Lips, Unzipped is a space for self-expression and open dialogue. It is a space where one can unlock inner thoughts and ideas and delve into the deeper world of conversation and innovation. Unzip your lips and hear the magic revealed through the art of communication.
NOW is YOUR chance to VOTE for your favorite outfit that I will wear to Pervertable Tongues' Thursday show at the Bottom Lounge, 1375 W. Lake Street, (October 1st). Doors Open at 8. 4 Bands. 21+.
Please add your comment below by selecting one of the four options. The top vote will be worn.
Make it to the show for the reveal. If you're extra special Ryan will lick you...
Cds will be available there for $10 with $5 going directly to the Feminist Creative Alliance.
Take a listen at www.myspace.com/pervertabletongues
Also available on i-tunes.
Please come support local (feminist-inspired) music.
If you have any questions email Krystal at stalher03@yahoo.com
That’s right Men. Every time you rub one out, bop the bishop, beat your meat, choke your chicken, flog one’s log, wank it off, you KILL BABIES. Millions of babies DIE every second when you jerk your Johnson. All you male masturbators are all going to HELL, MURDERERS!!!! And the funniest part is that even if you try to control it, it controls YOU, ever wake up after a wet dream, 200 million babies—dead. You think God is going to forgive you, even if it was an “accident” THINK AGAIN. Imagine your flesh being burned slowly off your body. That’s what the babies feel when you “paint the ceiling” and throw them absentmindedly all over your bedroom, or bathroom, or wherever it is you like to spank your monkey. How completely evil of you. If I had any control I’d clog up your urethral opening so as to prevent you from killing any more cute innocent baby-children, but of course that would prevent you from urinating and eventually YOU would DIE, but it would be worth it because I would save so many more lives, and since you’re already alive, you are no longer important and God really truly hates you.
Right. Let's just completely sexually repress ourselves to save lives that don't actually exist, instead of taking care of the people who actually do...
Reading Curve Magazine’s “Lesbian Fall TV Preview” the other day I found it almost disturbing how hard they were reaching to find any representation of queerness on television. The subheading reads “brace yourself ladies, your tv is about to get very very gay,” but the lineups don’t get very gay at all. In fact, in almost every instance the woman represented is bisexual or a lesbian in her personal life but isn’t playing one on screen.
I do not find bisexuality to be a problematic label, but I do find it problematic that television writers (House, Bones, Melrose Place, etc.) choose to make the female characters “bisexual” not to be edgy or politically correct, but to boast ratings. Why can’t any of these females be actual lesbians? Because people can’t handle the fact that they may not really deep down like the cock and bisexuality gives the opportunity for an almost pornographic male fantasy—will she make-out with another woman today—let’s watch and find out!
It is thrilling though to at least be making waves in the heteronormative media, though there is a lot more work to be done to break the hetero/homo binary and allow fluidity of sexuality to run the market place. I mean how many more great story-lines exist in the different realms of sexuality that lack any tv time? Seriously. There are so many more ways to create drama in a show. For example, polyamory: how much love is enough love? Or weird sex fetishes (that don’t start or end with someone’s death like on those SVU shows) or Queer lifestyles in general--an entire reality tv show dedicated to this would be awesome.
The world of television needs to expand, needs to become more inclusive, and needs to tackle more alternative lifestyles to show the beauty in diversity. We don’t need 87 different investigative crime shows, do we? Even if one out of the 87 has a bisexual woman in it, it doesn’t make it any better necessarily than those who don’t. What would make a show better is if it went against the norms and exposed the world to alternatives that people may have never imagined before, shows that are both enlightening and entertaining. Very few today do that, with queer people in them or not.
I’ve never suffered from what Freud would call “penis envy” not in the literal physical sense anyway, perhaps in the more metaphorical way that the penis seems to represent power and control in our culture. Of course, like all curious creatures, I have wondered what it feels like to have a penis, to penetrate and ejaculate and all the weird stuff that penis do. So. At the drag ball I stuffed myself. I would have to admit having a penis is hard…. (I’ll allow you to come up with your own boner joke here). Perhaps my sock was too big, but it kept moving around in my pants, never staying where I wanted it to and making me walk weird everywhere I went. Having a penis and attempting to dance “like a man” proved more difficult of a task. I never realized how closely knit I kept my body parts as a female, when I dance I keep everything together in a simple flow, though while trying to imitate masculinity all my moves were boxy and completely unnatural.
