Ugly Girls

On a recent episode of Charlie Sheen's new show Anger Management, the plot revolved around Charlie (former angry baseball player now shrink who handles anger management clients) coming face to face with a woman he used as a slumpbuster 16 years before.

If you don't know the term, a "slumpbuster" is an ugly woman that someone fucks in order to get them out of the "slump" of badness they happen to be in at the moment.  I'm not really sure what the logic behind it is. Maybe they believe that they're having some kind of karmatic reward for fucking someone who is ugly. Maybe they believe they are somehow sacrificing in some way because they did this horrible thing to themselves of sleeping with a less-than-beautiful woman.  Maybe they believe the vaginae of ugly women have some kind of magical powers.

Whatever the reasoning, the practice is offensive. The idea that someone would have sex with you just because you were the ugliest person they could find is horrible. Sex is an intimate act and to do that with someone while you are simultaneously making fun of them is shitty.

However, as bad as the practice is, the way the episode handled it was even worse. When this woman shows up to confront Charlie about doing this to her, she is presented as stereotypically as possible.  She is now a stalker who still wants to maintain a relationship with him. She even had a bunch of surgeries to become more attractive, the "joke" being that none of them worked.

No one really calls Charlie out for what he did. No one confronts him about how horrible it was to treat someone that way. They joke about it. They joke about him having sex with her. And they warn him about how she's a stalker now. In absolutely no way is this woman's dignity or feelings considered.

So instead of the 'life lesson' in the episode being something about how it is wrong to treat people like the butt of your joke, the lesson turns into 'don't fuck the ugly girls because they get obsessed with you and never leave you alone.' In other words, the only bastardly nature of your behavior isn't all that important.  However, ugly women are so desperate that if you pay them even the slightest bit of attention, they may follow you around for the rest of your life.

How could this have been a good episode? I think it would have worked better if Charlie met the woman by chance and remembered what he did to her. If he, 16 years later, realized that doing that kind of thing to someone was very immature and horrible. If he had some time where he really struggled with how he treats people based on their appearance and realized that he still has a lot of growing to do.

Of course, that would never happen on a show like this.  We treat ugly women like there is something morally wrong with them and because of this moral failing, it's completely okay to do anything at all to them.  In fact, it's best NOT to be nice to them because then they might start stalking you.  Sigh.

Phobia Time with BHB

Yesterday, I got pulled over by the police and given a warning for my driving stylings. Actually, I'm not even going to try and defend myself on this. The man said he thought I was drunk. I wasn't.  However, I was dehydrated and I think it was affected my reaction time. As soon as I got away from him, I hopped out of the driver's seat and let my roommate handle the rest of the driving for the morning.

PSA of the post: Dehydration is a big problem this time of year. Keep your fluid levels up. It is of equal importance to keep  your electrolyte levels up.  Don't allow heat and sweating to screw up your system.

Bigger analysis of the post:  I find that I am terrified to drive now.  I know I will get over it, but the idea of getting back behind the wheel is freaking me out?  And why is this? Well, that has to do with my androphobia. My comfort level around males is always very very low. When you put that male into a position of authority and don't give me ample time to prepare to deal with him, I'm going to have reactions.

I want to stress this police officer did NOTHING to cause me to fear him. He was very nice, respectful, and polite to me. Over all, most people would probably rate it as a very simple and easy traffic experience. And intellectually, I know it was.

On the other hand, the freaked out part of my mind is telling me a very different story. All of the police will now be watching for me.  If at any moment I do anything wrong, just one little thing, they will stop me. All of them. Like all the big mean males in authority and I will get beaten by nightsticks because that is what they DO and I will never have freedom again.

So yeah, the idea of driving tomorrow is a little scary.  I will still do it . . . and I will make sure I am properly hydrated and that I will obey all traffic laws.  And I know when I get to the store, I will probably be shaking.  I'll be happy I'm there, but I'll probably want to cry.

In a few weeks, provided nothing else happens to trigger me, I'll be back to my normal self again. Or, you know, what PASSES as normal for me.  If you read the blog at all, you know that's a fairly strange collection of things.

Thoughts and more Thoughts

I've been trying to wrap my mind around some theoretical stuff and it's not been easy. I know I can process it, but it involves math and my brain has this tendency to try and shut down when math is involved. It's a defense mechanism from years of mean math teachers. I wish it wasn't the case. In fact, I think I'm going to see what I can do about changing that.

I spent all of last night reading about theoretical physics and only processing what wasn't in equation form. Even part of that I got, but again, my brain was trying to scream "LALALALALALA" while I was looking at it. That is really frustrating and I need a way to train myself not to do this. I want to understand more about the topic. Stop freaking out about it.

