What we're afraid to say about sex

So there's the hpv vaccine.
There's emergency contraception.
There's abstinence only sex education.
And there are teenagers.

The HPV vaccine has been shown to be effective against Human Papilloma Virus (Genital Warts). HPV has been shown to be a cause of cervical cancers in young women. And yet there's a push-back against it. It is believed that parents wouldn't want their daughters vaccinated, for fear of giving them the "green light" to have sex.

Emergency contraception has been shown to prevent pregnancy up to 72 hours after unprotected sex. (Or, after contraceptive failure- makes it seem more responsible to say it that way)Emergency contraception has further been shown to be extraordinarily safe. (Let's remember, kids, tylenol can kill you when used improperly, as can coffee, and, if you're unlucky, peanut butter). But there's a reluctance to allow it to be sold over the counter. It is believed that if it were available over the counter, more teenagers (and women) might engage in unprotected sex.

The only sex education programs allowed to benefit from federal health education funding are abstinence only programs- programs that teach nothing about contraception or barrier methods of disease prevention, and emphasize the risks (mental AND physical) of premarital sex. The rationale behind this is that if you tell teenagers that they can have sex in a safer manner, they will perceive that as permission or even encouragement to have sex.

I'm going to say something groundbreaking here.

Get ready.

So what?

So what if teenagers are encouraged, by availability of contraceptives and tools of disease prevention to have sex? If these teenagers are making the decision that with the HPV vaccine banishing the risk of cervical cancer, condoms prevent aids and pregnancy, and the morning after pill, when used correctly, can prevent a broken condom from becoming a pregnancy- more power to them. How adult. How correct.

Basically, the prevailing argument about teens and sex from the right (and, by extension, everyone else and sex- there is a certain population that WOULD deny adult women access to these items in order to deny teenagers access to these items- they're called social conservatives), is that sex is too dangerous for teenagers, thus, we must make sure to let them know how dangerous it is so that fear will override libido. If we do anything to create the impression that sex can be at all safe, kids will start fucking immediately. So the best thing to do is make sure that sex has plenty of consequences, if they do have it. The left's weak, whinging counter-argument in recent years is that sex is dangerous, but if we give teenagers all the information and resources available, they still won't have sex any earlier than if we hadn't, and maybe when they do, it won't be so bad.

The left fails because their message isn't consistant. They weaken their own argument by conceding too much to the other side. And that's how the right is able to appear to beat them. The left says, and rightly, and logically, and bestly- that teenagers should be able to have safe sex, but that they really won't have any sex at all. That's silly. That's a contradiction. The right has easily been able to make that message look stupid. Of course, the right has only been able to do that because somehow, Americans have forgotten that teenagers become adults, and quickly. And the only way that screwing up sexually (discounting any religious beliefs) as a teen is going to seriously affect your adult life is by getting serious AIDs, HPV, or pregnant (or impregnating someone else). * Yes, your feelings might get hurt. You might find yourself emotionally scarred. But nearly everything you do as an adolescent might leave you emotionally hurt or scarred. People used to call that building character.

The right fails because their message only works on a moral playing field. Plus, they're the homogay. The reason their message works is what goes without saying after it, and what the left is too fucking pussy to contradict. The conservative message about sex is that we should keep it dangerous, and make the dangers clear, because teenagers (unmarried adults, gay people, etc) should not be having it. That implies that there is a reason, beyond the explicit dangers of sex, that teenagers should not have sex. And that reason, always unspoken, is that it is morally wrong.

And the left won't come out and say "We don't care if teenagers have sex or not". Or even "It's not wrong for teenagers to have sex" or even "It should not be public policy to prevent teenagers from having sex". That last one is my favorite. Pretend I put that last one first.

And why SHOULD it be public policy to prevent teenagers from having sex? Especially if the tools to make it at least as safe as adult sex exist and are widely available and instruction in their proper use is easily available?

There are reasons for teenagers not to have sex, but those have to do with the teenagers themselves, their culture, their beliefs, and most fundamentally, their family. It is the family's place to say "I know, it seems like you can have sex safely, but your dad and I believe that if you or anyone else touches your clitoris for fun, you'll burn in hell forever and ever". Or in another situation, "You know, knowing you, Suzy, and having been your mother for 16 years, I really wish you'd put off sexual intercourse and serious sexual contact for another few years. That's why your curfew is 8pm and you're not allowed to have boys in rooms with closed doors".

These conversations are similar to other conversations families have to pass on their values to young people who are gaining their independence. Imagine a young man entering high school. His family are observant jews or muslims or hindus. One of his parents might have a heartfelt talk with him (or fire-and-brimstone) about how he's gaining more independance now, but, as he's able to make more choices outside of the house, it's very important to them that he continue observing their dietary traditions (kosher or halal or other). Or even imagine a child raised by strict vegan parents-
their personal morals would dictate that the cheese sandwich in the lunch line was wrong. The child would know their parents beliefs, and the rationale behind those beliefs, even as her parents taught her and gave her the tools to act on those beliefs independently. (For example, learning to read labels and scan for casein and lecithin). Just the same, a christian family must be comfortable telling their child that even though sex might be safe, it is their belief, and very important to them, that they not indulge.

The only difference is that the vegan parents don't campaign for looser milk pasteurization standards, so that omnivorous children come down with a nice case of food poisoning every now and again, so their child can learn the dangers of eating animal products. The Hindu parent does not write to the television station demanding that they run more stories on bovine spongiform encephelopathy so that their children know that it's not just wrong, but dangerous to eat meat.

So why sex? Why do we, as a country, believe that the moral persuasive power of parents is so weak that we need to rely on scare tactics to force this one issue? It is just as morally subjective as whether or not to eat animal products, but we pretend that it is not. No one wants to say that it's ok for teenagers to have sex, because it is perceived as so potentially destructive to them. No one wants to say that we could make it less destructive for teenagers to have sex, because no one wants to be heard to say that it's ok.