To me, having a penis-sock for one night made me realize why many men have power issues. Women are connected to their bodies, to nature, to birth and men have little understanding of this. Instead of embracing women’s’ contributions to society they downplay women’s worth so as to feel more important about themselves. Of course this is a simple generalization, but in my observations men in our culture are allowed only a few representations of emotions; they’re taught they should always be rational, linear, strong, powerful, in complete control. Men are only allowed to show masculine qualities. My question is if men, generally speaking, showed more of a balance between masculine and feminine traits would life really be so bad for them? What actually would happen if they let go of control for a moment. Surely what hangs down between their legs can’t possible have that much control over their actions and reactions.
I understand the discomfort, but I can never understand why women should be envious of that. Maybe the “penis envy” theory is just a Freudian cover-up of the real issue, that of feminine jealousy. The regret men have due to the fact that they feel confined to particular roles that they never wanted to play… or never got the option to play anything else.
In any case. I am happy to have a detachable penis that I never have to attach again. Being a man isn’t necessarily that challenging (except when it comes to dancing), but I have better skills and training as a woman--or as a person who has the opportunity to balance both femininity and masculinity and create an identity that is somewhere in between the gender divide. Where everyone should at least attempt to go.
The Vagina Cake I made for Nyal's (Ryan's brothers) Birthday! Very simple--cut the rectangle into a diamond than just star-tip icing around it in different shades of vag until you're done. I also added extra bling bling for the clitoris, since that's the most important part of desert...
Can be done in any flavor--but strawberry makes the most sense...
It's All in the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation
Tomorrow marks the occasion for the first EVER Feminist Creative Alliance fundraiser: Changing Seasons, Changing Genders Drag Ball. The likes of Justin Timberlake, Madonna, Dirty ole’ Tramps and other beautiful faces will be gracing the event so make it over if you’re in the Chicago area. It’s a house party or to be more accurate an apartment party at my place and since it’s at my place I must prepare the space.
Party Proofing derives from the same basic concepts of Baby Proofing. Remove breakables and small objects people could stick in their mouths and choke on *insert lame penis-pun here*.When I have a party there are particular steps I take to ensure that both the guests and myself have a fascinating life-enhancing time.
First. Pre-cleaning. This is less scrubbing and more picking up. Essentially just hide and store anything you don’t want people to 1)steal (jewelry, electronics etc.) 2)break (things made of glass ,etc.) 3)talk about (books, movies, cds) sometimes you just may not be in the mood to discuss Foucault or the hidden meanings in Lady Gaga lyrics and if that is the case get said items off your coffee table or turn them around on your shelves. Once everything is picked up or moved out RELAX. No need to dust or vacuum or mop the floors (unless you never clean—then you may want to consider it), but there is no need to do said cleaning rituals before a party because your place is going to get destroyed and you’ll have to repeat it all the next day anyway.
Second. Inebriation and Gluttony. Liquor and food. Have lots of both, but don’t go into stringent on the details of either. No need to make complicated recipes, keep it simple. No one cares what they’re eating when they’re drunk just as long as they’re eating something. I say stick with the salt family—chips, pretzels, crackers, nuts *insert lame cock joke now*.
Third. Theme. Make it mean something. Make it special so the memory lasts longer. Plus it makes conversation easier at later times, instead of saying “remember that one time at one of Krystal’s parties—I can’t remember which one because they’re all so similar” they will say, “remember that time at the Underwear Party when Marcus* pooped himself—or whatever event actually took place (*I don’t actually party with anyone named Marcus).
Fourth. Time. Whatever time you make it, people will not show up then, they will show up way later. Maybe it’s for fashion sake, but I think people just move slow before they’re going out—they seem to need to meditate on the idea of being social—it’s fine with me as long as they eventually show up.
Fifth. Intoxicate yourself.
Sixth. Go with the flow.
Seventh. Dance.
Eighth. Go to sleep.
Nine. Post-cleaning. After the hang-over has subsided (or right when you get out of bed) Start. Don’t fuck around with the mess, get it over with. Begin with all the cups and plates and similar like trash. Then scrub-a-dub-dub all the floors, tables, chairs, and probably the bathroom if it was a good party (and it should have been if you followed the last 8 suggestions), then of course, bring back out everything you had stored away.
Ten. Reward yourself for a party well done. I suggest greasy food to help with the riddance of said hangover.
So there you have it—a simply way to host a great night.
And what would make this upcoming party even better is your attendance. So drag your feet on over and enjoy the ball.
