Straw, Meet Hump

Hi, Drunkards. I'm going to rant a bit today.

Hair may be pulled.

As apartment-dwellers go, I'm pretty fortunate. Over the last nine years, the property management in my building has seldom given me cause to get pissed off at them. Friendly people, great maintenance crew, good communication, all that stuff that I'm told can be rare in the world of renting from a corporate landlord.

People tend to be amazed when I tell them I've lived happily in the same apartment for almost a decade. While that's mostly the result of my Aergian* levels of laziness and extreme susceptibility to inertial forces, it's also a testament to the fact that my current residence has been a good place to live. I've seen no reason to roll the dice on a new place, given the horror stories I've heard from other renters.

This guy totally looks like he has a peephole
hidden behind a picture frame on the other side
of your bedroom wall.

(Also, when I moved Precocious Daughter and myself into this place, we didn't even own kitchen chairs. Or a kitchen table to put them around. Or a sofa to eat dinner on because we didn't have a table or chairs. In short, I've got way more stuff now than I had then. Moving seems exhausting.) 

So I've stayed put, and life has been good. Except that, as of last summer, my apartments are now in the hands of a new corporate landlord. And, to put it as elegantly as I can, it's been death by a thousand fucking cuts ever since.

I won't go into details that I'm sure are boring as hell if you're not me. I don't know why anyone reads any of this stuff, frankly. But here we are and, you know, thanks. 

For real.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure we've arrived at the straw that landed on the camel's hump and broke that bastard. Except it's not a straw. It's a fob.

I live in a secure building. The parking garage is gated, and the building entrances, including elevators and stairs, are access-restricted. Until recently, all of that was controlled by a fob, which hung from my key ring. One fob to rule them all, one might say.

LOL, you really can find anything on the Internet.

But my corporate landlord, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the convenience of a single electronic access device that goes wherever I go and provides instantaneous entry is, apparently, some kind of affront to decency. Or maybe the manufacturer kickbacks dried up or something. I dunno.

As of last month, garage access is now controlled by a coded sticker on the windshield of my car. A little electronic eye reads the code when I get right up to the gate and makes it slide open while I wait. Over the past nine years I've perfected the art of activating the gate from the perfect distance away so that it fully opened just in time for me to glide through without stopping. Now the perfect distance is literally six inches from the gate so the electronic eyeball can sense the sticker. While I wait. And while the cars in front of and behind me that also used to glide through without stopping also wait.

But there's more, oh lawd yes. If my car is in the shop and I have a loaner? I can't get into the garage without the permanently stuck sticker (or stucker, if you will). If I'm traveling and I want someone to look in on Tacocat? I can't give them my fob so they have access. My car, and not me, now has exclusive control over who gets into the garage that I pay for every month.

And my car can be kind of a bastard, tbh.

But it gets better. The fob also no longer works on the access-controlled doors and elevators of my building. Instead. We have. To use. A goddamn app.

Because why use a fob, which is attached to the key ring you're already carrying and can simply be waved at the door to open it? Especially when you're also carrying a purse, a coat, several bags of groceries, and the bottle of vodka you're going to desperately need by the time you stop, pull out your phone with your convenient third hand, open an app, and wait for a count of three-Mississippi for it to unlock the door? It's inconvenient and wastes time? Sign me up!

Don't forget - if you go anywhere on the property without your phone, you are locked out. If you go downstairs to check the mail without grabbing your phone, you are locked out. If, God forbid, you leave your phone at the office or a restaurant or a friend's house, locked out. Because your phone now has exclusive control over whether you get into the building you pay to live in every month.

Download me, I'm eeeeevil.

This turn of events is causing me to seriously consider moving. Which maybe is just a sign that subconsciously I was already wanting to go. Or it could be simply that this aggression will not stand, man.

It just won't.

Anyway, I'm looking at a lot of real estate listings these days. Because I don't think this is the end of my corporate landlord's shenanigans (see also: we're no longer allowed to put out a welcome mat, but that's another story). And I don't think I'll be able to find another landlord that isn't an order of magnitude worse than what I've got.

I just want a place where Tacocat and I can hang out and play fetch. And I don't have to download any apps I don't want to download.

Wish me luck.

* Aergia is the Greek goddess of sloth and idleness. She is frequently depicted lounging on a sofa or comfy chair and is totally my new hero.

Makeup a Good Story

Friday night was Precocious Daughter's annual Band Scholarship Dinner/Silent Auction.

Her last one, you guys.

First, the various bands performed and were awesome. As always.

Second, the dinner was chicken strips from Raising Cane's. Cane's sauce is the BEST.

But my favorite part of this annual event is always the silent auction.

Last year I snagged a collectible Star Trek Barbie and Ken.

This year I got a way-cool story to tell.

Check it.