And that, my friend is circular logic.

So I'm fucking breaking that circle.

INSOFAR AS IT IS SAFE, IT IS OK FOR TEENAGERS TO HAVE SEX.

Whether their families choose to encourage them not to, forbid them to, or punish them for- is none of my or anyone elses business.

*Why am I discounting other STD's here? Well, because proper access to healthcare will counterract the most serious effects of most other STD's. If girls have a good, open relationship with a physician, Gonorrhea and Chlamydia will be detected before reproductive damage would occur, just as in an adult woman. Same with boys. Same with syphillis. And herpes, while an effective scare tactic, just doesn't ruin your life the way people would like you to believe. The other varietal diseases- shigella, crabs, etc...same as one or the other.

KMart declines to reply.

Dear (Hobobarista),

Thank you for contacting Kmart.

Regretfully, we are unable to assist you with your request through this
department. Please contact your local Kmart pharmacy for further
assistance.
To locate the closest Kmart pharmacy, please visit www.kmart.com and click
on the store finder link located in the upper right of every page.
We appreciate your inquiry and apologize for any inconvenience.

Look for great bargains throughout the store and find Kmart exclusive
brands like Martha Stewart Everyday, Thalia Sodi, Joe Boxer, Route 66 and
Jaclyn Smith.

Angela M.
Kmart Customer Care

Brooks Replies

Dear Brooks Pharmacy Customer -

As healthcare professionals, our pharmacists' primary objective is to provide our patients with superior health information and unmatched standards of care.

Our company position is that our pharmacists comply with the policies and procedures to ensure that appropriate care is delivered to our patients. This prohibits a pharmacist from refusing to fill a prescription based on any religious, political or moral beliefs.

Brooks Pharmacy has traditionally carried and dispensed the Plan B product in question to our patients who present prescriptions, and will continue to provide it.

Cordially,
Customer Care Dept.

Target, continued.

I really don't feel as if that letter told the whole story.

But I really, really need to be able to buy a three-pack of underpants for $3.46 without going to Wal-Mart.

I hate Wal-Mart.Let's have some honesty. I don't hate them for their recent healthcare scandal. Nor for the elitist traditional reasons of suburban sprawl, decimated town centers, the homogenization of America, musical censorship, and everything else that makes college students from recently arrived large square states insist that they patronize the Salvation Army while actually burning through Daddy's credit at Urban Outfitters.

I hate Wal-Mart because there is always some enormous woman in irregular stretch jeans and a stained kitten sweatshirt hefting her massive arms to swat at her equally disproportionate cracker-clotted children, who are frequently industriously working at leaving oily spots on each and every-ahem. There's always some fat bitch hitting her fat kids. And I don't need to see that. So Target it is. I'm poor, I need somewhere to buy things, and Goodwill isn't good for anything that needs to touch the goody bits or get plugged in to the wall.

This emergency contraception thing needs to be resolved.

Thus, I investigate.

Target says "As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also requires us to accommodate our team members’ sincerely held religious beliefs...Our policy is similar to that of many other retailers and follows the recommendations of the American Pharmacists Association.", while Planned Parenthood interim president Karen Pearl insists "If Kmart, CVS, Costco and other chains can find a way to accommodate employees while still ensuring that patients receive timely, on-site access to their prescription medication, why can't Target?"

First step- resolve paradoxical information. I wrote to several large pharmacy chains, including two of those mentioned by the fine Ms. Pearl. I wrote to CVS, Brooks, Walgreens, and KMart. I suspect that their policies can't be uniform. CVS and Brooks/Eckerd are based in solidly blue-state New England, while Walgreens and KMart are based in Iowa and founded in Michigan, respectively. It seems to me that the further from the coast a state is, the more authority figures want women in that state to be pregnant. Of course, that's an absurd assumption.

But we'll see how it plays out.

Other areas of investigation-
a. pharmacy procedures.
What exactly does a pharmacist do? How is that qualitatively morally different than a catholic cashier selling condoms?
b. the missouri incident-
What exactly was at issue? was there a resolution? was the prescription transferred?
c. accessibility-
Are targets more likely to be located in rural areas? That might be a factor. Not a stated factor, but a possibility.

Target Replies.

Dear Target Guest

In our ongoing effort to provide great service to our guests, Target consistently ensures that prescriptions for the emergency contraceptive Plan B are filled. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also requires us to accommodate our team members’ sincerely held religious beliefs.

In the rare event that a pharmacist’s beliefs conflict with filling a guest’s prescription for the emergency contraceptive Plan B, our policy requires our pharmacists to take responsibility for ensuring that the guest’s prescription is filled in a timely and respectful manner, either by another Target pharmacist or a different pharmacy.

The emergency contraceptive Plan B is the only medication for which this policy applies.
Under no circumstances can the pharmacist prevent the prescription from being filled, make discourteous or judgmental remarks, or discuss his or her religious beliefs with the guest.

Target abides by all state and local laws and, in the event that other laws conflict with our policy, we follow the law.

We're surprised and disappointed by Planned Parenthood’s negative campaign. We’ve been talking with Planned Parenthood to clarify our policy and reinforce our commitment to ensuring that our guests’ prescriptions for the emergency contraceptive Plan B are filled. Our policy is similar to that of many other retailers and follows the recommendations of the American Pharmacists Association. That’s why it’s unclear why Target is being singled out.

We’re committed to meeting the needs of our female guests and will continue to deliver upon that commitment.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Hanson

Target Executive Offices

So, now what, folks? Can I buy my breadbox?

Slate wants to redesign college.

Of course, they asked academics how.

Charming.

And each academic insisted on greater emphasis on their own particular dick to jerk axe to grind.
A History and Germanic studies teacher wants more grammar and respect for professor's experiences. A co-director of a disability studies program wants more disability studies. Everybody wants more liberal arts and philosophy.

