Gilt

Prep for surgery
Oh, my darlin' clemency
Two breaths, here we go.

Weren't We Just Discussing This?

Met up with friends at a local lounge last night. I was the only girl in the group and I was seated on the couch between Kyle and another fellow. At one point, I got up to use the restroom and when I came out, I saw some drunk older woman sitting where I'd been. And the guys were all sitting very still, looking a little tense. I had no clue what the heck was going on. The drunk lady got up, babbled a bit to me, I shook her hand and babbled back and then she wandered off and I sat back down.

Turns out, she came and sat and immediately put her hand on Kyle's thigh. And Kyle picked her hand off him and told her not to touch him. She laughed it off and said something like 'Don't get mean'. But Kyle was pissed. And the other lads began to have a concern that things might get ugly quickly. They didn't, I came back and there you have it.

Kyle kept talking about it on the way home. Short comments like 'I can't believe that bitch touched me', over and over. And I realized - he was genuinely upset by it. And I also realized that I was an idiot for being surprised about that fact.

Kyle said 'I can't imagine being a girl'. We talked about it some more, and he was pretty amazed at how awful it would be if some drunk old man sat down next to a girl and groped her thigh. If the genders had been reversed, it would've been so bad. But, I think it was bad regardless of gender.

He didn't break down and sob, and there was no lasting trauma or whatever. But he didn't like a stranger touching him with familiarity and he didn't like her playing it off like he was the bad one for not accepting or reciprocating it. And both of us seemed preconditioned to laugh and forget about it or not care that it happened, and when Kyle kept mentioning it because it was genuinely bothering him, we both realized that such preconditioning doesn't hold water.

So, now that's two instances of women forcing their shit onto people who didn't ask for it. The one from yesterday pisses me off on a higher level because she's doing what she's protesting against. But both are gross.

Fuck You Whore

I saw this on a friend's Facebook.

THIS PISSES ME OFF.

When a guy exposes himself to strangers, it's a traumatizing, reprehensible, vile thing.

When this whore does it, it's Feminism and Anti-Body Shaming and A Fierce Statement About Rape.

Fuck you. You don't speak for me. You aren't all women. I refuse to be represented by someone who feels it's okay to force her naked stupid gross exhibitionist crap on the public. I don't want to see a random guy's dick; I don't want to see your nasty taped titties and your smug little smirk. Put some goddamn clothes on and have the same respect for those who don't want you to force your tits on them that you supposedly do for the women you think you know who don't want to be sexually harassed.

Nobody around you, unless you fucking polled each person in whatever downtown you're skanky ass is in, asked to see your tit-diatribe. You just did EXACTLY what you're protesting.

Stop being a whore. I am ashamed to share a gender with you.

Lady Consumptia

I've now had this cough for 5 weeks and it is getting worse. I've done a course of antibiotics, used a humidifier, enjoyed the pleasures of a Neti pot, and taken liberal OTC medicines (as well as codeine), all to no avail. So, today I went to get chest X-rays. When the technician looks at the proof after he's taken your Xray, winces and says 'Ooog'...

They won't get to my doctor for a day or two. I am really unhappy. I can't laugh, sing, talk for more than a few seconds, my tongue is blistered from all the cough drops and the amount of sugar from so many of them is making me nauseous, and I can't sleep.

It wasn't this bad a couple days ago - in fact, I had thin, bleary hope that I was getting better. Then things just plummeted.

This sucks. I've started hating life.

Hibiscus

I like tea

And comings and goings

Of all those little twinges that press

Themselves onto me, bad lovers, and

Share-crop out my moments of joy.

I admire the paper pokes of words

That seem classic in their niftiness

Nothing is nifty any more. Blame

The distraction of mortality.

There is a sea before me

And, too impatient to let evaporation

Make salt crystals of the whole mess

I palm the foam off the top and use that

For memories, for decomposition

The corpses of merfolk.

I snap petals, if they’re meaty enough

The thinner breeds I roll into pulp

None are safe from my unwashed fingers.

A massacre of blooms, here in the garden

Why unseemly

Just because I prefer to murder flowers

At the blossom, instead of the stem?

My Kinda Gal

Yesterday I was in the Barnes & Noble bathroom, and someone had written on the stall wall:

I <3 him so much i could cry

It just knocked me over (not literally). The fact that she was sitting bare-assed on a toilet, peeing or pooing, and felt compelled to write that is just...how great IS that?!

And what if she wasn't using the facilities? What if she just got overwhelmed and had to duck into the stall and write it? Just as good. No matter what scenario you conjure, it's beautiful.

Definitely the most romantic thing I have seen in a long time. 

Nothing In Life Owes You Anything, Including Movies

It may seem absolutely unthinkable that I can support Michael Bay and tear down two of the three Batman movies. Or, it's thinkable, but the thought is just that I have ghastly taste. I'd like to offer a defense.

Movies do not owe you anything. You are not entitled to be moved, impressed, captivated, made to think, or even entertained by a film. That may be the director/writer/actor's intent for the end result, and it may happen, but you are not ever once guaranteed that will happen. Because they don't owe you shit.

You know who they owe? Two groups - the studio from whom they borrowed money and now need to repay plus profit so they can continue to have a job by getting another film backed, and/or the artistic elite who will hand them the awards that recognize and validate their art. They may be pleased that you went to see their movie; they may feel gratified, but the never once felt a duty or obligation that compelled them to make their film because you personally are entitled to watching a good movie.

To me, that's reasonable. I did nothing to earn the right to be given awesome films. The film industry knows we're not entitled to good movies, which is why we have Chris Rock singing about an afro - they don't care about our being enlightened through cinema any more than McDonald's cares about our health.

So, knowing that filmmakers don't owe us a good movie, and knowing they know that, we get down to honesty and transparency.

Michael Bay does not lie to us. At all. He doesn't say 'Transformers is really a metaphor for the transity of life, the idea that our hold on this earthly plane is tenuous at lest and that we are dangling precariously over Nietzsche's Abyss. Also, Megatron is supposed to be the incarnation of America's rape culture." No. He says 'BOOM'. And that's what you get. Do you think it's shit? Go ahead. I won't disagree. The dialogue's  badly written, the plot makes no sense, the fight scenes gave me a headache because they were shot so crazily, the villain has zero on-screen presence and is boring as shit...

Oh, sorry. I forgot for a minute if I was describing Transformers or Batman Begins.

And there's my point, after all this rambling. I will defend a filmmaker who makes crap blockbusters, as long as there's transparency. I may still call it shit, and it may still be shit, but because I am not entitled to good movies, I'll support someone who has the self-awareness to deliver exactly what he was expected to deliver. Have you ever once had any question about what you're about to see when you walk into a Michael Bay film? No? Good on him, then. All that man wants is to blow shit up and make the US military look awesome. He does that every single time.

Transformers did not disappoint me. Begins and Rises absolutely did. I may not be entitled to good movies, but I was told the latter films were meant to be so. Nolan made them out to be outstanding cinema, and they are still the only two films I have ever wanted to walk out of. And I saw Warriors of Virtue in the theater, folks. So, I will defend Michael Bay because he makes shitty films that at least are totally benign and transparent. Begins and Rises are just shitty. So, SO shitty.