So you probably know how silent auctions work: The items are staged on tables, and each has a bidding sheet in front of it. The bidding sheet includes the name of the item, its retail value, and a starting bid, which is some fraction of the retail value. To bid, you write down your name and your bid, and if you're the last and highest bidder, you win. Boom.

Money is a bit tight right now, because who knew how expensive senior year is? Probably everyone except me, but that's not important. The point is, I didn't have firm plans to bid on anything unless I found something that was a) irresistible or b) a real steal.

To be perfectly honest, not many items stood out to me this year. Maybe because I already knew I couldn't spend much, or maybe because the mix of things just didn't appeal to me this time around.

But there was a collection of makeup from Ulta. Kajillions of eyeshadows, brow pomades, eyeliners, concealers, etc., in a really cool steamer trunk-style box. Gorgeous.

The retail value of the collection was $200, and the opening bid was $50. Basically too rich for my blood at this moment in time.

But then PDaughter and I noticed something.

Some...person (expletive deleted)...had crossed out the $200 retail value and written in $25. AND had crossed out the $50 opening bid and written in $5. And had proceeded to bid $5.

Wut.

Worse, several other people had subsequently entered bids, none of which even touched the legitimate starting bid of $50.

You guys, PDaughter and I were stunned. And mad. We were freaking mad.

First of all, who does that? Who blatantly violates the rules of the silent auction and changes the bidding structure to suit them?

Second, I knew that the auction organizers would see this fuckery and nullify all the bids because they were lowball. And an item that should have fetched at least $100 for the band would go unsold.

I stewed about this. For a good hour I stewed, while I ate chicken strips, while I listened to music, while I engaged in conversation with my ex (who was also there and who still makes me laugh even though I'm so happy we're no longer married).

And then PDaughter said, "You know, if someone bid the actual minimum of $50, they would totally win it."

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

I'm not going to lie, Drunkards. Fifty bucks is a lot for me right now. I'm paying for senior pictures, AP tests, college enrollment fees, band trip fees, etc. But the idea that a $200 box of high-quality cosmetics would net the band nothing because of some cheap, unethical idiot simply enraged me.

And the idea of having all that makeup to play with really jazzed me and PDaughter.

So I placed a bid. The current bid was a ridiculous $20. I bid $50.

I would have bid the entire $200 if I could swing it.

And I won.

PDaughter and I are stoked to have all this makeup to play with. She wants to try the lip gloss, I love the purple eyeliner. OMG.

Shame on the loser who tried to subvert the silent auction. You are a terrible person.

You guys: Whenever you can choose between being a good person or an asshole, try to choose being good.

Like, if you think band scholarships are less important than getting cheap makeup, go away.

As for me, I have contouring makeup now.

Yaaaassssss.

This Is Confessional. Please Respond with Approbation.

Hi, Drunkards.

It's been a rough week.

As illustrated by this humorous meme.

I
'm not going to sugar-coat it. On Wednesday, I prepared for the third Presidential debate by drinking heavily. More heavily than usual. I'm not sure why. Maybe I thought it would enhance my satirical skills for live-tweeting the proceedings (which it didn't because I ended up too drunk to tweet at all). Maybe I was stressed because Drummer Boy planned to join me that evening, which is a rare midweek treat. Maybe I'm just a mess.

Me. It goes to me.

But here's the thing. Wednesday night, while I was drinking and getting ready for the debate and acting like an idiot in front of Drummer Boy, Precocious Daughter was volunteering at a nearby middle school. She volunteers because she earns community service points for National Honor Society, but also because she's just a great kid who loves to help out when she can. The middle school is about a five-minute drive from our home. But I would be making that five-minute drive to pick her up...under the influence. Drunk. Wasted.

Drummer Boy was appalled. But he didn't stop me. Because he was appalled.

You guys, I stepped into a car while well over the legal limit to pick up my only child from a school where she was doing volunteer work. 

Feel free to be outraged and disgusted. You are not alone.

PDaughter and I got home safely. I ended up throwing Drummer Boy out of my apartment because...reasons? Apparently I got very bitchy and verbally abusive. Fact is, I don't remember any of it.

But the next morning, I saw he had written me an e-mail at 3 a.m. It was the hardest, saddest thing I've ever had to read. I almost didn't read it at all, although I ended up returning to it several times over the next couple of days.

Drummer Boy showed me tough love, you guys.

He broke my heart and shamed me and made me cry.

I'm not going to spill his private business here. But he has lived through his own substance abuse issues. And the thought that he very easily might not be here but for luck and his own mighty strength...it brought me up really fucking short.

And the thought that he might give up on me, as he strongly hinted he might do after my latest shenanigans, well, that just slapped me in the face.

Drummer Boy and I are still together, you guys. He is the love of my life, my rock, my friend.

And I will never put my child in danger just to feed my blog.

And I will be the role model I need to be for PDaughter, and the person I know I can be to myself.

Do I promise to never touch demon alcohol again?

Well, no. I can't make that promise.

Just being honest.