Why? Because that's what makes academic dicks hard perpetuates the idea of college as finishing school for the white collar world. Enriches you, prepares you to interact with culture, wank wank wank. And keeps these suckers employed.

I believe in the liberal arts, by the way. I believe in alternative curriculums and funky make your own majors. I believe in all of the wanky, gimmicky courses that should all be titled, in the spirit of full disclosure "Prof. Drones On About Own Graduate Thesis 230-310".

But I don't believe that that's for anyone. I don't even believe that it's possible for everyone. I don't believe everyone needs it, wants it, or will benefit from it. It's mean to force it on people who won't realize any benefit.

I spent 45 minutes yesterday explaining to an older, motherly, pushy, hillbilly, confused woman a basic practical use of statistics in the sciences. And she kept telling me that I was wrong. Patiently, patiently I explained to her this element again, and again, and again. And she wasn't listening, didn't want to, was sure that she was right and I was wrong.

"No, listen. If what they're saying is P is LESS THAN .01, and that's the threshold they've set, then, the null hypothesis is rejected, and the results can be said to be not the result of chance"

Over, and over, and over again. Until the professor came over and told her that I was right.

Today I've taken a day off work to rewrite a group paper, for another class. A group paper that I was shouted down about, not allowed to edit properly, not even allowed to annotate correctly. A group paper in which, when I was trying to relate the material (a film) to the concepts in the reading, my group members said I was doing "plot summary" and "making it too long".

There's a lot of group work at UMass. Group work is trendy right now. It makes students feel like they are actually doing something, not just listening to the professor. Group work, when students have such varying degrees of college readiness, as there are at UMass, is useless.

And that's the real problem of college education. The real way it needs to be made over. It trys to be too many things to too many people. The slate article only really deals with the elite liberal arts student at a private school, with good high school preparation, and some motivation to actually BE in college.

Unfortunately, that's not the majority of college students now.
People feel (and sometimes rightly) that not having a college education bars them from the middle class. So everyone needs one, now. So there are colleges (Like Umass) who don't turn anyone away. Colleges that serve huge populations that are hugely unprepared for college. People who don't know how to study, how to read critically, how to get their own questions answered. And these people make classes slow down. They make papers shorter. The entire experience is graded down to suit the efforts of the professor to the unmodified aptitudes of the least prepared students.

There are two solutions to this problem, which, for best effect, should take effect together.

1. Public, post-secondary technical education. The Katharine Gibbs, East Coast Aerotech, and the rest of the for-profit, advertise-during-jerry-springer pack shouldn't be the only way to prepare for a career without college. Every public university system should have a technical school, open enrollment, fucking rigorous, practical. These are careers are society values, skills that will broaden employment options.

2. Placement testing and a foundation year at most large, non-selective universities. Not everyone needs English One, Algebra 1, Bio 1. But everyone needs to have the ability to write a college length paper, with good grammar, spelling, and accurate, appropriate citations. They need to know how to use the library, for research. They need to become so adept that they can get most answers to background questions themselves. They need to understand the scientific method, statistics, and provenance. If you can do these things, you procede to year two. If you can't, you get a year of college that leaves you as prepared for what is to come as anyone who went to the best high school.

Slate Dropped The Ball. (In My Pants)

Oh, slate. Oh you wacky bunch of folks!

You fucked up, buckaroos. Your jeans piece missed the mark, bigtime. You can't talk about jeans without talking like class. You can't, really, talk about clothes without talking about class; but especially not jeans.

Designers did not just declare jeans socially correct, and thus they were, into infinity. That's an oversimplification, Designers recognized a trend and exploited it; and it was this trend that has continued to this day. Jeans are no longer the pants of the american worker. They haven't been for half a century. Jeans are the pants of leisure; owning a pair of investment jeans clearly declares membership in the leisure class.

I own three pairs of jeans I wear now. One I bought in my senior year of high school; perfectly broken in, one my mother bought for me last spring, having gotten sick of seeing my underpants through the seat of the first jeans, and one I just bought at the gap outlet, which are a rant unto themselves.

I wear my jeans approximately never. I have one day, maximum two days a week that I'm eligible to wear jeans. I can't wear them to work. We're not allowed. Jeans would be extraordinarily practical in my job- they're thick enough to take a scalding spill without transferring the burn to your thighs. They don't rip or tear during physical work, hold their shape despite frequent washings. Dark jeans barely show a stain. But we have to wear khaki pants. The dress code even specifically states that khaki colorder jeans are not appropriate.

Why can't I wear my jeans? My easily obtained, comfortable, practical jeans?

Class dissonance. I'm a member of the serving class while at work. I can't wear recreational pants, middle class pants. Pants that, when I took off my apron, would make me blend into the pack of suburban moms, college kids, and casual day lawyers that swarm on a friday afternoon.
Jeans are too personal. They're something you wear when you're being yourself. They're something that, based on the cut and the condition, reveal a little about you. They reveal gender, even bring sexuality into topstitched relief. My jeans are faded, a little torn. There is gesso on the knee from when I had the time to paint. They're cut low, but not too low, and make my bum look like the bum of a college student. In fact, make me look like me; not an employee.

And so they're not allowed. And they're not allowed working in drugstores, in chocolate shops, as a waitress (unless they're required, more on that later), as a plumber (fucking absurd), floor-washer, dishwasher, and so on. Even the most rudimentary dress code dissallows two things- jeans and sneakers. The explanation is that they're unprofessional. As if these jobs themselves are concerned with the professional appearance of their workers. Polo shirts and khakis are the uniform of a progressive kindergarten, not skilled employment. These dress codes delineate the server from the served. So jeans, the pants that everyone wants to wear, and those with free time can afford to wear, are out.