All proceeds go to help the Feminist Creative Alliance-- a newly formed non-profit arts organization looking to raise money for 501c3 status. Seriously. This is a party you don’t want to miss… For more info—message me.
There’s an old saying that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
But Engagement Chicken? What. The. Fuck.
According to Glamour Magazine if you bake a whole chicken with lemon juice, salt and pepper within days… DAYS, your heterosexual male mate will drop a ring (bling bling) on your finger (will drop ring even faster if you pair it will hook-him apple pie). It’s magical. I guess. If you’re into coercion through food.
Do women want to get married so badly that they’re willing to kill a chicken because of it? That poor chicken, what did it ever do to deserve to die over some sort of scheming love tacit? This isn’t even witchcraft, it is pure evilfembotcraft and it needs to stop.
There are plenty of obvious problems with the “engagement chicken” obviously there is the vegetarian stand-point as well the typical hetero-normative conformation taking place. Which happens as the woman hints through the chicken that she wants the man FOREVER without her just gaining any type of feministic courage and asking HIM to marry HER instead. But, that wouldn’t be romantic or traditional now would it? And for some reason it’s hard for people to think outside the box—both the fem box and ring box.
Man wants fem box, woman wants ring box together heterosexual normativity is born and manifests in cyclical fashion over and over and over again.
Until the day the bling bling loses its shine and reality sets; you realize perhaps you’ve eaten too many whole chickens and the outcome of the engagement wasn’t as happy and magical as the fairytale of your dreams.
So hetero-women everywhere before you get to baking that chicken perhaps take a moment to reflect as to why you are attempting to subtlety hint through a dead bird your need for the ring. In the end you may realize that a natural loving bond is more important than settling with some man just because it’s the “traditional”, “normal” thing to do.
I recently moved to a new city and I’ve been finding it rather difficult to meet new people, how can I make this happen?
Whether the new move happens for educational reasons, career obligations or just simply for a change of scenery making new friends and finding interesting people can be a challenge.
The most difficult task is simply taking a risk and talking to people. I know personally, I have an issue with talking to strangers, but the only way to make them mean something is to ask them something; get a conversation started. Usually you can determine whether they are worth hanging out with again in a matter of minutes and then just act accordingly by either walking away if they’re lame or giving out your number if they seem cool. Making new friends is almost more difficult than finding lovers because you can’t show friends how much you like them by sticking your tongue in their mouths, instead there has to be a greater mental connection, which happens through stimulating the humor, intelligence and common interests you and the other person share.
Here are ten great ways to find that stimulation.
1) Coffee Shops—though a bit awkward at first, if you see someone reading a magazine you as well enjoy you, drinking some weird looking beverage that could be good, typing some intensive screenplay or whatever you can interrupt and start up a convo about said interests.
2) Music Venues—obviously you share the same taste in music, and of course, a similar love ofmusic is the most important aspect of any great friend, so those who are at the same concert as you allows the perfect opportunity to narrow down the crowd and find someone humorous or intelligent to talk to while the bands are in between sets… this is usually based purely on appearance—though sometimes looks can be deceiving, drinking can help.
3) Art Openings—they have free wine and food. Even if you don’t meet anyone and the art sucks at least there is free alcohol. But generally art openings are perfect spaces for dialogue with people who generally are liberal-minded and open to new experiences.
4) Working at a crappy restaurant—the benefit of having a service-industry job is that you can often meet a lot of people who are as bitter and cynical as you. If you are not bitter and cynical than perhaps steer clear of the service industry sector or you will surely become that way. Anyway, after a long terrible shift full of bad tips and gross eaters you and your fellow servers/cooks/hosts etc. can go hit the town and complain about how much life sucks.
5) Craigslist—not for their weird personal ads section, but for the community section which lists classes and activities where you can select events that peak your interest. I suggest taking some type of class like yoga or cooking.
6) Craigslist also offers the “creative callings” which is also a great way to meet people that share similar mind sets when it comes to artistic endeavors. Or you can start your own artistic endeavor and meet people that way—Ryan started painted people and made all sorts of friends, as just one example.
7) Volunteer—not only will you feel good about your altruism, but you’ll also meet people who are out to feel good too—oh and there is the helping-others-thing that’s sort of important.
8) Attend a Lecture/Book Reading—many colleges and libraries have speakers come through on a regular basis, attend one that sounds interesting, perhaps it will be and perhaps there will be other people of interest as well. If not, they usually also have free food and sometimes even wine.