But can I put the two most important people in my life above vodka?

Oh fuck yes.

They are everything to me. Vodka is just a crutch for my weaknesses.

It doesn't even outrank this pissant little blog. You guys - my handful of loyal friends and readers - you mean so much to me. I want to keep writing what I can to give you what pleasure I can.

I want to write that goddamn book I keep talking about.

I want to live happily ever after.

Feel free to tell me I'm an idiot for endangering my life and my relationships. I need to hear it.

I promise to respond with monkeys and politics and whatever.

Thank you, my Drunkards.

I love you all.

Men Can Be C*nts, Too

Ah, the social media are aflame with indignation.

No, Mr. Vice President. Indignant, not hold-me-back-Imma-kill-him
enraged. Dial it back.

And what is today's source of approbation and feather-ruffling?

It's this charming article on some website you never heard of by some guy you never heard of entitled "Why I'll Never Date a Feminist."

Here's the link, if you want to experience several mildly revolted chuckles.

Yes, it's another piece bashing feminism, written by someone who manifestly has no clue what feminism is but has decided it must be the key to his inability to have a fulfilling romantic relationship with a woman, it simply must be.

I told her she was smart for a chick, and now
she's mad. Goddamn feminazis, amiright?

That's why the author chose the provocative, aspirational title "Why I'll Never Date a Feminist" instead of the infinitely more accurate "Why Strong, Independent Women Aren't Attracted to Me After Hearing Two Minutes of My Uninformed Blather About How Strong, Independent Women Are the Devil."

Simply put, this article contains so much misinformation, so many tired stereotypes, and such a high level of casual misogyny that I seriously combed the website that published it to make sure I wasn't being duped by an unusually convincing satire page. Nope, it's for reals, although it's the kind of website that puts up a poll like this one:

This makes the classic leading question
"Have you stopped beating your wife?" seem
nuanced in comparison.

Anyway, I'm just going to thoroughly trash all this guy's angry, creepy assertions about feminism and, really, women in general. Because after all, people who berate feminists are essentially publicly casting their vote for a feminine ideal that is submissive, weak, and inherently inferior.

By the way, at this point I don't give a damn if you agree with me or not. My dander is up, people. So up.

You guys. I think I finally found the tattoo I want.

Let's dig into this dude's clueless rant, shall we?

If you look for a reason to hate men, chances are you’re going to find it.
Boom. Opening line. The old "feminists hate men" canard. Truth bomb #1: Feminism has nothing to do with hating men. I suppose there are women who identify as feminists who "hate" men. But feminism didn't teach them that. Truth bomb #2: Feminism has NOTHING TO DO WITH MEN. It's about empowering women. Which includes not allowing men to make every damn thing about them. That's not how equality works.

Men’s Rights Activists have taken flight with a new philosophy called "Red Pill" which aims to point out how derogatory, hypocritical and vindictive third-wave feminists can be.
Ah, yes. "Men's Rights." The "All Lives Matter" of gender politics: Let's pretend that when people whose rights have been violated demand their rights, our rights have been violated EVEN WORSE. I wonder if feminists won't date you because you consider them derogatory, hypocritical, and vindictive. Naaaah, must be because we really are derogatory, hypocritical, and vindictive. Le sigh.

By the way, click on that Red Pill subreddit link at your own risk. It probably won't make you hate men, but it will make you question why angry, disrespectful tools are given free reign on the Internet.

Women are more likely to graduate college, they live longer, are less likely to die in the workplace, less likely to go to prison and extremely less likely to die in war-time combat.
All that sounds pretty pro-woman, right? Go Team She! Until you realize that this sentence is presented a evidence that "[the justice system] fails men." Again, these are all positives (with the exception of the combat statistic, because until earlier this year military women weren't allowed to have active combat roles), which have been turned into negatives because we're succeeding in all these areas for the sole purpose of emasculating men. Obviously women get no intrinsic reward from success; all that matters is outdoing those icky men.

It's soooooo obvious.

People who are more loyal to their gender and not their significant other don’t make good partners.
I have no clue what this even fucking means. "People"? Who the hell are these "people"? This person (who is a feminist, have I not made that clear?) is loyal to people who are intelligent, kind, supportive, and loving. Those traits are by no means exclusive to any gender identity. Neither is being shallow, bitter, and ass-faced dumb. By the way, the writer spends his entire article being "loyal" to his own gender. What's that about you "rejecting" feminists? Riiiiight.

It’s evident that gender politics is hurting our culture. More marriages are failing and women are reporting that they’re unhappier now than ever.

Oh, marriages are failing because of gender politics! Of course! It has nothing to do with both men and women repudiating the outdated notion that marriage is forever, no matter how miserable you are. Nothing to do with both men and women realizing that they can be independent and self-sustaining. Nothing at all to do with the fact that divorce rates have actually been steady-to-declining for years now, you lie-spreading asshole. And as for women being unhappier than ever? Speaking anecdotally, I'm a) happier than I've been in many years and b) recently divorced.