And by being out for me, they're in for you. Completely dissasociated from blue-collar origins (do we even have a blue-collar in the US anymore?), they belong now to two groups- those who do not work, and those whose work does not dictate exactly what they must wear. The leisure class, priveleged college students, and highly skilled workers in professional jobs. (Cosmo and glamour keep running articles on how to dress your jeans for the office- I can only dream). You can buy embellished jeans, perfectly cut jeans, custom jeans- jeans that subtly talk about who you are and what you want to be seen as. Cargo Pockets for the populist. Embroidery for the imaginary bohemian. Cuffs for the hipster, trouser cut for the crease and ironers. Low in the back for the high school student, low in the front for the no-carb, tobacco, coke and pilates fitness nut. Kabbalah jeans for the needs-to-believe in something bigger (that madonna also believes in). High waistband for a gut to hide, no waistband for those who still believe in Mariah Carey. You can wear anything you want to be.

As long as you can afford it, and you have a place to wear it.



And that's obvious, if you've ever been a person who can't wear jeans.

It's so hard to have a principle.

I need a breadbox.

My kitchen would be so much more organized if I had a breadbox.

Further; I want this breadbox

But it comes from Target.

Goddamn. It's so cute and I could put my bread in it. And when people asked where bread was, I could say "in my shiny red box, motherfucker".

To Do:
Force Target to give up shameful practice, buy breadbox, invite friends over for bread and leave them wondering where it is.

Zombies

People don't believe me when I say that I feel like the zombies are coming.

They think I'm being hipper than thou, ironic, whatever.

But I wake up, sometimes at 4, 4:30 in the morning, stagger out to my car, and I'm scared. I really need to get into my car as fast as possible, assure myself there's nothing in the back seat, and lock the doors. Because today might be the day the zombies come.

Of course, eventually the sun comes up. And I forget about zombies for a while.

Let me clarify: I don't think the zombies are coming. I don't think the dead are about to walk the earth. I don't think that I need to put a large blunt object in my car, just in case some rage virus (meh?) or fallen satellite (classic!) or barrel full of toxic liquid zombie parts (I'll give you a dollar if you get that reference) releases a plague of dead-eyed recently undead brain craving individuals into the Boston Metro Area.

But when I'm alone, and the light is that sick green two hours from dawn moosh that only assholes refer to as "moonlight", and it's cold, and it's quiet, yeah- I feel like the zombies are coming.

Of course the Zombies aren't coming.

It's an issue of directionality, I think. This fear reaction, physiological arousal, etc, upon finding yourself alone in the dark, this hyper-awareness in a situation that is safe, is common. Maybe it's universal to feel arousal in everyday situations that we know, cognitively, logically, are safe. Maybe it's one of the oldest human feelings. We're monkeys walking around out there, staggering around a world that has only been safe on a consistent basis for decades.

International No-Panties Day to End Child Marriage

Teenage girls and college coed types are offended by certain shirts offered by the retailer Abercrombie and Fitch. These shirts feature sayings such as "Available for Parties" and "I make you look fat" (Picture gallery linked from here). So, responding to pressure from the "girlcott" (how's that for a bubblegum neologism?), Abercrombie has pulled the offending shirts from their line.

Homo homo homo.

Wank wank wank.

I'll admit, some of the sayings could be offensive to people from the rationally brittle to the reasonably thin-skinned. And no one should be forced to wear those shirts if they don't get the joke. Certainly, they're inappropriate for most workplaces, as the humor would make people uncomfortable. If they were banned from secondary schools, that would be fine. Both schools and workplaces have a reasonable interest in making all individuals reasonably comfortable in their environment, and if they must do that through certain behavioral constraints, that's the way it will go.

And that's fine. I personally hate dress codes. I'd love to put out T-Shirts with a certain offensive slogan very, very dear to my heart. (maybe soon I will!). I was something fairly offensive for Halloween, but I didn't outdo my friend T. I really resent the choady dress code for my work. (Tomorrow, if I have time, I'll blog about the socio-sexual-economic implications of tucked in shirts with mandatory casual wear).

I like activism. And I believe in boycotts as a tool of activism. It breaks my heart to think about not being able to buy from Target, especially when I need a tea kettle and an electric blanket. But I just don't believe that a pharmacist should be able to interfere with a woman's personal health decisions. And I believe that corporate policies that allow pharmacists to make moral judgments that supercede their patients' are wrong, and should result in economic hardships for the corporations. I worry about the repurcussions of this corporate policy. A woman may end up pregnant because of someone else's decision, someone else's morality. She may have to have an abortion, or carry through with an unwanted pregnancy. (how likely is a place without a pro-choice pharmacist to have a doctor willing to perform abortions?) And that's why I may boycott Target.

This "girlcott" of Abercrombie and Fitch is different. The principle of the 'girlcott' is that they don't like the shirt. If Abercrombie and Fitch continued to sell the shirts, only people who wanted the shirts would buy them. Buying a shirt you don't like, and don't want, is stupid. All products are boycotted by girls who don't like them. That's how selling works. If you want something, you buy it. If you don't like something, or a brand that sells something, you don't buy it. If many people consider a given product stupid, useless, or tasteless, it will fade away.
So why propose a hugely public boycott of a product because of alledged poor taste?
Because you don't want it available for someone else to buy.

Which is fucktarded.
And shouldn't be encouraged.

"We're telling [girls] to think about the fact that they're being degraded," Emma Blackman-Mathis, the 16-year-old co-chair of the group, told RedEye on Tuesday. "We're all going to come together in this one effort to fight this message that we're getting from pop culture.

How's that for happy horseshit? It's got all the hallmarks of happy horseshit-
1. Self-congratulatory tone.
2. Exaggerated idea of impact + import of cause.
3. Happy-time-we shall-overcome impression of group unity.

