Stupid Link of the Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_flag_(LGBT_movement)

There's a joke in here somewhere, but I just can't seem to find it yet. Since nothing will turn me off like a hairy man, there's something trainwreck-ish and rubbernecky about me reading strange articles about the "Bear Movement". I saw a guy at the pool a couple of years ago, and he might have been the hairiest bastard I have ever seen. He had smeared white zinc sunscreen all over him, and his hair was all matted down and swirled around in the festering summer sun, and I threw up a just little bit in my mouth. Guy #1 has no idea how happy he should be that he's not hairy.

I find it interesting that there's a flag and a symbol for everything out there.

If I were to come up with my own flag, it would be... white. I would frantically wave the white Calgon flag, with a little flower in the corner, and hope that Calgon would come and take me away. Or maybe it would have the middle finger on it. That flag would say, "Fuck you, I quit." Maybe a can of hairspray. "I quit but let me make sure my hair looks good on the way out."

And good god, check this link out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanky_code

Scroll down the second chart. I was going to say the bottom chart, but in the context of the article, that really wasn't the right description. Okay, I work with some deviant people and I don't know anyone who does half of that shit. Okay, okay, so the cigar thing was done by a President, and god only knows what the Kennedy's were really doing, but flagging yourself with a Jolly Roger handkerchief? Can you even buy Jolly Roger handkerchiefs? My younger daughter told me the other day that she wanted to be a pirate when she grew up. I explained that her best bet would be to secure employment for a large federal government /military contracting company, or to go into that ubiquitous field of "International Security". But back to the handkerchief thing. I bet if some of the street gangs in America knew that a red handkerchief stood for fisting, they'd switch colors mighty damn quick. Or a navy blue handkerchief stood for the backdoor, we'd have a lot less gang crimes out there.

In fact, I think that most law enforcement working on gang suppression should find a way to print and laminate little "Hanky Code Cards" and hand them out during mass arrests and search and seizure operations. Homophobia shall conquer and triumph over the street gang criminality. This can work, I just know it. Seriously. I'm on to something here.

Somehow this whole Stupid Link of the Day just kind of disingrated into Stupid Shit. Ahhh, if only everyone could live in my head for a couple of days.

Stuff I Don't Like

First day back to work after a long week off spent being miserable with the flu, and I'm feeling a little grumpy. I didn't start feeling normal until about eight minutes ago, and the day is over. Can I feel normal eight minutes into my day instead? Actually, I know I can't. I'm a night person, and when the sun goes down I start waking up and feeling like I'm just hitting my stride. So unless I start waking up every day at about 8:20 pm, I won't ever feel great eight minutes into my day.

But in the vein of being a recuperating grump, I thought I would provide a little list of shit I don't like. Well, there's really an enormous list of shit I don't like, but it's hard for me to keep track of so I'll just go with a little list of stuff that's been floating around in my head.

In no particular order:

1. The little happy family stick figure decals that are stuck all over the back of minivans - Okay, these things are just gay. They started out cute, but now they're just gay. Please stop, soccer moms. I don't care what kind of job your old man has, I don't care that shopping is your favoritist hobby (evidenced by the shopping bags dangling from your stick arms) and I don't care how many kids you have and what they like to do. Don't care about your pets, either. In fact, if I were a criminal, I would probably find a way to use your stick-figure demographics to my advantage.

2. Dog shit - I think I covered this one a few posts back, but I have such a loathing for dog shit that it really deserves a second mention. I would like to think that most normal people would dislike dog shit, but I'm obviously wrong due to the millions of Americans who own dogs and have dog shit in their yards. I opened the front door the other day, and at the very edge of my yard next to the street, some woman was letting her dog shit in my yard. I just stood there and stared while she gave me that sheepish shrug and then wandered off with her dog. I hadn't seen her before, because if I had, and if I knew where she lived, I would have gotten my shovel out and carried her dog shit to her yard. For real, if I hadn't been actively dying of the flu, I would have yelled at her to pick up her fucking dog shit. This is the Southside. I don't feel the need for manners all the time.