Maybe one day, men and women will stop trying to eliminate the lines between us and realize it’s the differences between the sexes that make romance, family and love an enjoyable experience.
And we finish with the classic fallback myth about feminists: That we want men and women to be the same. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I don't want us to be the same. I don't want to have a penis, and I sure as hell don't want Drummer Boy to have a vagina. I don't want to look like a man, talk like a man, pee like a man, because I'm not a man. I'm a woman. And I'm a feminist. And I love being with a man, in all his sweaty, ball-scratching glory. I love being with my man specifically, because he's an amazingly good person who happens to have naughty bits that complement mine. I think everyone deserves an amazingly good person with whom they're romantically and sexually compatible.

And I think no one should be with a hate-filled jackhole who blames an entire gender for his/her own feelings of insecurity and fear. Not cool, random writer of this ridiculous article.

Your mileage may vary. But this feminist thinks men and women who aren't complete assholes are awesome people.

And the Beat Goes On

Mass murders claimed by or known to be inspired by ISIS in 2016, as of July 14.

 *****

Zliten, Libya - Truck bombing. Sixty dead.

Hurghada, Egypt - Stabbing attack at hotel. Two injured.

Istanbul, Turkey - Suicide bombing. Twelve dead.

Jakarta, Indonesia - Suicide bombings/shootout. Four dead.

Mahasen, Saudi Arabia - Suicide bombing at a Shi'a mosque. Four dead.

Homs, Syria - Car bombings. Fifty-seven dead.

Sayyidah Zaynab, Syria - Car bombing/suicide bombings at a Shi'a mosque. Eighty-three dead.

Istanbul, Turkey - Suicide bomber. Four dead.

Brussels, Belgium - Suicide bombings at a Metro station and airport. Thirty-two dead.

Aden, Yemen - Suicide bombings targeting military checkpoints. Twenty-six dead.

al-Asriya, Iraq - Suicide bombing in soccer stadium. Thirty-three dead.

Dhaka, Bangladesh - Stabbing of LGBT activist. Two dead. al-Qaida group claimed responsibility.

Baghdad/Samawa, Iraq - Four separate car bombings. Ninety dead.

Balad, Iraq - Shooting/suicide bombing. Twenty-eight dead.

Aktobe, Kazakhstan - Shootings. Seven dead.

Orlando, United States - Shooting at a gay nightclub. Forty-nine dead.

Magnanville, France - Stabbing. Two dead.

Ataturk, Turkey - Shooting/suicide bombing at an airport. Forty-four dead.

Gulshan, Bangladesh - Hostage situation/shootings. Twenty-three dead.

Baghdad, Iraq - Two bomb attacks. More than 290 dead.

Medina, Saudi Arabia - Suicide bombing at a mosque and three other attacks in which only the bombers were harmed. Seven dead.

Nice, France - Shooting/truck ramming at a Bastille Day celebration. Approximately 80 dead.

*****

Estimated civilian and combatant death toll attributed to the "war on terror:" 1.3-2 million as of mid-2015. Total includes only deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; does not include deaths in Yemen, Syria, or other countries targeted in the war on terror.

*****

We're not winning. None of us is winning.

I don't have answers, or even suggestions. Only these statistics.

And great anger and sadness.

Nous somme le monde. Nous somme tous.

Do-It-Yourself, Teenage Daughter Edition

Today Precocious Daughter and I descended on our local IKEA and bought as much stuff as we could cram into a Ford Focus hatchback.

My sweet Benedict Cumberhatch.

Our haul included some kitchen items, some bathroom stuff, and - most importantly - a dining table and two chairs.

Yes, only two chairs. Our apartment is small, and we'll figure out where to seat guests when we actually have some. We're new at the whole Outfitting an Apartment and Not Worrying About Starving to Death While You Do It thing.

We plan to go back for a media stand and a sofa. Which may require rental of a U-Haul for the afternoon, because Bene is roomy, but he's not a freaking TARDIS.

Bigger on the inside doesn't apply to American compact cars,
I'm afraid.

Anyway, we got our haul home, and carried it from the parking garage to the apartment (thank you, helpful neighbors who are willing to hold doors for aggrieved-looking females hauling boxes). I was perfectly content to let everything sit until tomorrow at that point. But PDaughter declared she felt "handy" and unboxed one of the chairs to see what made it tick.

At that point I joined her, because everyone knows the First Commandment of assembling IKEA furniture is: "Thou shalt not even attempt to put this shit together with only one person." God may have made us in His image, but that doesn't include possessing the four arms and six hands necessary to successfully assemble a piece from IKEA's "simple" instructions.

So together we looked over the parts (surprisingly few) and instructions (seemingly simple) to put together a Henriksdahl dining chair. And we got going on that.