It's a T-Shirt! (Well, several T-Shirts). It's degrading? Degrading? To have simply, kitschy sentences, worn by someone, by choice, on their body?. I suppose the statements aren't positive. They won't elevate anything or anyone. Degrading is a superior court judge unable to distinguish a married woman from a child. That's degrading. But degrading doesn't mean anything anymore. Degrading has started to mean a sentiment that doesn't treat people with either mewling deference or 'you go girl' universal endorsdulation.

And the message from pop culture that this "girlcott" is meant to fight?. That girls get by on appearances, manipulate men with sexuality, and blondes (especially slutty blondes) beat brunettes. Basically, it's goodole objectification of women. Or, to cut through the buzzwords even more, it's the sexualization of women based on superficial sexual characteristics. These seeeeexxxxy coeds have gone willlld because it's been implied that they are fluffy, wispy, intellectually inconsequential people to be indulged as items of entertainment or sexual pleasure.

In an attempt to make themselves taken seriously in the public sphere, these young activists have organized a boycott. That they call a girlcott. Advice, chickies, for free even- If you want to be taken seriously, try not to name your political actions anything that would look really cute written in pink glittery bubble letters.

"Girlcott"- 'We like, totally want to say that we're against objectification and stuff, like, so take us seriously! but we didn't want that gross boy word in there! Ew!"

And remember girls, if you don't like something, if it hurts your big bad meaningful feminist feelings, do something cute and media friendly, and it will go away!

Of course, that is what happened.

Anybody want to do a "Pro-Choice Girls Gone Wild!" video? How about "College Girls Confidential: All proceeds go seal ICKY obstetric fistulas in the third world". Lets take off our shirts for better health care!

Spread Beav' For A Living Wage!

My ass + Your Tongue = Increased access to college prep courses in rural counties!

International No-Panties Day for an End to Child Marriage!

I like fat puppies, but I hate fat children.

I like fat puppies.

But I hate fat children.

I like



and I like



but I hate



and



Again, I love










but I hate




Thank You. That is all.

Help Save Target!

Save them by pissing them off, harassing them, and not allowing them a moment's peace, that is. Because I really want to continue shopping there.

I read Savage Love every week as soon as it's available. This week, Dan Savage revealed something so dismaying about Target, my favorite source of shit to put on my couch, shit to put in my kitchen, shit to put on my floor, and jones soda. And the new chocolate. I hate to say, I love Target. And unlike WalMart, where someone is always beating their children, it's somewhat pleasant to go to.

Unfortunately, Dan Savage has revealed this week that Target allows pharmacists to not dispense emergency contraception, based on their personal whims. Shame, Target, shame. This is either a backhanded appeal to the christian right, who would rather shop at WalMart (who completely caters to their absurd demand that minority religions control community morality), or an invertibrate refusal to take a stand either way, assuming that red state pharmacists will be comforted by their ability to force pregnancy on unfortunate skanks, and coastal folks might never notice.

In his column this week, Mr. Savage encourages readers to follow the 'contact us' link from Target, and write to Target expressing how fucking EVIL this policy is. How fucking spineless (please don't say fuck to target) this policy is. Unfortunately, it's pretty fucking hard to find an email link on that site. In fact, the closest you can get is a form. And it takes a while to find.

So here it is.

And if you're thinking that pharmacists have a right to follow their moral blahblahblah despite blahblahblah- think about it this way.

Did you want to be a veterinarian when you were a kid? Even for a day?

Did some mean older kid say that veterinarians have to put kitties to sleep?

And you decided not to be a veterinarian.

Because that's what people do. People do not become employed in fields where they have to do things that upset them. Of course, society today says that people should never have to feel uncomfortable in the workplace. Even if they choose that workplace without considering the full spectrum of duties that are implied.

Fact: The Contraceptive Pill has been approved for use since May 9, 1960. For a Pharmacist to have entered the field without knowledge of this medical advance, they'd have to have been in practice for 45 years. Even assuming that they were some kind of pharmacy prodigy, and soared through pharmacy school and undergrad in 3 years (impossible), they'd be 65 now. Retirement age. Retire, dinosaurs, if it's so unethical. And those are the only ones who can even claim that they didn't know they'd have to do something they consider killing babies. (and, really, scientifically, isn't. at all. and I'm pro killing babies)

Younger ones are just making people pay for their poor career choices. Forced sex resulting in a need for emergency contraception is, unfortunately, far more common than the forcible drafting of unsuspecting young evangelicals into pharmacy school by white-coat clad press gangs. They don't have to be pharmacists; unfortunately, thus far, pharmacies are the only place to get emergency contraception.

Don't fucking get me started on gynecologists who won't perform abortions or prescribe contraception.

Write Target. Tell them you love Target. Even if you don't. (This is how to get things from companies, by the way- present yourself as a loyal customer with a single issue). Tell them you're depressed, dissapointed, betrayed, shocked. Tell them you'd hate, hate, hate to have to shop somewhere else. But that you will.

I don't want to have to stop going to Target. But I might have to.

A recipe I'd like to share.

It's getting time for casseroles, and warm things from the oven. Tomorrow I'm going to try to make baked ziti. But for now, here's a recipe I give to the world-

Disgusting Tasty Casserole-(Spinach Sweet Potato Casserole)

Two large white potatoes (any kind- waxy yellow or fluffy white will be fine)

Two large sweet potatoes

5-10 strips bacon

1/2-1 lovely onion

1/2 c. cheese, shredded (fontina, queso quesadilla, monterey jack, gruyere, cheddar- anything melty)

1 small package frozen spinach

Butter, salt, pepper, seasonings (garlic is nice or dill and a little sour cream or rosemary and roasted garlic, or roasted red peppers, or anything that happens to be around)

Dice uncooked bacon and place in the bottom of a square casserole dish. Dice the onion small as you like. Peel and cut the white and sweet potatoes into chunks, and parboil (lightly). Either zap them in the microwave or cook stovetop. It's important to leave them a little less done than you would for mashed potatoes. Cook spinach a little less than package directions. Put the casserole dish with onion and bacon into a hot oven (375-400), 5-10 minutes, or until onion begins to look transparent and bacon looks cooked.