I know this is possible because of knitting. You see, for years, I tried to learn to knit but my brain just refused to let me. Whenever I would pick up the knitting needles and open up my Knitting for Dummies book, part of my mind would just shut down. I have no idea why. Knitting isn't difficult. It honestly felt like some kind of stubborn refusal.

In the end, I literally had to move stitch by stitch, forcing myself to pay total attention to what I was doing. I have to admit though, even after I learned, I still have processing trouble with it. My mind rebels against any project and tries to blank out when I look at instructions. Whenever I talk about knitting with other people, my brain keeps telling me to shut up because I'm a fraud.

This has had some strange social implications. There is a knitting group in town that I think I'm refusing to go to because of this whole "brain against the knitting" thing. I know it is every Tuesday at five, but it seems like every Tuesday around noon, I forget about it. I think my brain is forcing me to forget for . . . whatever crazypants reason my brain has for not liking it when I knit. And I'm still not sure why that is.

In any case, I think there is some exploration to do here. I'm going to talk to my therapist about it and see if she has any theories. Hopefully there are some training techniques I can do or something.  You know, provided my brain doesn't shut down about those as well.

Beth

Tonight my roommate and I were talking about how the older you get, the more grief becomes a part of you. The longer you live, the more you know of pain and loss. During this conversation, I almost started crying.  I'd been down and emotional all day, but this almost tipped me over the edge.

It's strange how raw something that happened 32 years ago can still feel. In a way, it's almost not fair that this is so. Time should allow healing. Though, I know most days it does. It's just sometimes, especially on anniversaries, when it can't.

I know I blogged about this last year, but if you are new to the blog, I'll explain. On July 4, 1980, our house burned. The house was a familial home and beautiful. I loved it dearly and wanted to keep it for the rest of my life. Worse than losing the house, so, so much worse, is the fact that my dog Beth was under it.  She didn't like fireworks and she hid under the house. When the fire started, she couldn't get out. I lost my house and I lost a pet that I love dearly and who loved me.

Beth was gentle and sweet.  She was a St. Barnard, mostly white with some dark orange spots. She had big, sad brown eyes and a long soft tongue.  As a child, I thought she was the most beautiful dog I'd ever seen. I know it is love that colors this opinion, but it doesn't matter. Whenever someone says "beautiful dog," Beth is what comes to my mind.

Things were pretty chaotic for me as a kid, and Beth helped to calm a lot of that down. She was this sturdy, kind presence who wanted nothing more than to be by my side. She would hang out when I would play.  She would sleep on the bed to keep me warm.  She would run around the yard with me, though not fast because she had some hip problems. She was just truly happy to be, you know? She loved the life she had.

But she hated fireworks. And so when we decided to shoot them off, she hid. And when the house started burning, no one even thought about the fact that she was under there. I hope she was asleep. God, how I hope she was asleep, and that she just died before she felt any pain or had to be scared. I just really hate the idea that she died scared and alone. I hate that so much and even 32 years later, I can't stand the thought of it.

Losing the house altered a lot about my life. It robbed me of something that was deeply important to me and it set us into a deeper level of poverty. It altered my identity. I was no longer the girl with the big pretty house. I was the girl who LOST her big pretty house.

Losing Beth broke something inside me.  I felt so utterly betrayed by life. You have to understand, I was a very young child when this happened. Up to this point, I just didn't really comprehend how cruel and crushing life could be. But my house was taken away and my dog was taken away. My dog died and in a horrific way. I didn't know how to process it. It was just so completely horrible to me. Losing Beth changed the person I would have been. The grief just ripped up too much inside me.

So yes, I can understand why some people, as they grow older, have an ever increasing difficulty in maintaining positive and sane. How many days of devastation can we experience before we just decide to give up?  How many can we experience before giving up isn't even a choice anymore?

Making an Ass out of You and Me . . . But Mostly You

Two things happened recently that reopened one of my little hate boxes. The first one had to do with some asshat who decided Twitter was the perfect place to start making hateful comments to Felicia Day.  He questioned what use she was to geek culture and called her a booth babe. Naturally, people responded by ripping him to metaphorical pieces.

In his kind of apology, he said something like, "oh, well I made these comments before I looked at your portfolio." I guess he thought this was some kind of acceptable excuse, but it wasn't. "I'm sorry, I was totally ignorant of this stuff I could have looked up in two seconds and formed really shitty opinions of you anyway" really isn't a good apology. Or even any kind of apology.

However, I've noticed it is a fairly typical thought pattern with a lot of people. They don't take the time to understand even the most basic truths of who you are before they start assuming the worst. This might have even been an excuse back before the internet when people actually had to put out an effort to do research. These days though, it really isn't that difficult to click a link or use Google.