At which point we were confronted with the Second Commandment of assembling IKEA furniture, which is: "Thou shalt not assume the simple printed instructions actually convey the level of difficulty involved." 

And shortly after that, with the Third Commandment: "Thou shalt not text thy boyfriend every 30 seconds while thy mother needs your help holding parts together so she can apply the Allen wrench to that shit."

PDaughter broke that commandment several times. I finally set down the hand tools and announced that I was done with the IKEA Chair Project because she wouldn't stop texting.

I very rarely get angry with my child. She's a good kid, and I'm a pretty lenient mom, and it typically isn't necessary to get worked up over her behavior.

But I was PISSED that she was the one who started to work on the chair assembly and then abdicated her effort in favor of her smartphone.

So now I'm in my room, and she's in her room, and the room in between contains the dismembered body of an IKEA chair. Maybe we'll finish it tomorrow.

Or maybe not. We've gone six weeks without a table or chairs. Apparently we can do everything. Except assemble a simple piece of furniture together. Grr.

Any suggestions? Alternatively, anyone who wants to help put together a few IKEA pieces is welcome to volunteer. Otherwise, I'll be eating dinner off a stack of cardboard boxes for the foreseeable future.

As the Swedish Chef might say, hernga dernga verschmurst.

I couldn't agree more.

Open Letter

Holy shit.

What did you say to our daughter?

You picked her up from her football game and dropped her off here, and she came in uncharacteristically tight-lipped and irritable. She shut herself in her room, and for a while I let her be. But then I got worried and went to see her. And we talked.

Dear God, why would you dump our problems on the head of our 15-year-old daughter?

I know we're broke. You know we're broke. But she should never, ever have to worry about that. She should never feel afraid or unsure of her future or worried about whether we can take care of her.

How dare you put that fear in her.

How dare you make her cry.

Our problems are our problems. They are not her problems. If you haven't cultivated friendships that allow you to vent your frustrations and fears, that's not her fault. DO NOT USE HER AS YOUR SOUNDING BOARD.

Soon - not soon enough, but soon - all of the unpleasantness about splitting up and moving out and selling our home and getting divorced will be behind us. And my entire existence will be devoted to making sure our daughter is happy, and healthy, and psychically OK with what and where she is.

And if you can't keep your goddamn mouth shut and avoid upsetting her when she's with you, then soon enough you'll find that she isn't with you very much at all.

Holy shit.

What did you say to her?

Just One More, Why Not?

I'm getting pretty fucking tired of this shit, Drunkards.

All I wanted to do tonight was write a post about the awesome names you guys suggested for my Victorian cat doll. But I can't. Because yet another stupid dickless angry young asshole has opened fire on innocent people and slaughtered multiple humans because he thought it was a good idea and HEY, look how easy it is to acquire multiple firearms!

And of course he went down in a hail of bullets and won't have to face the families of his victims. I wish Hell actually existed, so I could take comfort in thoughts of his scrotum being burned away for all eternity. Instead, he gets a free pass to the void while the grieving families of those he murdered will suffer from their losses for the rest of their lives.

All because a small percentage of Constitutionally illiterate Americans and their well-funded gun lobby think we all should have the right to keep and bear weapons of mass destruction.

Which somehow were a damn good reason to go to war with Iraq, but in 'Murica are the embodiment of patriotism, along with fucking apple pie and loving yo' mama.

So the shooter's name was Chris Harper Mercer, and not to indulge in egregious stereotypes, but if he wasn't a 20-something white dude, I'll eat my own dirty panties on YouTube.

CJ Grisham, Ted Nugent, and Wayne LaPierre can all suck my dick. I hate guns. And the people who loudly and threateningly insist on their unabridged right to carry them wherever, whenever they want. Every person who advocates for universal, unregulated access to guns is a moron and a tool and should legally be considered an accessory to murder whenever something like the UCC shooting happens.

If your penis is really that miniscule, do us all a favor and put oversized tires on your pickup truck and whack off to online porn like every other under-endowed loser in the world.

You want to hunt? You want to carry for self-defense? You just think guns are peachy keen and make your sex organ appear more impressive? Fine. Apply for a license, submit to a background check, acquire liability insurance. Then own the fuck out of that gun.

But walking into a Walmart or a pawn shop and shelling out cash for a deadly weapon with absolutely no reconciliation between your past behavior and your future likelihood of violence courtesy of your shiny new gun?

That's not America. That's fucking Crazy States of Blastmeawayistan.

Some of us would appreciate a culture of life in this country.

Along with liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we think that's pretty goddamn important.

Fuck you and your guns.

Really.

Victorian cats, man. That's really all I wanted to write about tonight.

Not this shit.

Goddamn.

We Are All Better Than This, Yes?

I may have alluded in the past to the fact that some in my spouse's family disowned me after we separated.

Because I am a harpy, or something.

Not all, certainly. And I deeply love and appreciate those who have been supportive and willing to understand the complexities of a dying marriage without condemning the parties involved. Thank you to them.