Drain potatoes and spinach. Remove casserole pan from oven, and add potato chunks and spinach to onions and bacon. Smash everything up together with a wooden spoon. Add butter seasonings, smash a little more, and then add cheese. Return to oven for 15-20 more minutes.

Variation: Use leftover baked or mashed potatoes in place of parboiled. Salad dressing (ranch or creamy ceasar - i could totally move to the midwest) can be added in place of butter and seasonings. Bacon can be omitted, but what's the point.

Barren Bitches Be Crazy

So some dryin' up bitches be freezin' they eggs.

Fertility is the catch in gender equality. It used to be too much fertility held women back. The pill fixed that. Women can fuck like men, and choose when to carry a pregnancy to the end. Unfortunately, contraception is too good when used well. Women who've chosen to delay childbearing are beginning to find that they've dosed themselves right straight through their reproductive years.

So women feel the need to make choices that leave them stranded; either they dedicate their biologically useful years to economically useful purposes, or they have children they can't afford with partners that may just be good enough. These are tough times. The entrance of women into the workplace, and the use of the second income in middle class households to enter into bidding wars for real estate, and thus causing the booming, glorging, evil fucking rise in housing prices in all decent regions, has caused a type of life inflation.

We need more to start families, more money, more stability, more time to find a partner. And women haven't gained any more time. The gains in female life expectancy from better preventative care and better education for women happen in post-menopausal, non-fertile years. Women have longer lives than men- they just have shorter productive ones.

So bitches be angry that they've got to make choices. The impression given by the whole world, for years and years, was that a woman, a girl, could do whatever she wants, make any choices, and no doors would be closed to her. Unfortunately, biology doesn't work like that. Even with recent advances in egg freezing, biology doesn't work like that. Most women won't have the choices at 40 that they hand at 20. Most men will. Nearly fuckin' all men will. A man has to work hard to be infertile. Even with rising obesity, the risk of impotence from type ii diabetes doesn't render a man infertile. Ejaculation and harvesting can still occur.

And men will always want younger partners. Why? Because it makes sense that way. For decades, (generations, centuries, all of humanity thus far) a woman brought the fertility, a man brought the resources. Women get fertility early; men get resources later. Despite that, until very recently (historically speaking), a man was always very likely to outlive his wife. That's a digression. Recently, society has decided that both partners are responsible for providing heat and meat. So women have gotten older, closer in age to their male partners. They want and/or need individual material success prior to the baby making and the permanant coupling. Thus, the delayed childbearing.

So, a proposal.
It's not going to go back to the way it was. Women aren't going to give up careers in order to have children. Most women don't want to give up their dream baby and dream baby carriage and dream baby room and dream baby wallpaper and dream baby nanny in order to afford those things. And barring fundamental cultural change, men aren't going to suddenly begin marrying women past childbearing years in droves.

So how about we change what we can, to get women a few more years?

Fact: Girl children score higher on tests of school readyness than boys of the same age.
Fact (not true or proven): Middle School is fucking useless.
Fact: Cutting four years out of the public education system for half of all students would leave to massive savings.

So, we start girls in kindergarten at 4 instead of five. Mostly, they can handle it. The age of 5 and some months for kindergarten readiness is already a compromise between the social and verbal abilities of girl children and boy children. Then, we cut out a few years of middle school for girls- all three, or one or two. Girls go on to high school, and are prepared for college or public vocational education (which there would be money for, by cutting a few thousand children per year out of the educational system). So your average college freshman girl would be 14-16 instead of 17-19. That will leave her extra years to begin her career or graduate education before beginning to run down her biological clock.

Before this idea is dismissed as stupid bullshit (which it is) consider how it's actually the way that life has been designed. It feels like gross gender bias to even think about taking girls out of school earlier than boys- after all, isn't that what they did in other countries! But I'm proposing, not pulling them out early, but pushing them through faster. Women have always assumed adult responsabilities before their male peers. Maybe this is why so many goddamned livejournalling gothwearing eatingdisorder having teen girls feel life is so meaningless, and engage in such sad behavior and ridiculous angsty bullshit. Maybe female adolescence is a myth. Maybe it's just that their development has been placed on a male-centric, male-designed timetable. We've got to recognize biology for a moment. We've got to recognize tradition. Maybe we've even got to embrace it.

Of course, the real objection to this plan wouldn't be based on gender bias- it would be based on sex. Parents would be terrified that exposed to older boys younger, their girls would be having sex at a younger age. This knee jerk reaction probably would keep this proposal from ever being considered. We're so invested, culturally, in the idea of proms and dating and sock hoppes and malt shoppes. We can't imagine a world in which growing up doesn't mean dating the boy in math class, getting stuck with pins on prom night, the blushing fumblings in the back of borrowed cars...shameful, lonely, gropings towards second base. Of course, this isn't the way it goes now anyway. It's never been the way it goes. Girls date older boys, boys from somewhere else. Or they don't date. Or they im some guy on the internet and try fellatio in a parking lot. The sexual world of teenagers will never be clean cut, reluctantly chaste, and socially acceptable.

If I had started high school at 12 instead of middle school at 11, I'd have graduated at 16. College would have ended at 20. Now, at 23, I could be midway through a real job, instead of slinging coffee to people with real futures. I'm dating a man ten years older than me anyway. Of course, I don't want children. I'd gladly throw my fertile years some barren bitches' way for some kizzash.

Think about it.

What it's like.