9) Get a dog. You’ll always have someone near you and it will give people a conversation starter when you’re walking down the street especially if said dog is particularly cute, fluffy and hops rather than walks. If you are in a building that can’t have dogs, become a dog walker—same gist.
10) Start a band. Then you’ll at least have three or so other people to hang out with even if you eventually hate them all. Also once your band starts playing shows you’ll meet people who want to be your friend just because you are in a band.
So. There you have it. Ten ways to possible meet new people—well you will definitely meet new people, whether you like them or not, well that’s up to you.
The top photo is a vulva Elizabeth found at Mammoth Cave National Park in Louisiana. I find it to be rather realistic, though of course in massive proportions to the original vulva template.
And the other image is from Allin--representing femininity and beauty in our vulva-proud city of Chicago.
Vulvas are taking OVER! Subtlety and slowly, but surely.
Has anyone actually stepped into American Apparel? It looks like the Jane Fonda Workout threw up all over the place. My God. Did people forget that scrunchies aren’t actually cool? And they don’t make you look clever or funny when you wear them, actually they make you look silly and make it seem as if you are attempting to be hipper than you probably are. Even when you put them with your matching fanny pack—which I agree with my friend Jess that the fanny pack would come in handy while dancing at a bar or concert or whatever--but if you’re putting it with all the other 80’s Fonda-wear--it’s a little hard to handle.
I know, I know, the clothes are made in America and are “sweatshop free” blah blah, but you would think that someone from America would have a bit more creativity and be able to muster up something new in fashion instead of retreating back into decades that already experienced several fashion disasters—shoulder pads as an example--probably the most unflattering and ridiculous looking item of clothing. But still, expect American Apparel to return the shoulder pad to the American public with a strong utter vengeance that makes women everywhere start perming and feathering their hair to make their heads look bigger than their now monstrous shoulders.
Don’t expect me to be purchasing them, I already look like a line-backer thanks to my fabulous strong-armed mother.
But seriously… what the fuck is up with fashion? I am at a loss. I can’t pull off the tuck-in shirt pulled=up skirt look. Those weird scarf wrapping handkerchief neck ties also make me look like an idiot. And leotards and body suits? AHHHH!
Today, while jogging, my i-pod kept shuffling Sleater-Kinney songs. I thought perhaps I had it specified to only play Sleater-Kinney so I tried to fix it, but it didn’t matter, my i-pod really wanted me to listen to them, probably because they’re kick ass amazing. So I considered it a sign to do some reflecting and write about how often their songs help me through the day as I generally do not make it through a day without
listening to at least one of their tunes.
Whenever I want to feel connected to the world and laugh at all the bullshit I listen to “Modern Girl” from The Woods and I go buy me a doughnut cuz the hole is the size of the entire world.
“My baby loves me
I’m so happy
happy makes me a modern girl
I took my money and bought a tv
tv brings me closer to the world”
Along the same lines—when I am mad at the patriarchy (which is quite often) I really LOVE to jam out to #1 Must Haves (amongst others) on All Hands on the Bad One
“All and i think that i sometimes might have wished
for something more than to be a size six
but now my inspiration rests
inbetween my beauty magazines
and my credit card bills
I've been crawling up so long
on your stairway to heaven
and now i no longer believe
that i want to get in
and will there always be concerts
where women are raped?
watch me make up my mind instead of my face
the number one must have is that we are safe”
When I am in the need to run long and far One Beat—the entire album… keeps me in rhythm and rocking
for as far as I want to go.
“If you think like Thomas Edison could you invent a word for me
now all that’s on the surface are bloody arms and oil fields
could I turn this place upside down
and shake you and your fossils out? oh, oh.”
When I have had a bad day at work... okay when I used to have bad days at work, now I do nothing of the sort, I would listen to this upon leaving the building and it always made me feel better. Now I listen to it whenever I am in large crowds of people.
“Jumpers” The Woods
“I spend the afternoon in cars
I sit in traffic jams for hours
don’t push me I am not okay
The sky is blue most every day
the lemons grow like tumors, they are tiny suns infused with sour”
Before any performance or speech I do I like to have “Entertain” pulse through my ears and stimulate my brain so I can go into it with an attitude and rock people's socks off.
