previously promised, I shall punish you by filling up your newsfeed with sad Sarah McLachlan's animals.

PMS: Puhlease, Mr. Senator.

Greetings, galliwags!

I genuinely don't know what that is.  Sounds piratey, though.  Arrrrrrr.

My treasonous uterus has finally decided to churn out a period, starting yesterday.  First period post-chemical 'period', and it's one of those super fun hormonally charged ones.

My one tried & true "this is going to be one hell of a period" symptom is chocolate cravings.  Normally if you put a bag of potato chips and a candy bar in front of me, I will have inhaled the entire bag of potato chips and require you to heimlich out the bits of plastic bag I've accidentally ingested before you have a chance to ask me which one I would prefer.

Cut to me, yesterday, on the sofa eating my weight in Snickers bars and watching episodes of "Intervention" on Netflix streaming.  I went back and forth between weeping for poor Allison being so tragically addicted to huffing computer cleaner, and contemplating whether huffing computer cleaner would alleviate cramps.  I, too, would like to walk on sunshine.

I make no promises that my husband will not return home from work to a sobbing mess asking if she's pretty, and complaining about how I got in a fight with the dog.  (Yes, it sounds ludicrous - but everytime she hears a child from the backyard she gives me a look like "why don't you have kids for me to play with?" to which I reply "because I'm practically barren, you pile of judgmental butt-licking fur!").

Now would be the time, if you are an ICLWer (hey gurrrrl, heyyyyy!) and would perhaps like to get a sense of my more charming and tolerant side, to click here.

So what should happen when Stork's uterus is particularly angry to begin with?

Senator Akin happened.

Okay, okay, I know - you've heard all about it.  My husband came home the other day and said "did you hear about that senator..." and I snapped, spitting and frothing snickers bars,  "yes of course I did!  The uterine phone tree was immediately activated after he shut his mouth! Gawd!"

It's everywhere.  Both his quote and bits of peanut.

However - for those of you not particularly into news or politics, or who are the merry residents of countries a little less ignorant, this is what happened.  A senator was asked on Sunday if he would support abortions in the event of rape.  And he responded with this little gem:

"It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down".

Let's just shelve the fact that "Legitimate Rape" is an excellent name for an all-girl punk band.  Just for a minute.

Here's the part where I make some political admissions.

I am one of those evil CA bleeding-heart liberals. (Keep in mind that if you're not, I'm open-minded, have conservatives in my life that I luuuurve, and so help me I will charm the pants off of you one way or another).

I am pro-choice.  Much like I do not enjoy people not going through infertility saying things like "why do IVF when you can just adopt?" I do not enjoy the idea of anyone telling anyone what to do with their uterus, ever.  What I would've done had I found myself 16 and accidentally pregnant (accidentally pregnant!  Look, I made a funny!) is completely irrelevant.  Maybe I would've had an abortion, maybe I would've vomited at the very idea of it - it really doesn't matter because in either event I wouldn't tell someone else what to do.

I completely and totally get that other people see money differently, see the government differently, etc. etc.  Those differing opinions, if I squint my eyes and tilt my head, I can totally see having.  For example, some people think there needs to be a lot less handouts because people abuse the system - I don't mind paying a little more tax for handouts, knowing full well that there is abuse in the system, because some people genuinely need it.  But I get why some people have a problem with it - the abuse is gross to think about.  I just think the pay-off is worth it.

 (Although I'm a little lost when it's the same people that think all conception should result in babies - are we then not supposed to give the struggling Mom a wee bit of money?)

Admittedly where I get totally lost and can no longer see things differently no matter how hard I squint is the whole exxxxxtreme right - you know, "Jesus fought the dinosaurs and then discovered America, which he intended to be gay-free".

That alllll being said (and man alive, I hope we can still be friends after I've said it) I genuinely don't think this man's statements have anything to do with Liberal vs. Conservative.  I genuinely believe it has to do with Reasonable Adult vs. Unfuckingbelievable Idiot.

In fact, he actually makes me feel bad for reasonable conservatives because he's making it look like this is a representation of that party, when it's the representation of a moron.  There really needs to be a Moron party which takes anyone in any party who doesn't have the ability to reason.

There are far too many raging idiots coming out of the woodwork and we've given them microphones - microphones!  It's like giving your crazy drunken racist uncle a megaphone and a tie for Christmas.

All the women that I know have had their cervix contract in horror, and try to run screaming up back into their bodies just listening to that utter shite regardless of political preferences.

We all say stupid shit. This is true.

What I don't like is the use of the word "legitimate" next to "rape".  This implies that there is "illegitimate" rape.  It also implies that if a girl is pregnant and claiming it's from rape, she must have really wanted it. Because you know, otherwise, her body would have just shut that shit down.

And as someone, Mr. Senator, who has been telling her uterus to GET pregnant for a good 3 years, I can assure you that my uterus doesn't give a flying fuck about what I want or don't want.  When was the last time your spleen gave a shit about how you were feeling?

What concerns me, ultimately, is that an adult in authority doesn't have the ability to distinguish between reality and the movie "Teeth".

(Anybody else seen that movie?  Now there's a movie to watch when you have PMS and are feeling as though all the men in the world want to make decisions on behalf of your unassuming nooners.  If you've never heard of this movie - watch the trailer, Imma tellin ya'.  I fully envision the senator drunkenly stumbling into his living room while it was randomly on, sitting down and thinking "OMG!  Science!!!!").

In my head I have Senator Akin tied to a table, with a wide variety of pointy instruments, and as I insert them I very gently ask "now do you find that legitimate?"

In short, unless it's for invitation only adult-indoor-sports or fertility treatments, I would appreciate it if strange men everywhere could stop talking about my vag and what I should do with it.  Me no likey.