3. The time of the year when I can't buy Cadbury Eggs - Cadbury Eggs do a lot for making me not-so-much of a bitch. If someone gave me a Cadbury Egg to eat whilst their dog shit on the edge (but just the edge) of my yard, I might be little more tolerant. Nah. I totally wouldn't be. Dog shit in my yard is dog shit in my yard. There's no making that better.

4. Boils - The skin kind of boil. I know that there's some fancy technical name to this, but I live in the South and we call it a boil. I've had a boil exactly once in my life, and I continue to be amazed that something the size of a pencil eraser can cause that level of systemic pain. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit I've even had a boil, because I always thought boils were something that a little old black man who lived in a tar paper shack would have, and his wife would then throw some turpentine on it and dress it with with raw pork fat and boiled cabbage. This is what happens when I read John Jakes - too much imagination for even me to handle. I dressed mine with a cloth band aid, because those band aids don't fall apart in the shower, and when the boil had healed, I ripped the band aid off, because those band aids don't come off easy, either, and with the band aid I ripped off a neat little rectangle of my skin. So technically, I guess I know what a boil and subsequent debriding feels like.

5. People who make more money than me and bitch about being broke - Especially people who don't have kids. I always want to throw my checkbook at them and tell them to walk in my shoes for a few months. Creative bill paying at it's best. But I also made the decision years ago not to chase money, because if you chase money, no matter how much you have, it's never enough.

6. I'm still pretty agitated that I'm listed as the defendant on the divorce paperwork - But this was financially my best decision, because The Ex was the person who had to pay the money to have the paperwork drawn up and I just paid my attorney to review it, and I'm sure I came away with the cheaper deal. I am also the second ex-wife of his who has been listed as the defendant, so at this point I have convinced myself that if anyone were to ever notice that, they would then immediately infer that the real problem in both of his marriages was him.

7. Mrs. Second Grade Teacher - This woman has been the bane of my existence since school started in September. My older daughter reported that school was great today because Mrs. Second Grade Teacher was out sick. I nastily thought to myself when I heard that this evening, hmmm, maybe I should send some extra homework home for that bitch to do so she'll know how it feels. I hope she has the exact strain of flu that I had. I'm not real big on Mrs. Kindergarten Teacher either, but I can't spread my animosity too thin, so I'll just continue to focus on Mrs. Second Grade Teacher.

8. Stupid reality shows like Dancing With The Stars, The Bachelor, etc. - Gay. Nowhere near as good as The Real Housewives of Anywhere Except Atlanta And Miami. I've changed my mind. Not just gay, but super gay.

9. Not having a digital camera - Getting all of those pics off of my half-crappy little cell phone is a big old pain in my ass.

10. Sexually transmitted diseases, addiction and morbid obesity - Not that I've had any of the three, but what a complete bitch to have any one of them. Here's to not catching something yucky whilst eating Little Debbies in a crackhouse. And I don't like to be distracted while I order my food, either.

Bored Out of My Skull

Literally, I'm dying of boredom here. The first free Saturday night I've had in a month or so, and I'm doing a whole lot of nothing. Tried to go to sleep, but was too keyed up from the gallon of sweet tea I just drank, so now I've switched to booze in hopes it'll bring me back down and get me off of this hormonal jag of loneliness and feeling like I really don't want to get into an empty bed tonight. Trolling around on the internet, because I can't seem to bring myself to turn on the TV, or my electronic babysitter as The Ex used to call it. Whatever. That from someone who sat around with a fucking headset on while he played World of Warcraft.

There's no one on facebook I want to chat with, I'm obviously not going to be getting laid tonight, I don't want to read because I forgot the book I'm really digging at work, I haven't met the love of my life and/or hook up of my life on this online dating site, and I'm so bored I signed up for a cougar dating site. What the fuck? All of one page of guys from Richmond on there, and all the women look like Mary Beth Letourneau. If you don't know who that is, google it, bitch. I don't think I've slaughtered the name too much.

My life has come to mean instant gratification. Technology has fucked me up like this. I refused to get a cell phone until I was 29, and that was only at the insistence of The Ex when I was pregnant with the older daughter, because of me driving back and forth to work at night sometimes. And then I refused to give the number out because I didn't want anyone calling me. When I finally started giving the number out, I insisted that no one call me because I didn't want to talk to them. Call me at home, goddammit. And then, when texting started, I refused that. I refused that until about three or four years ago, when I finally figured out this would pre-empt about 58 mindless conversations with The Ex per day that ALL had to end with "I love you." So... that might have been yet another indicator that the marriage was going south. But I still told people not to call me. I'll call YOU when I'm ready to talk.