I've never really been the normal girl.
People think I'm really unconventional; I've been able to make my quirks skew more charming than queer. I don't know why I'm like this. I just know that I've never been able to quite manage being standard, in any way. I was precocious. I was bright. I was a well-spoken eight year old. I was academically extraordinary. I've always been able to achieve without really trying (except at bennington). In average surroundings, I am above. I don't even remember how to read things I think are dull, like textbooks or assigned reading. At UMass, I can make A's without trying. I can't quite seem to not be shy, not be weird, not be a little different. I know, every time I go out, get dressed, do something, say something, I'm just a little off. I never really get how to dress, how to choose my clothes.

The best explanation for this is something called right-hemisphere dysfunction.It's a non-verbal learning disability. Everything that's written about it seems to apply to me, but the interpretations piss me the fuck off. People try to pin it onto the autistic spectrum. That's bullshit. I'm not autistic, I'm not aspergers. I'm not any kind of motherfucking rain man. I'm just me. And I'm good at things with words. Very good. Brilliant. I can pick up languages quick. I can play with words and rules. I can find subtexts, interpret film like it's an essay. Sometimes writing is a game to me. Other things are harder. I can't read people very well; I'm empathetic (fuck aspergers, I don't have fucking aspergers. I UNDERSTAND people, I'm intuitive, it's not any anthropologist on mars shit), but sometimes it takes a bit to pick up individuals and group dynamics. If you meet me once, I'm weird. If you know me for a year, you forget I ever was. I'm funny. I'm fucking hilarious; but sometimes, it's true, I have trouble with non-literal uses of language. When I was in college for real, it was hard for me to answer "What's up?" with "What's up?".

That's it, though. When I was a kid, I didn't just seem articulate, I was. I didn't just seem bright, I was. Everything that's written on this NVLD bullshit seems like sour grapes. The literature talks about children using words they don't really understand, appearing intelligent in elementary schools, with their 'true', delayed nature, coming out later. Reccommendations for life include predictable careers and very little secondary education. Remember, kids, if someone seems smarter than you, they're not. People talk about children with NVLD seeming to have wide vocabularies, but lacking comprehension. About shallow understandings, and shallow interpersonal relationships.

How do you fucking know, guy? How do you know how smart I am? Because my mind works differently than yours, it must be worse? Even (and especially) where it seems better? I am smart. I am a bad student. I am a good writer. I can be frustrating. I'd rather write around the rules than within them. People think I'm being difficult on purpose. Mostly, I'm not. My co-workers call me lazy, call me stupid. It's hard. There's a lot of ambiguity at my job, a lot of things you're supposed to know to do without ever having been told or having seen it written down. And if not, you must be lazy. Must be stupid. It hurts. It hurts to know that I am smart and stupid, but it's better than believing that I'm stupid and seem smart.

I know I'm not normal. I've never felt normal. I feel the cracks between what I can do and what everyone else can do; for years I walked around, feeling about to be found out as the fraud I felt like.

I lust after normalcy. I want it so badly. I want to do everything that everybody else does. I want to have what my friends have. I want a normal job and a normal boyfriend and a normal life. I don't want to make A's without trying, while pissing off my professors with my apparent slacking and bad attitude. I want to make B's with professors on my side. I want to have someone with me at thanksgiving dessert. I don't want to have to win people over for once.

People don't understand. My parents don't understand. They see what I achieve as proof that there's really nothing amiss. No matter how many diagnoses I have, they'll always see their brilliant daughter. They don't know that I can't figure out things that are dead obvious to everyone else. Sometimes I get myself into trouble, deep trouble. And there's no help for me. If I had dyslexia , and got myself into trouble taking a course load that was too heavy, there would be tons of things academic services could do for me. If I had ADD, and couldn't concentrate, I could see a specialist, given ritalin or adderal, and feel normal.

But if I work hard and quiet, never miss an assignment, never give someone reason to dislike my work; I can still get in too deep. I run through professors, term by term. I never get anyone on my side. Professors see me coming in late to class (disorganization is part of the disability- the most easily combated part, but part of it), never coming to office hours, and turning in work (BRILLIANT work, guy) that obviously wasn't even started until the night before. I know how much time it takes me to write a 13 page paper- one evening. I know how long it takes me to write a 7 page paper- one evening. One evening, one draft. It simply wouldn't be useful to start it the week before, and come in for feedback. That's not the help I need, lady. I need you to tell me what I have to do to get a recommendation from you. That's why I got kicked out of Bennington. Simply, my disability isn't charming enough. I don't cast a sympathetic figure.

I want to be normal. I so want to be normal.
A friend of mine graduated from Bridgewater State last year, same major as me. Her family threw her a party in the basement of a Chinese restaurant. She danced with her boyfriend, her mother drank too much and embarrassed everyone. In the middle of the party, my friend swelled up huge with an allergic reaction.

I'll never have that. I could hope for the allergic reaction. But the normalcy, the sheer grimy shady, peeling wood-paneled life of it...not for me. Not ever.

My boyfriend has had girlfriends before me. They did everything real. Everything. Everything that people do. They knew eachother's families. His friends knew them. I'm sure everything was normal. I'm not saying it was fun, or didn't have problems, but my boyfriend has had normal. He's had miserable. He's had depressing. He's had painful and pointless, but he's had normal.

So now I'm wondering- am I going to fail next? Or am I going to excel? There's a good chance I'll do amazing on the LSAT. I might go to law school and rape it, kick its fucking ass. I might make it my mewling, screaming bitch. Or it might be one of those normal things I can't have. There might be tons of ambiguous requirements, errands, busy work and obsequities that I can't navigate. I might be stuck doing well without support. I would be labeled as aptitude without attitude. Smart but lazy. How can I even get there if I can't even find a recommendation? Or know where to get the form to officially declare my major? Will it be UMass or Bennington? Friendship or Romance?

Defending Lust as Sin

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I've got to remember to blog about-

this

and

this

and

this

It's a doll-fucking, fur-wearing, generational slacking world out there. And I can't keep up.