But there are others. Others who gamely chucked decades of love and friendship when confronted with an emotional scenario more nuanced than your average rom-com.

Remember when Matthew McConaughey wasn't Oscar bait and
only knew how to lean against beautiful women?

Among those was a brother-in-law who dramatically declared me persona non grata for the sin of letting my spouse know that the supposedly confidential conversations he was having with his sister were actually being parroted back to me...by said brother-in-law. Because despite the fact that we were estranged and I had asked for a divorce, I didn't want him to be hurt by idle gossip and violations of his trust.

I am such a bitch that way.

But, you know, I own it.

So I've had zero interaction with the sister-in-law or brother-in-law since then. Sadly, I've also had zero interaction with their two boys, my wonderful nephews. That hurt me more than anything else, but I respected the walls their parents erected.

Fast-forward to this week.

Spouse's sister (a different sister) is getting married for the second time, and far be it from me to comment on how she beat her first marriage into submission. Anyway, spouse's mother demands that spouse attend Trainwreck Part II, so he flew to New York today.

He insisted that I pack his suitcase for him, by the way. And I complied, because in a few weeks I will no longer have to feel terrified of defying his wishes, but I'm not there yet.

Eight weeks, you guys. Eight weeks.

Long story short: He called me from the airport and informed me that "we" had forgotten to pack his dress shoes.

Even longer story even shorter: He said his sister (the one who cut me off) would be flying to New York in a couple of days and could pick up his shoes from our house.

But instead of Bitch Sister contacting Precocious Daughter to coordinate the pickup, I received a phone call from the brother-in-law, who asked if he could pick up the shoes and "have an audience" with me.

I reluctantly agreed.

Shown here: reluctance.

He came over, and we proceeded to have an exceedingly awkward conversation.

I'm pretty sure my point was that I miss my nephews and hope they are doing well.

His point was that...

I have no fucking idea what his point was.

He asked me if I remembered kissing him. (I don't.)

He said he tried to "advocate" for me. (Bullshit detector goes off.)

He said "sorry," but I have no goddamn clue what he's sorry for.

Bottom line: My spouse will have dress shoes to wear to his bitch sister's second attempt at a marriage.

Not going there, personally.

And I helped by having a ridiculous WTF conversation with someone who shit on my head and apparently wants me to tell the world I'm OK with it.

Here's my position. I forgive everybody. But I won't give permission to abuse me to people who abused me in the past. I'm not giving out peace coupons; find your fucking own.

Congratulations to all.

May you be happier than your words and deeds made me.

This Post Is for Sandra Bland

I'm thinking a lot about Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old community activist who died in a Texas jail last week after being arrested for "assault of a public servant."

She loved selfies, and was damn good at them.

On July 10, she was pulled over in Waller County, Texas for failing to signal a lane change. That's an excuse that many law enforcement officers use to meet their quota for traffic stops. Typically those stops end with a warning, providing the offender has a clean record.

I mean, I'm a law-abiding, white, middle-aged woman, and I've been pulled over for having a headlight not working or an expired registration sticker. Each time I've spoken briefly with a polite, respectful law enforcement representative who let me off with a warning.

Apparently my experience is not universal.

I had no idea such a traffic stop could be fatal for those who aren't (like me) middle-aged, white, blond(ish) and blue(ish)-eyed.

Which is what happened to Sandra Bland, who was pulled over for failing to signal a lane change and ended up dead in a jail cell three days later.

Sandra was a young black woman, by the way.

She was forcibly removed from her car, slammed against the ground, taken to jail. Because she improperly signaled a lane change. Because she dared smoke a cigarette in her car. Because a white law enforcement officer couldn't keep his shit against a black driver (?).

Sandra Bland was not just verbally abused, or jailed unjustly, or treated unfairly. Sandra Bland died, you guys. She allegedly killed herself following a traffic stop during which she was verbally and physically abused and treated with gross disrespect by an officer of the law.

How is that even the same lady?

If that had been someone like me, the story would be so very different.

Why?

Sandra Bland was, by all accounts, an intelligent, educated, utterly worthwhile human being.

She died in a Texas jail cell for the crime of irritating a white law enforcement official.

How is that right or fair or just?

Answer: It's not.

Please don't let this post simply fade from your memory. Make it mean something, Drunkards.

Like it, share it, let its topic be known.

It's 2015, and equal treatment under the law still doesn't exist for all.

I can't live with that.

Sandra Bland didn't live because of that.

Can you live with it?

Guest Post: Road Rage Edition

My friend Bill the Butcher asked if he could do another guest post, and I said HELL YEAH because I loved the last one he did. 

Also, it's been a physically and emotionally draining week, and I'm more than happy to take the night off and let Bill bring the awesome to this space.

Bringing it.