And then, the separation occurred. My cell phone became my lifeline, along with me pacing around the neighborhood at night talking to my family and friends because The Ex couldn't eavesdrop on me from a block away. Then I got a new phone with a new provider, with my own name, so he couldn't access my phone records. The cell phone really became my lifeline, because I was good to go. Then, I figured out how to get facebook on it. Oh, god, that was then end of me repelling instant gratification. Now, I'm attached to the damn phone. I check that bastard all the time, I carry it around with me, I'm checking facebook, I'm googling myself, all kinds of stupid shit. Now, I give my number out willy-nilly and just tell everyone to call me on my cell. Of course, this is largely due to the fact that when I got my home service hooked up, I never bothered to set up the voice mail and now I don't know how to. So if the school calls, the doctor's office, someone, they'll call my cell because I have absolutely no idea how to set up my voice mail and calling the provider isn't going to be worth the intellectual pain it will cause me.

I've been on this new, paid online dating site for about, oh, I don't know, less than 36 hours and jesus! Why do I attract such fucking goofball men? I mean, I don't think it's my looks because I think I look okay and non-goofbally myself. I never know what men think when they either see me in person or online - no fucking idea. Most of them just kind of look at me in a very surprised way at first, and I never can figure that out. I'm left wondering, is my hair sticking out funny? Is there something on my shirt? Something stuck in my teeth? Why are you looking at me like that? I don't get it. So why am I getting these goofball guys? I've had one dipshit email me, and about 8 wink at me, which I suppose is this websites way of giving you a chance to test the waters before sending an email. If someone winks at me, and I like his profile, I can do one of three things, or two of three things, or any fucking combination, I suppose. I can ignore it, I can respond (with either a wink of my own, or a no thanks response) or I can send an email. I've emailed one guy, and since I refuse pay any more money to upgrade even further, I can't tell if he's read my email or not. I'm not going to stalk his profile to see how long it's been since he's been on, because you can see who has viewed your profile most recently, and I don't think there's any way you can hide that. Because I've looked. I winked at one guy, and haven't gotten a response back on that either. I actually think the winking is kind of gay, but I have some concerns about emailing a whole bunch of men and then getting a whole bunch of responses and I only have time to go out with one of them, what with my career, single parenthood, school activities, second grade homework and cheerleading, not to mention my super fabulous blog. Because what the fuck would I do if I sent out a whole bunch of winks and emails to a whole bunch of hot guys and a whole bunch of them responded? Oh my god, how would I choose? So I'm just kind of creeping along, like some kind of snail, leaving a trail of slime (or vibrator lube) behind me.

I'm annoyed that I can't find any blogs like mine. Long and painfully drawn out posts, but achingly sincere in the most humorous way, with the f-bomb dropped often and with glee. Where are these other women? I'd like to do the blog hook up kind of thing with them, but I refuse to get involved with some other woman blogging about her fantastic recipe for chutney or whatever. I also don't want to hook up with other women blogging about how tearful she became when it was time to cut little Johnny's hair for the first time. I want to hook up with women who are going through a crazy change of life, just want to get laid well and often by a guy who actually knows what all the girl parts are. I want to hook up with some other woman who spends at least 30 minutes out of each day looking at the casual encounters ads on craiglist because that's all the penis she's going to get to see for the day. I want to hook up with some other woman who doing something like this, because maybe this is someone I can learn from, someone who can help me make my blog better.  Girls!!!! Where the fuck are you? I can't be alone in this, I just simply can't.

I've got one main homeslice, from back in the day of 4th grade through high school, who has linked me up on his blog, and he gives me awesome feedback. I think his blog is awesome and I'm really flattered that he's hooking me up with posting my shit on other places, but at the end of the day, he's still got more testosterone than estrogen. And by the way, homeslice, your bloggerdom hook ups totally make up for the time in 10th grade when I got so shit-faced drunk at that party and you and another guy kept talking about me eating a greasy ham sandwich out of a dirty ashtray until I puked my spleen out, passed out for a little while and ended up at the nearby men's college and you STOLE MY BEER. Why can't I end up drunk at a men's college now? But anyway, if you know of any like minded women who blog, hook a sister up, please. Pretty please, with cherries on top? [And this would be where I duck my head just a little bit and blink my eyes a whole lot, because that usually gets me what I want, except for me ending up drunk at a men's college tonight].

