It's like Tuesdays with Morrie without all the wisdom
I read things on the internet
I Can See Your Google.
8April 8, 2008
This blog is fun for me for a lot of reasons, but the main reason for its awesomeness is because it tells me when somebody googles something and then finds a link to my blog and clicks it. That’s right, I can see that somebody googled “pants too tight right ball hurts” and then clicked on a link to my blog. WTF? You need google to tell you that you need to change your pants? Seriously, go change your pants. And then google, “why am I so stoopid?” and see what you come up with.
That’s weird, but the weirder thing is that most of my search terms have to do with anorexia (I’m not counting the person who searched for “softball butt” because, let’s face it, that’s totally not the same thing. It is, in fact, quite the opposite thing.) My number 1 and number 2 most popular search terms that lead somebody to my blog have to do with that disease. The rest of the terms are so random that they can’t even be categorized. However, I’m keeping my eye on “methamphetamine Chesaning” and hoping that it becomes a contender for the top spot. That would be cool.
Anyway, I have one post that mentions anorexia and you would have to search through thousands of google pages to even find my link. Maybe I’m in the minority, but if I google something and it doesn’t come up on the first 2 pages, I figure my question must be unanswerable. After page 2, it’s like eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It’s just not for me to know. And by then I’m usually distracted by something shiny anyway.
I see search terms like that, that make no sense at all for this blog and then I get all wrapped up in wondering what it was the people were truly looking for and where did they finally find it? And how did they have that much stamina to go through that many pages of info? And what were they supposed to be doing all day? But I guess they don’t have to cook much, so that frees up some time. And no cooking means they wouldn’t have to clean up, so there’s that too. And you have to factor in the amount of time they save on just the eating part. Well, and the meal planning and the grocery shopping. Ok, nevermind. It makes a lot more sense now. I don’t know what I would do all day if my day didn’t revolve around the choosing and preparing and consuming and cleaning up of food for myself and certain others in this place, but I suppose I might spend a teensy bit more time on the internet clicking random links. It makes perfect sense now.
Sally Kern, that’s Not OK
11March 19, 2008
Oh, Sally Kern. Don’t you know that the Bible says lots of silly things that shouldn’t be taken so darn seriously? It is offensive when you say that homosexuals are a bigger threat to this country than terrorists. People don’t like that. You also said, “According to God’s word, that is not the right kind of lifestyle.” Maybe next time you give a hateful speech, you should focus on what is the right kind of lifestyle according to God’s word. This might save you some time, too, because sometimes listing the things that are apparently abhorrent to God takes such a long time. I mean, the list could get pretty long what with Leviticus outlining all of the different types of handicapped people that are not allowed near God. Who has that kind of time? To get you started, here is a partial list of activities that, according to God’s word, encompass the “right kind of lifestyle.”
- Murder (mostly illegal, but in the right context, it’s totally ok. Moses, Samson, I’m talking to you)
- Genocide (it’s important to remember to kill not only the men, but the women, children and animals too. Joshua, Moses, Saul, you little scamps)
- Incest (Abraham and Sarah? I can see you blushing from here. Don’t worry, you’re hardly alone.)
- Polygamy and concubines (adultery is a no-no, but if you have a concubine or some bonus wives, that’s quite different)
- Slavery (especially ok if you’re selling your daughter to pay off a debt)
I’m just saying. Maybe people will respond to you more favorably (i.e. less death threats) if you tell them what God likes instead of what He doesn’t like. Try that next time and let me know how it all turns out. Take care!
I Can See Your Dirty Pillows
6March 17, 2008
Hurry and check out this post over at One-of-Those-Women (thanks Dawn). If my telling you to go look at it isn’t enough to make you do it (don’t you trust me?), here’s a quote from it:
As I signalled in an earlier post, the Male Gaze is problematic for mothers of breastfeeding babies: they use their body in a way that’s culturally challenging: they feed their hungry babies in daylight, not hidden in the shadows! One element I’ve always felt caused more reaction than not, was that mothers in photos of with their breastfeeding babies, always tend to look to the baby, excluding the onlooker. None of these sparky mothers are looking at the baby! Some are looking directly at you, is a powerful and obvious challenge. This is totally not the scenario of weakness and ‘being looked at’ in most glamour and fashion photography (and soft core pornography).
There are lots of interesting things in the post, what with the whole feminists with make-up on?!? (*gasp*) thing, but what I love the most is that she pointed out that these mothers are not looking at the nurslings. There they are, looking fashionable and gorgeous, nursing their babies, and they’re all staring right at you pervy onlookers like, “Yeah, I’m nursing a baby. With my breasts. Grow up you idiot.”