As a reminder, Bill is Indian (and no, I don't know why his name is Bill and not Apu or Rajeesh - why don't you ask him?), and he's a hard-core militant leftist agitant. So he's strange and scary, but don't let that put you off. His blog is crazy good.

Here's his guest post. He said I could give it any title I liked.

Stumpy the Squirrel Drinks Antifreeze: A Morality Play

by Bill the Butcher

This happened.

I was driving uphill in heavy traffic. By this I mean I was driving up a steep, steep hill in bumper-to-bumper traffic, on a street so narrow that the vehicles on the other side came close to endangering my driver’s side rear view mirror. By this I mean that my shoulders and neck were seizing up with the effort not to tailgate the vehicle in front or be rammed by the one behind. By this I mean...

...Oh, hey, I should tell you that this was all driving a manual transmission vehicle, shouldn’t I? That would be obvious to anyone in this country, but I suppose manual transmission is rare to nonexistent where this post is going to be read.

(I actually have readers from several
countries, but who the fuck cares?
GO USA. - CB)

Oh yes, so this was when I was already late for something (it doesn’t matter what it was – OK, if you must know, it was a friend and colleague’s wedding) and I wasn’t even sure of the exact location I was supposed to go, and it was getting heavily cloudy and there was lightning on the horizon, so on top of everything else this was likely going to come down in a mass of hail any moment.

No, I wasn’t in the best of moods.

So, sitting there, one foot pressing the clutch pedal to the floor, the other the brake, my hand tapping the steering wheel while nothing bloody moved at all, I started thinking of what I’d do at that moment if I had a tank, like, you know, the quartet of stories I wrote on Alyosha and the Least Famous Tank in the World. This isn’t meant as a plug for that so I won’t put up a link. Anyway, there would have been crushed cars and murder and mayhem.

And I would be laughing.

(You'll have to supply your own maniacal laughter. -CB)

But since I wasn’t in the driver’s seat of a T 34, I began thinking instead of the old Michael Douglas flick, Falling Down. I loved that film. Oh, man, I loved that film. And like Michael Douglas, I had an impulse to just turn off the engine, pull the handbrake, and walk away.

But I didn’t do that, for two reasons. First, I’m not crazy. Second, the car was expensive, and I hadn’t even finished paying for it.

Even if I had walked away, what then? I couldn’t, I’ll bet, find a weapons dealer to sell me a rocket launcher, and I had no plans to commit suicide by cop after meeting a nonexistent estranged wife and daughter.

You see my problem? If I had a weapons supplier to sell me a rocket launcher, with which I could blow up a street, if I had a wife and daughter, hell, if I even had a gun with which to threaten a fast food place for not supplying me breakfast at lunchtime, I might have walked away from the damned car. I could have done a Falling Down on my own, or at least a "J'pète les plombs" by Disiz. I could have had my own sociopathic movie or rap video, man.

Instead I was sitting in this damned car, watching the morons crawl by, and getting more and more pissed off by the moment.

 

(They say "pissed off" in India?
Shit's getting educational up in here. -CB)

Now, right in front of me was this truck. I thought overloaded trucks were banned from town streets, but this is India and this is the hicktown capital of India, where the rules are only remarkable if someone follows them by accident. This truck was not only overloaded, the load was obviously not even properly secured, because the entire bed was tilting to one side on the chassis. Like it was going to topple over in a minute. And it was belching such clouds of smoke I’d suggest the army take it to lay down a smokescreen if we ever go to war with anyone again.

But then it would be a deadly chemical warfare agent, what with all that carbon monoxide. It was giving me a headache from three vehicles back, so all one would have to do is turn it towards the Pakista...I mean, whoever we were fighting...lines, and let the engine rip, after which all we’d need to do was get ready for the war crimes trials. Thanks, baby.

By this time I’d obviously miss the wedding anyway, so I decided to turn around and go home. Only, I couldn’t turn around and go home, you know, because I bloody well didn’t have the space to turn the car. So now I was stuck on this slope, cars to back of me, truck to front of me, cars to right of me, volleyed by carbon monoxide and thundered from above. Lord Tennyson had nothing on it.

(Wait, you say "bloody well," but you don't call
a truck a lorry? What kind of former
 Imperial subject are you? -CB)

It was at that moment that I had a kind of epiphany.

Do you remember the Imperial Walkers or whatever the hell they were called in The Empire Strikes Back? I’m a Trekkie, I hated the Star Wars series, so I may be wrong in the proper designation, but you know what I’m talking about, don’t you? The dinosaurlike machine things topheavily walking across the ice planet Hoth.

No, I am not suggesting someone invent a real mechanical tailless Brachiosaurus. In fact that’s the opposite of what I am suggesting. But a car which could put out, um, legs like tarantulas and crawl over other traffic would be nice, don’t you think? Someone get together with me and make a plan. Someone with more mechanical engineering knowledge than I have, I mean. That’s not a feat.