“So you want to entertain,
please look away (don’t look away)
we’re not here cause we want to entertain
go away (don’t go away)
Reality is the new fiction they say
truth is truer these days, truth is man-made
If you’re here cause you want to be entertained
Go away, please go away” The Woods
Those are just of the few reasons I listen, lust and love Sleater-Kinney. I wish they would reunite and run this world… but I guess if they don’t want to play anymore I’ll do my best to create my own music and hope it inspires others as much as S-K has inspired me.
“All our little wishes have gone dry
Made it to the water, waded in the lies
When we felt the heat
Couldn't turn it into fire
Too caught up in our own desires
Said "I Do" in the month of May
said "I Don't" the very next day
Will they try again?
Or is it doom for them?
Moved to a city
Where hippies run wild
Everything's white
Now so are the smiles
They tried, to fight the good fight” “Wilderness”, The Woods
This might be a stretch, but I think we can all make out a certain vulva-eqsueness about my tv antenna. Perhaps a giant clitoris or a giant vaginal hole, in anycase here it is--another vulvacentric image taking over our world! Consider all the receiving it does...
Today my lover/artist/musician/partner/boyfriend returns. He was missing. For an entire month. Okay. He wasn’t missing as much as he was hiding. Hiding in our creative room, aka guest room, painting his little soul out. And now he’s back! Because the paintings are all done. All ten of them (yes TEN NEW PAINTINGS) and I got to see them first (as well as critique and question him muhaha). In any case, I am writing to inform you of their awesomeness and to let you know that you too could have the opportunity to see them (and even buy them if you’re extra special) this weekend at the Fall smART Show located in the beautiful Wicker Park area of Chicago at Sapere Art 341 in the Flat Irons Building 1579 Milwaukee Ave. The Show Friday starts around 7. We’ll be getting there around 8—if you want to meet the talented artist (and his muse, haha).
There’s a $5 entrance fee but if you go here you can print off a coupon:
And don’t worry there are 150 other artists displaying there work so there will be plenty to see, as well as music to hear and weird looking people to gawk at.
Tonight my first evening of classes was scheduled to start. I guess I took too long of a break because I definitely have gotten a bit rusty in the whole campus-life game. To be fair to myself the entire night was not entirely my fault and I took affirmative action so as not to sit idly by and watch life pass. In any case, I will begin with my first failure as a returning graduate student.
For the past two years all of my writing classes have been in one building on DePaul’s campus-- but for the life of me I could not remember its name and didn’t look it up because my internet has been being a bitch lately. So, as usual I began walking the typical way to my writing classes feeling in my soul that this was the wrong direction and the way I was going was not going to lead me to where I needed to be.
I got in front of the usual writing classes building hoping that it would be the building I needed, Byrne Hall, to discover that I was of course, wrong and I was standing in front of McGaw Hall, duh. It all came back to me. Byrne Hall is where I used to have all of my Women and Gender Studies classes so I was just assbackwards starting out the term. Yay me.
I then rushed to the other side of campus (which made me almost pee my pants in anxiety)
Upon entering the almost full classroom all heads turned back to look at me. Awkward. Then they turned away quickly so as to not make any eye contact. I found the one left-handed desk in the room still empty (wohoo) and took my seat in the very quiet almost-meditatively nervous room. We sat there in silence FOREVER. People started looking at each other. One person even asked another a question. 20 minutes in and I knew that we were not getting a professor. I went to the front of the room, asking along the way if anyone had a i-phone so they could look online instead of me. No one volunteered.
Then they all stared at me as I attempted to figure out what had gone wrong. I checked my email. Nothing. I checked campus connect. We were all where we were supposed to be….except of course the professor. I even tried to call Sirles on my cell phone that had no service…double awkward—not only were all the students staring at me, but I had to have a static-filled conversation with the head of the Writing Department.
Unable to connect with Sirles. I attempted calling back on the land-line phone hanging on the wall. This is the nightmare moment. The moment where you’re basically standing up in front of everyone naked (which I would have actually rather done to tell you the truth) because I couldn’t figure out how to dial out. I tried every possible combination, but to no avail. I failed.
I gave up and someone else called him—where she of course accomplished the goal.
Class was canceled. The professor neglected to send out an email to let us know and no one put signs up on the door.
What a great way to start my final year of graduate school, acting, looking and feeling like a total idiot. I wasted my time, my money and my dignity (that f-ing wall phone I shake my fist at you) Oh well. I hope I can just dust this one off and move on to bigger and better experiences—like learning something.
Maybe even if it's only how to use technology to my advantage...