The other example of this happened in the comments of this post.  Two girls in their 20s, long time Harry Potter fans, posted a video parody in support of House Hufflepuff. Some guy's comment is 'Should be retitled, "Reasonably attractive girls pander to Harry Potter Fanbase".'  His assumption, based only on seeing the video, was that these two girls (who he decided to judge as only 'reasonable attractive,' which was insulting enough) ONLY did this video to pander to impressionable and horny male Harry Potter fans.  While he doesn't state that he sees this as a horrible thing, the word 'pandering' has become one of those buzz words people use to slut shame women.

Oh, she is sexy and claims she likes Star Trek.  But she really doesn't like it. She's just pandering to the men who do like it to earn favor/money/attention from them. 
Now, if this gentleman would have just clicked the link to learn about the girls who did this video, he would have found that they have a huge collection of Harry Potter fan videos.  They love Harry Potter and do these videos because they are the fanbase. Someone who knew the girls pointed this out to him and he gracefully admitted to being wrong.

Now, while I used two examples of misogyny, I don't think this is something that only happens to women.  In fact, I think this is something almost all of us do from time to time. When someone presents themselves to us, we react. Certainly, we can't help what our first thoughts about them might be. That's just how our brains are wired.

HOWEVER . . . I think before we take that next step, the one where we begin to publicly bash them and air our opinions about them out there for everyone in the world to see, it might be a good idea for us to take a few moments to do some research.  If we look them up and read about who they are and where they are coming from, we might realize they're not really what we assumed they were. In the process, we may discover some very interesting people . . . or at the very least, keep ourselves from looking like assholes.

The Song of the Wicked Old Woman

There once was a woman,
Bitter and old
Who hated all children
Both shy and the bold

She hated their weeping
She hated their crying
She hated their stench
She hated their lying

But it was their parents
She hated the most
For their lack of discipline
And each selfish boast

It was the parents, after all
Who raised all these brats
When they could have dogs
Or some sensible cats.

Instead, they bred humans
Who ruined all public places
And for this the woman
Wished to slap parents' faces


When she met children
Who drew out her ire
She'd tell herself stories
So she didn't set them on fire.

Once there was a boy
Obsessed with all fireworks
He'd set them off for days
Like all careless jerks

He worked hard all June
So he could by a lot
The louder the better
Would please the little snot.

But when July arrived
The burn ban was county wide
And no fireworks
So the boy just cried.

Another child wanted
Ice cream from the truck
He saved all his pennies
Found some dimes, just his luck.

He ran to the truck
With its loud muzak played
And ordered a cone
Like the one on display

But before he could bite it
The cone slipped from his hand
And hit the dirty ground
Now, isn't that grand?!

One parent kept screaming
At her child's t-ball game
She'd threaten the coaches
And issued out blame.

One day she screamed
At a kid on first base
When the ball got hit wonky
And knocked her straight in the face.

Yes, the old woman's stories
Tended towards hurts
Disappointments for children
And parents' just desserts

She'd laugh at her evil
And snort at their plights
And snarl at firecrackers
Shot off way late at night.

Hello, July!

I must say I am very happy that July is here. The start of July means we're in the downswing of summer. This is a prospect I hated as a child, as July always meant my summer vacation would be over before I knew it.  However, now as an adult, it's hot and shitty outside and I'd rather summer be over as quickly as possible.  July also means we're closer to the fourth and I am happy about this because soon enough the fireworks stands will be closed and I won't have to listen to random popping at all hours. Yes, I am most certainly looking forward to that.

I'm still walking and doing other exercise. I'm actually starting to find some strength in my hips, which is quite pleasing to me. I hope this is a trend that continues.  I one of the best things about walking is that it makes me get outside every day. This isn't something that has happened for me in a long time. There have been weeks when I didn't leave the house at all, weeks when I would just stay indoors and shut out the whole world.  The problem with this, for me at least, is that I get very comfortable with it. I start becoming fearful of The Outside and begin to do anything I can to avoid it.

But now I get to spend some time outside. I look at the world, enjoy my trees, enjoy the color of the flowers. I pretend I don't see the anthills or the wasps. Two days ago, I certainly pretended I didn't see the bug that was trying to land on my glasses. Yes, that bug never happened.

A few weeks ago, my roommate mused at what his life might be like a year from now (he's doing more physical activities and stuff too). I'm wondering the same thing. This time next July, what will my life be like if I keep moving forward with my activity level? I really hope I am shocked at the results  . . . in a good way. Not in some "her body is now monstrously sewn to some other body." No, I really do not want that.