(Here you go. His name is Stompy. You're welcome. -CB)

I even have a name for this crawling car. In fact, I didn’t have to go looking far for it. It would be popular, right? A lot of people might buy it? And it would crawl like an insect?

Right...people’s car and insect. What does that suggest? Something...

Badum-TISS.

This is Chuck again. Ever heard French rap?  Check it out:

First Things First

Regular readers know that this has been a tough week for me.

Tougher than gator hide.

And I want to say that your messages of concern and support have meant so much to me. And also to say that I'm fine. Really. And I am in no physical danger. In fact, I deleted the post that, in retrospect, seemed to suggest that I was. I am afraid in my current situation, yes, but only because I fear change and I fear anger. To me, anger is a violent emotion, but that's the only violence I'm threatened with.

Still, thank you for having my back. I wish I could hug each of you and buy you a Coke.

I never cease to be amazed what you can find on the Internet.

And now...today we lost Leonard Nimoy, which to me is a tragedy far worse than anything happening in my little life.

I absolutely will eulogize that great man in this space.

But first I had to get this other stuff squared away.

Thanks again, Drunkards.

Talking Marriage Equality, Starring Nutty People

Kory Watkins, not content to be the hilariously inept poster man-child for open carry of handguns in Texas, instead wants to be the hilariously inept poster man-child for all sorts of libertarian hijinks.

Like protecting the Constitution with rap.

KoKo is a member of NORML, because he opposes outdated government prohibitions on the possession and use of marijuana for medical and recreational purposes. And also really likes to smoke weed. The DFW chapter of NORML held a rally in Austin earlier this week (and you should click on the link, because the writer of the headline deserves a great big prize for awesomeness), and Kory was there. Which you would know if you follow his Facebook page, but not if you read the article I linked to.

I suspect Shaun McAlister, who organized the rally, slipped the reporter a rather large baggie of sticky bud to please, please, PLEASE leave Kory's name out of the article. Because his last few trips to Austin have demonstrated an uncanny grasp of self-promotion over, you know, lucidity.



Good on NORML for recognizing that having KoKo on your side is like having an orangutan riding shotgun: Lots of great photo ops, but you're equally likely to have your face ripped off.

Clint Eastwood (R-Empty Chair) grossly misled us.

And now Kory Watkins has weighed in on the subject of gay marriage.

Get your popcorn.

Getting pretty tired of the Michael Jackson
meme, you know?

This week Texas issued its first same-sex marriage license. Kind of. It's a pretty convoluted story (read about it here), but the upshot is that Republican heads are exploding because one white dude outsmarted another white dude to make it happen.

Well, KoKo, ever the champion of small government and individual rights, took to his Facebook page and posted this:

And actually, yeah, if you're going to be a libertarian, this is exactly what you should think about the whole issue. Good on you, Kory Watkins.

But while KoKo may believe he's the ideological leader of a throng of like-minded souls who follow his teachings as if he were Christ in a trilby, the reality is that most gun nuts (not gun owners, per se, but extremist wingnuts) could care less about ideology. They are for the most part narrow-minded reactionaries who don't want anybody pointing out that violent misandry is not protected by any part of the Constitution.

I know, them's big words. Try not to shoot the dictionary
as you look them up.

To his credit, KoKo understands that open carry of firearms is one small issue in a larger value system that abhors intrusive government. What he doesn't understand is that such nuances are lost on many of the illiterate rednecks who follow him on Facebook.

To cut to the chase: A lot of gun nuts don't like teh gays.

Oh, some of them try to deflect.

And some of them, er, I think try to be supportive in their syntactically challenged way.

(By the way, I'm not sure what "publice" are, but may I suggest you patronize a higher class of tavern if these are a problem?)

Apparently this gentleman believes that being gay should be a religion, and also that the Second Amendment somehow explains this.

But at least he gets that gay couples are not out to loot and pillage your land.

Uh-oh, someone's been listening to anti-gay talking points!

And someone's been listening to anti-gay talking points AND reading lots of Ayn Rand. Possibly while taking lots of drugs! (tl;dr: Them faggots is destroying America.)

I'd like to suggest that this lady move out of her current neighborhood, because the North American Man-Boy Love Association is not considered "mainstream" where I hang out. Just sayin.

Also, if she thinks every TV show has homosexuals, someone should tell her that there actually are other channels besides LOGO.

Remember, this started out as Kory Watkins' statement that the government shouldn't be in the business of denying same-sex marriages.

Really.

And we've reached Godwin's Law. I think we're done here.

OK, just one more.

This is America, Sergio. Everybody has the ability to succeed. But I think perhaps you meant "secede," in which case, secessionary movements in our nation's history historically have failed as the result of a majority desire in those states to preserve the union.

Yeah.

In short, America: Where everyone has the right to express his or opinion, and I have the right to make fun of your atrocious grasp of the English language.

Thanks as always to Kory Watkins for being an endless inspiration to this blog.