Oh my god, it's only 11:04pm. I've got one hard lemonade left and three Bud Lights. Honestly, I've been out of the habit of drinking beer for so long I'm not sure what good beer is. During the days of clubbing, I usually stuck with Michelob and Heineken, but are those douchebag beers? And then, when I got married, I stopped drinking beer and most everything else altogether because if I didn't drink it all in one setting, The Ex would think I didn't want it and would drink it for himself, or he would make suggestive comments for the entire duration of me drinking whatever about how he might get the backdoor. Yeah, fuck you. I said no just to be a complete bitch. Anyway, maybe I need to switch to Corona. Need good 36+1 year old, separated and freakishly horny woman, beer recommendations. Y'all read my blog, what's the best beer for my personality, because I really don't think it's Bud Light. Nothing dark and heavy, like Guinness or any of that other shit. I don't need the beer to taste good, I just need the beer to match my personality and super cute hairdo without making me look like a bimbo.

A Whole New Place For Me To Troll Around On

Ohhhhh, yes. I totally forgot that I signed up for match.com a few years ago for a work thing, and saved the email with the username and password. In fact, I signed up for hi5, tagged, meetmeinthebar, and a few others. Yes, bitches! I can look at the profiles now! Hahahahahaha! I am no longer restricted to craigslist. I am victorious!

So for my match.com search results for tonight, I've plugged in that I want to meet men between the ages of 32 - 42 (give or take five, right?) within 15 miles from my zip code; at least 5'6" because I'm a picky bitch and don't want to date a midget; I have screened out slender, heavyset and stocky builds, well, because what I like is the opposite of all three of those; and white guys only. Not that I have a problem dating other races, I'm just too fucking old to want to make a statement at this point in my life. Oh, and they have to be divorced. So here we go... hit the search button...

166 men out there meet my bare minimum criteria. I'll just comment on a few, because commenting on 166 mens profiles would annoy even me.

Guy #1 - 41 with salt-and-pepper hair. Um, not into guys that young that look that old. And he's a private investigator. Oh, fuck no.

Guy #2 - 34 and says his apartment smells of rich mahogany. Skinny, overgrown goatee (haven't those gone out yet?) and teeth are a little sketchy. But his friend in one of his pics is really cute.

Guy #3 - 39 and he's an attorney. Instant rule out. But I'll add that he's multilingual, looking for a slender woman (definitely not me, unless he's like most men and doesn't really grasp what women sizes are) and plays canasta. And he looks like David Hasselhoff.

Guy #4 - 39 and he looks like The Ex. Hell no. Can't do that again.

Guy #5 - 36, blond with an overgrown goatee. No kids and the highest level of education he picked for his dates was associates degree. Well, you've aimed too low for me.

Guy #6 - 33 and in the Coast Guard. Nuff said. Nope. Uniforms are hot, except for the janitorial kind and the Coast Guard. Sorry.

Guy #7 - 37 and he says he only wears Nautica. He looks gay.

Guy #8 - 33 and has this crazy overgrown hair thing growing down from his chin in one pic. Otherwise cute, but looking for women within a 75 mile radius of his rural county? What, have you gone through everyone else in your county and all the contiguous counties? Also looks like a redneck. He says life=high cost of living. Huh?

Guy #9 - 36 year old with a Jay Leno chin. He's checked every option available for his dates. I interpret this in one way - desperate. So no thanks to you or your chin, buddy.

Okay, I could go on and on, because I have 156 men left, but I'll space it out some. This could be fun!

Stuff I Don't Like *

* Formerly titled "That Is So Gay", but I changed the name because there's some stuff that will end up making this list that isn't so much gay as it is shit I just don't like.