Indeed, I have lots of pictures of me breastfeeding and I could only find one where I’m looking at the camera. It was taken when Lena and Liberty were 5 months old and I’m nursing them both. They’re sleeping with their legs all intertwined under a blanket and I remember looking at them and just getting all giddy and wanting a picture of that moment. It was not too long before that that we were still struggling with all kinds of premie issues and birth defect issues that scared the hell out of us for many months. It had been a whirlwind and everything had finally been a-ok for more than a couple of weeks at a time, and that happiness just washed all over me (thank you oxycontin oxytocin) and I wanted a picture of the preciousness. I remember taking great care to make sure the blanket covered every. bit. of. skin. before Bryan snapped it because I didn’t want the film developer at Frank’s Supermarket (Chesaning’s number one grocer!) to turn me in for indecent photographs.
Yeah, um, well done.
And out in public? For as much as I knew that if anyone ever came up to me and asked me to leave because of breastfeeding my baby/toddler/pre-schooler I would say, “No, thank you,” I was certainly very quick to turn away from any spectator, thus avoiding giving off any bring-it-bitch vibes. My vibe was more of a “Yes, I’m using my dirty pillows out in public, but I don’t want any trouble. Look at how I’m looking lovingly at my baby. Aren’t we precious? Please just keep walking, just keep walking, just keep walking.” *sigh* That post makes me want to borrow somebody’s nursling (or two) so I can run about breastfeeding in public and staring down the gapers with my new and improved grow-up-you-idiot vibe. I love the internet. I wish it would’ve been alive when I was little.
Love, American Style
3February 24, 2008
I found really cute shoes for $10! This has never, ever happened to me before. Most likely because I don’t like to shop because things are expensive and I am cheap, so my non-shopping around seriously inhibits my ability to find good deals on things I like. Because, let’s face it, it’s not a good deal if you don’t really like it. Anyway, we had to go to the dreaded mall because Liberty wanted to spend her very own money on Yet Another Effin’ Webkinz (didn’t they add “Yet Another Effin’” to the tradename yet? No? They should because I only ever hear people refer to them that way). And the local candy shop place that sells them didn’t have the exact perfect one (I know because they have a hotline you can call. For real.) So we went to the mall and Liberty got Yet Another Effin’ Webkinz. After that, we took Lena to Gamestop where My Precious discovered she didn’t have enough money for Super Mariokart Race Until You Die or whatever. I’ve seen this happen before and I’ve not been very understanding while waiting an hour for her to make the very, very difficult and painful decision to either save her money for another 2 weeks or just buy something else. This time, I decided to save everybody even more turmoil by excusing myself from the situation and leaving her with her father, who can relate to this kind of careful purchasing turmoil, and I ducked into Journeys and found omigod shoes for $10. And I liked them. So much. So much that even though my feet are, ahem, athletic and the shoes on the shelf were all a size smaller than I usually wear, I kept looking at them and fondling them and whispering through my tears, “Why can’t you be a wide size 9? I love you so much. Not just because you’re cheap. I love you for you.” And then I really looked at them and decided they looked big. Just like my feet. And I started to believe that our love could transcend size, so I tried them on. And I was right. Our love is stronger than any measurement, US or European. They’re big. They’re wide. They fit! So I bought them and then I was really high and wanted to go find MORE! bargains because I suddenly found my self-worth as an American woman. I didn’t get the chance to try out my brand-new purchasing power, however, because by the time my transaction was complete, Bryan found me and very wisely distracted me by offering me foodstuffs. He knows his woman.
ETA: I just read the reviews of the shoes at that link that I posted and all of those people who say they feel “true to size” and “true to width” are in serious denial about their shoe size. There is nothing true to either size or width about these lovely, lovely shoes. These regular 8s feel like a wide 9. Heaven.
New York Times=Very Uncool
3November 15, 2007
Don’t censor people who know what they’re talking about. That’s just wrong. Censoring people who don’t know what they’re talking about? I’m totally cool with that. I know, I know, slippery slopes and such. How about we just start with the assholes like Tama Janowitz and all of her supportive commentors who think it’s cool to tell a 12-year-old daughter who was adopted from China, “Well, you know, if you were still in China you would be working in a factory for 14 hours a day with only limited bathroom breaks!” See, that’s just mean. I’m not a transnational adoptee or anything, but I can still see that that’s all kinds of mean. And people who leave comments that say that that is totally mean should not be censored by the New York Times. I mean, it’s THE New York Times. WTF?