I heard somewhere that changing your hair style is an indication of an alteration in thinking, perhaps that’s why I’ve changed it so much in my life… but it is interesting to think of people who can pull off many different looks and people who really look good in just one particular hair style. It doesn’t necessarily signify that that person isn’t thinking any differently than the day before just that their hair is incapable of accentuating their features in any other flattering manner.
Hair is generally more important to people than I would like to give it credit for. Tyra even went weave-less today to prove that natural hair is beautiful—though I have to say just because, you Tyra are beautiful, doesn’t mean the hair you’ve been hiding from people for over a decade is…though kudos for “taking risks”.
Which brings up the vital philosophical argument of what is beauty? We then have to get into a debate about binaries and about cultural and socioeconomic influences. ergh. So, in a sense, my ideas of beauty are both socially implanted in my brain as well as individuated through experiences and ideas not similar to any one else—the advantage of a singular North American life. And is this wrong—no because it’s where I stand and what I know. It doesn’t make my view have any more or less significance than any of other person besides the fact that I have the ability to share it with multiple people through advancements in technology.
Here are some things that I find beautiful:
Rambunctiousness D.I.Y artistic expression (of most kinds) martinis my friends because why would I hang out with ugly people? my family because why would ugly people be related to me? trees in all seasons, but especially when they’re falling clouds when they’re rolling puppy dogs and rainbows and unicorns (for Amanda) people who stay gray egalitarianism polyamory (I don’t know if I could do it, but I’d admire those who can) boobs water in all its different forms peace and quiet loud and intelligent music Sleater-Kinney Yeah Yeah Yeahs Bikini Kill The Gossip The Ettes Patti Smith
Feminists…. well, most of them, like Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Donna Harroway etc.
Baked potatoes Romaine lettuce Carrots Cyborgs Long walks short walks chocolate and
Long lists…
What do you find beautiful? List away if you please…
I couldn’t find any bagels at the store that I wanted or could afford so I made them myself. I have never before made bagels and it was actually way easier than I had imagined.
I used my bread machine recipe; once the dough was done I shaped them into balls, flattened them and put a hole in the middle. Then I let them sit for ten minutes. Once they had gotten enough rest I threw them in hot boiling water for a minute so they'd plump up nice and big for me. Once fully plump and pretty I took them out of the pot, glazed them with seeds and popped them in the oven until brown.
Then I ate them all up. They were delicious and much better than anything at a regular ole grocery store. (okay I didn't eat them all at once, but they will be gone soon, especially with Ryan around.)
I don’t know what came over me, well nothing came over me, but last night after discovering I had no Netflix movies left to watch, no shows on television worth bothering with, and no internet working, I decided to observe porn. Over a handful of pornos have been floating around in the bottom of a secret drawer since before Ryan and I have moved in to this apartment, they belong to the previous owner, along with a framed photograph, a one-use camera (that I really want to develop, but am scared to) and a server’s apron. When we found them, there was a debate about what to do—calling them up and saying “hey you left your porn here” just seemed a little, well, weird. So we left it, unopened except when we gave tours to good friends and wanted to make them laugh and feel awkward.
Finally, last night after 3 martinis I decided “fuck it”, I’m going to watch one of those dirty nasty movies, but which one? There were so many options, among the selection was one called The Resort another by the name of Talk Dirty to Me #5, along with Model Behavior, Little Darlings (which is just too damn creepy to even consider) and a few others. Besides all having vague names it was pretty difficult to decided which one would be the best considering all the pictures on the back were generally the same cocks and pussies getting it in some form, either orally, anally or intercoursely. I divided them up and even though he wasn’t going to watch it with me made Ryan pick a hand until it came down to one. Masterpiece: A Portrait in Perversion. Perfect. A porn about an artist/painter and his manager. It must have been fate. Ha. So I put on that server’s apron that was in the secret drawer thinking they must go together somehow and sat down for the show.
Anyway. I guess I just don’t get porn. I don’t know why they even bothered trying to have a story line. I could barely follow it with all the dick and vagina close-ups. Also, why are ALL the guys absolutely ugly? I mean, by god how disastrous. I couldn’t even imagine wanting to look at those guys let alone let them stick something in me. One guy was fat. The other guy had this big gap between his two front teeth as well as some skin complexion issues. Interestingly enough, they barely showed the guys’ faces. I guess, it’s not that interesting as opposed to obvious and they did a lot more eating out then I would have thought. I generally thought porn was made for a more male oriented fantasy land where all the women love to suck dick (because as we well know in real life only a small percentage of women love that and I think some are actually mentally ill).