Okay, so this is my new column, in the same vein as my Freakshow of the Day column, which seems to being doing pretty well, at least in terms of always providing me with new material on the regular. I have to say, as a disclaimer, that my title has nothing to do with homosexuality, but more along the lines of saying that something is just really stupid. But to say something is really stupid doesn't quite capture the essence of saying that something is gay. I got into saying this a few years ago at work, especially after a co-worker of mine was gay enough to actually diagram the Spectrum of Gayness for another co-worker, and placed both himself and the other co-worker on said diagram. Of course, the architect of the diagram placed himself at the far end of the "Not Gay" end, and placed the other co-worker at the other far end of the diagram, which was "100% Gay". So jokes abounded for months about where discussion topics fell on the Spectrum of Gayness. I am trying to get myself out of using this term, because I think I might have offended a couple of the lesbians I work with, although I'm a little put off by the fact that they don't want to sit around and discuss the other kind of sausage with me. I also try to watch what I say around my children because I don't want to get called into the principal's office to explain something dumb like this, because I feel like the principal will probably not understand the new lexicon of the word gay. However, just because I'm trying to get myself out of the habit of saying this at work and around my children doesn't mean it's not still in my head. And there's a lot of gay stuff out there for me to comment on.

So, here's my first That Is So Gay topic. I've been hanging on to this one since 10th grade, which seems like it was only about five years ago, but actually was more like 21 or so years ago. My god, that makes me feel really old. Anyway... gay topic.

Don Quixote.

Yeah, that shit is gay. I had to read this book in 10th grade, because I had gotten into Prince Edward County's version of AP English and History, except they called it the Civilization program, and you had apply for entrance and be screened and all of that. But this program was supposed to be for the smarter kids, the kids who would definitely head on to good colleges, the kids who had parents who gave a shit. Ha ha, tricked y'all and slipped right the fuck in. Like any socially mobile 14 year old girl, this program was not about improving my chances to go to a good college, it was not about giving me accelerated learning materials (that really weren't), it was not about learning how to write good essays, this program was about securing entree into a whole new group of kids, a whole new group of guys to date and securing my place at the cool parties. Because at 14, I had my priorities straight. Grades be damned, it was all about looking good and clawing my way to the top of the social ladder.

So I had to read this book in 10th grade, which was my first year in the Civ program. So it was somewhat of a rude awakening to me, because I had to stop reading good shit and start reading old stupid shit. The reading itself wasn't an issue, because I had read every Nancy Drew book by the time I was in 6th grade. In fact, in 6th grade, I recall that I didn't even check any books out of the library because they were too babyish for me. I remember the librarian wanted to have a conference with my mother about this, and my mother was like, well, she doesn't need to check any books out because she's reading Stephen King and James Clavell right now. But of course, my accelerated reading also almost got me held back in 6th grade, because I decided that in every class I didn't like, it would just be more fun to read instead of do my classwork and pay attention. So I would bring my big 400 page epic novels and such to school, and if I was in a class and didn't like the topic at hand, I would very sneakily sneak my book out of my bookbag and hold it in my lap and read it under my desk. And then they wanted to have another conference with my mother about the fact that I was failing 6th grade because I was reading in all of my classes. Uh, how about you make 6th grade not so fucking boring? So that turned into I had to leave my bookbag at each teacher's desk and I was only allowed to take my book and notebooks to my desk, which didn't serve to make me fascinated in school, it only served to teach me how to really slide through a class with minimal effort. And that skill served me well right through college, I'm pleased to say, because employers really don't give a shit about your GPA. I missed graduating with honors from college by, like, two one-hundredths of a point or something, but it didn't matter because I didn't even bother with going to the graduation. The fact that I had skated through college with virtually no effort had disillusioned me by that point.

Anyway, reading and reading comprehension in the Civ program was not an issue to me. It was the complete crap they assigned us to read that I had an issue with. Really, the only thing I took away from Don Quixote is that this was one gay ass book. Furthermore, if my children are assigned to read Don Quixote at any point in their lives, I will just tell them, that book is gay as FUCK, just read the Cliff Notes. Reading Don Quixote was not a defining moment in my life, and in fact, it was actually a sliver of time in my life that was one enormous waste. For real, I can't relate to a woman named Dulcinea, I don't care about a wingman named Sancho (because it sounds too much like a Dirty Sanchez to me) and I don't want to know about La Mancha.

Because it's gay.