Which brings me to my next point regarding porn. What the hell is up with the spitting? In ever oral scene there seemed to be a contest as to which person could spit on the other person’s genitals from furthest away. Ew. I am sorry but that is no way to lubricate. I mean it is a way, but it’s disgusting and completely un-classy. I can’t figure out why it turned me off so much besides the fact that spitting on something generally indicates a distaste for it as a opposed to something you want to stick in your mouth. But there it was, in every scene making me want to have sex less and less each second.
Oh and that apron didn’t really do anything to help make the porn better either. I’m not sure why it was in the drawer with it, but I have put everything back in there and plan to keep it that way—until I give another tour that is.
I don’t really have any main ideas today so instead I’m going to write about several random thoughts I’ve had lately.
While going for a run today I could barely keep myself in forward motion because I was distracted by the gorgeousness of the trees. They seem to be exuding their last breath of green, each leaf glimmers and contrasts the bright blueness of the sky so well that for a moment I thought I might be high, but then I realized that no, I was just alive soaking in one of the last weekends of summer.
Speaking of Marijuana. It seems to me that there is a distinctly similar smell between weed and vagina. And so if you’re a woman just find a pothead of sorts and get the pothead hooked on you instead of the other drug.
Regarding this being one of the last weekends of summer and it being a 3-day weekend because of Labor Day I netflixed 9 to 5 staring Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin. What a great Labor Day weekend movie. I had never seen it before and I am happy I spent time witnessing the story; if only more movies had strong independent female main characters in them.
Last night that weird dude with the knife appeared in my dreams again. This time it didn’t wake me up and I didn’t keep seeing him throughout the night, but it did piss me off and I decided that the next time he enters my dreams I’m going to dream-kill him.
Dream-Kill could be a good name for a band, except it doesn’t promote much positivity so it would have to be a heavy metal band or just some emo-bands hit song.
I wouldn’t mind having a hit song or even a hit band.
I’ve been having too much déjà vu lately. Must be the weather. I’m not complaining about the weather, but this déjà vu stuff is starting to creep my out.
We don’t have cable which at first saved me from wasting time watching the food network, but then I found all these food shows on wttw and so not having cable has done very little in reducing my lack of time with the tele. I don’t know why I do this to myself either. I’m trying to limit my food intake and then I torture myself by watching all this delicious food getting made and then I have to go eat something. Which is what I’m going to have to go do now. Yum. Food.
Working to earn degrees in topics regarding struggles like Women and Gender studies, Queer Studies, African American Studies, perhaps even History (if it’s not just about rich white men) and other areas of study such as those never prepare you for emotional instability, which is what will happen once the ignorance blind is removed. It almost seems like a conspiracy now that I think about it; get smart, sensitive people to learn about all the oppressions, pain, suffering madness of the world and they will be immobilized by the greatness and vastness of the horrors. They will become so overwhelmed it will be hard for them to pick a spot to start improving on. I mean really, where does one begin? Everything is tied together in a string of disgusting orgy isms—it’s like when all my techno cords get wrapped around each other and it takes me hours just to free my i-pod from my cell phone charger.
And none of us want to give up, we know that is the opposite of a solution, but sometimes walking away from the tangle is all we can do.
Gloria Anzaldua writes, “Every increment of consciousness, every step forward is a travesia, a crossing. I am again an alien in new territory. And again, and again. But if I escape conscious awareness, escape “knowing,” I won’t be moving. Knowledge makes me more aware, makes me more conscious. “Knowing” is painful because after “it” happens I can’t stay in the same place and be comfortable. I am no longer the same person I was before,” (Borderlands/La Frontera 48).
Every time we learn something, no matter what it is, we change. Perhaps that is why some of us drink so much, so as to forgot and attempt not to change; it’s scary not being where we were before--going into new territory.
Sometimes my heart feels so heavy like it wants to flutter out of my body and fly away. It makes me want to cry. It makes me question if I would have been better off not knowing. If by staying still and avoiding conscious awareness I could be happier. There is a chance I would enjoy reality t.v. and eating hamburgers and watching really bad romantic comedies. But I don’t. Because my “knowing” has led me from feeling comfortable in those environments. I consciously can not be anywhere without some form of feminist analysis taking place. This is what I went to school for? To learn how to deconstruct and see through everything?
Maybe I don’t always WANT to see through everything. Maybe sometimes I just want to be. I want to be comfortable. I want my heart to stay in my body and quit fluttering around. I find it problematic that we learn about all these oppressions without any type of preparation for what it may do to us mentally; with the knowledge how can we stop the anxiety, the depression, the guilt? Is it something that we need to stop or is it something we are given, almost like a gift, to learn to work through ourselves and become stronger from it?
I think it’s somewhat funny how many of us go into these areas of study with the intention of learning how to save the world and when it’s over what we really need to learn is how to save ourselves.
Several mornings ago I was flipping through the few channels I have on network t.v. and saw Margaret Cho on The View so I stopped to see what she was up to. Currently she plays the assistant to lawyer Jane (Brook Elliot) on the new television series Drop Dead Diva airing on Lifetime Sunday evenings. I thought, oh well she’s funny that may be a good show. Then I realized it was on cable and I’d never be able to watch it, thus it was dismissed from my mind.
Only later when I realized I could stream Project Runway on mylifetime.com did I come across Drop Dead Divas again and decided to give it a try.
The premise is a bit much—a size 2 model named Deb (Brooke D'Orsay) on her way to a Price is Right audition dies as she wrecks her car into a truck-full of grapefruits at around the same time a lawyer named Jane, in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets shot by a disgruntle man pissed off at her boss for having an affair with his wife. Deb is in heaven and the angel informs her she’s a double zero. She has done nothing good and nothing bad in her life. Upset and never one to follow the rules she hits the return key on the keyboard and ends up in Jane’s body. Now Jane possesses Debs soul, but all of Jane’s intelligence.
Wehh. Yeah. That’s the running plot-line and I will not even go into the holes as I assume you can deduce what those are yourself.
What I do want to discuss is the last episode I streamed “Crazy” In it there are two main story-lines, one follows Jane and her shenanigans with some possibly insane guy she’s supposed to be defending and while the other line follows her love interest Grayson (Jackson Hurst) and another lawyer Kim Kaswall (Kate Levering) as they deal with both their relationship tensions as well as the tensions in another relationship they’re supposed to defend together.
This second story line is what I want to focus on. In it we meet a crying woman in a wedding dress. She is distraught. She spent $10,000 on her dress and she never got to walk down the aisle. Instead of following the tradition of waiting until the ceremony to see your husband she snuck into his room and found him fucking her maid of honor. Which of course makes me want to write some sort of pun about not being “made of honor” but I will not. In any case she wants to sue said “maid of honor” for ruining her life. Basically. Her fiancé (is he still a finance if they don’t go through the actual marriage?) declares his love for her and apologizes profusely. In the end she drops the lawsuit and goes back to the man in an attempt to “work things out”.
What. The. Fuck.
Where to even begin.
Lifetime creates this “new” show in an attempt to say something about “inner beauty” and this woman runs back to a cheat?
What is this saying about monogamy in general? That it’s okay for men to cheat because women are inferior and have to deal with men’s discrepancies? That she wasn’t good enough to find someone to treat her with respect? Yes, it was absolutely ridiculous of the story-line to have her suing the maid of honor over ruining the scared vows of matrimony, but at least it had some reasoning behind it, whereas the woman completely giving up in the end lacks any source of empowerment for women.
Oh. You may argue, some women would go back. Yes. But, it’s television. They write the script. They could have made anything happen. The only reason they made that woman get back together with that man was so the main characters in the storyline would have a “revelation” and discover something out about their own experiences of the day. How disgusting.
If you’re going to have a woman run back to her man about cheating there better be a discussion about other options such as non-monogamy or polyamory. But no. Let’s make women look weak, passive and unconfident. Let’s have everything, including all the story-lines revolve around what men think and whether the men are going to like us. Yippee. Is the real reason marriage still exists just so we can have these terrible plotlines in shows? because that’s all it seems to be to me—this awful conforming joke that isn’t really funny at all. Love is all we need, perhaps, but not the bling bling wedding rings and contracts that are basically meaningless these days.
Check out Pervertable Tongues;
“Cut Out My Brains and feed them to my Dog” aka the monogamy song for more of my feelings about this issue,
I have my Master of Arts degree in Women and Gender Studies as well as a Master's in Writing and Publishing from DePaul.
I'm currently living in Boulder, CO working for a non-profit called Fertile Action and writing about visual arts (and more) for the Boulder Weekly.
Why blog?
I think too much, hence I decided I need a space to get it all out; and there is no better space than a virtual one.