My fucking customers.

or
"The Chrome off a Trailer Hitch: A catalogue of annoying choads, wankers, fockers, cunts, and so on who are absolutely welcome to never come back."

By H. Barista

1. Carpet Salesman guy.

• Oh, carpet salesman guy. I know your name, but I'm not posting it here. Let it just be known, you suck. You suck so fucking much. You suck so much and so hard I'd love to replace that goddamned headset cellphone with a glory hole. Then at least you'd be making somebody happy.

You come in. You order something real cheap. You don't tip. You then procede to commandeer the two comfy chairs. You pull an extra table in front of the comfy chairs. You spread out all your goddamned stuff, sometimes including cheesy fucking carpet samples, and plug in your laptop, your gaybo blackberry charger and whatever else you have. You never remove your fucking cellphone headset. You take up the same amount of space as four people. And you stay at least five hours.
You pace. And you talk loudly. And you demand endless refills. And you want me to shake your refills in the shaker, which is nasty, and I won't. And you're an asshole. You complain about kids making noise, when you're playing big wheel at the cracker factory.
Newsflash: You're not hot shit. And, we've all seen you pick your nose. That's just nasty, guy.

2. Unshaken, Unsweetened, large iced coffee guy.

• Notice my use of whole words when describing you. You see, I've been communicating in english for years. Except for emphasis, I even use full sentences. From my use of standard grammatical structures, it can be inferred that I COMPREHEND SPOKEN ENGLISH. That's why most of my customers feel comfortable not using pidgin.

Not you, guy. You're a superstar.
"No shakey, no stirry, no sweety, no special cuppy"
Sure, sure. And no matter how many times I've called it back to you using real words, you insist on ordering that way. It's not cute, not only because you're not at all cute. (No matter how many women claim to find Tony Soprano sexy, a greasy stained t-shirt encasing an old coarse fat balding fuck isn't a charming stylistic statement, you oily wedge of tepid man-ham)

You are cordially invited to enjoy your next iced beverage
right here.------------------------------------>

3. Raspberry Iced Coffee broad.

• I have it on some authority that you're probably mentally ill. I'm guessing that you're a nurse. Either way, feel free to not come back. You get just enough syrup in your coffee to not pay for it. You want us to put the milk in your coffee. But you don't want to get any less coffee in your coffee. So you want us to make your coffee as if it were black, then add milk. Then you want the 'extra'.

If we leave room in your coffee for you to put milk in, like everybody goddamned else, you say "Can I have some coffee in my coffee, please?" Weak laugh. Heh-eh.
Not funny, lady. Not at all. Somewhat insulting. I'm just trying to find a way to make you happy. So I give you your coffee with syrup, and equal, black. So you bring it over to the condiment bar. You spill out about an inch. Not even into the trash (which pisses me off enough), but onto the counter. You then take the whole milk OFF the condiment bar, bring it over to the bar area...and fix your coffee there. And leave a huge fucking mess. And tell me "Oh, this is pretty much empty, dear"
No, it's not.
You are.
Isn't it embarassing to be, well, too small potatoes to LIVE? You can't afford the 35 cents for the syrup you want? You'd just collapse from hunger or fall asleep at the wheel without that extra centimeter of coffee, milk, equal, and rasberry? You really need to make a point to me, your poverty stricken student barista, about how much of a pain it is to have to put milk in your own coffee?
I picture you perched with coworkers, drinking your iced coffee, telling them how you 'get your money's worth'.
Goddamn, lady. It must be NO fun to be you. Fuck off. For free.



4. Regular who steals.

• You're a sweet lady. Your daughter comes in. Your husband comes in. To get your drink.

You're fairly kind to us, and don't drink anything that's too much of a pain to make. You're particular about your drink, but no worse than anyone else. You have a decent job, and you're respected by coworkers. (who also come in to get your drink). You might be a little nitpicky about whether you get a discount or not when you should.
But someone caught you stealing the other day. And they didn't say anything. That's how much we like you- we didn't want to embarass you. But we're concerned. Get help, lady. Stealing when not needed is definitely symptomatic of other problems.

5. Multiple Refills guy.

• It's refill, guy. Not infinifil.

I thought it was pretty gross when you'd keep bringing back the same cup, over and over again, for weeks. It would be rubbed nearly through, sticky, stained, and bent. Somewhat the way I'd picture your internal passages, if I cared to picture your internal passages. It was nasty, guy. So a couple times I'd switch out the cup, if I felt it was about to shred to pieces in my hands. For my own safety.
So now you not only demand refills of coffees you bought four, five, six months...maybe a year ago...you want new cups for the refills. Guy, it's the CUP that makes it a refill. Otherwise, it's just a coffee. A large coffee.
So if you've been paying 53 cents instead of 1.89.
And that's two refills at a time for at least a year. That's 992.80.
Which is one-tenth of what I made last year. How do you feel, guy? Does that make you feel better or worse? So you've made something like a 30,000% return on your investment. Does that make you feel like a big man?
It's a fucking pain is what it is. Your two refills and two coffees every night...that's sixty ounces of coffee. It's a fucking gallon, guy. Don't act all upset when we need to brew more for you. And don't pretend you really are so attached to 'bold'. You know how I know it doesn't matter to you, you just think it does? GUATEMALA WAS BREWED AS BOLD AND YOU DRANK IT, GUY. It doesn't magically change tastes because the bag is different. I've just flipped the tags when I saw you coming and poured you breakfast blend. You don't know what you like, guy. Fucking asshat. And there's never any coffee left for the person behind you. Selfish fuck.
And the whole thing...your thousand dollar profit...that's not bought by your slick-o planning. That's bought by your dependence on poor baristas being too embarassed to confront you on your refill abuse.
ASSSS.

PS. If you're going to tell people you won't go to a certain dentist because asians might go there too, buy a fucking toothbrush. I'm sick of looking at teeth that look like the insides of those skanky cups you bring in. And while you're at it, you might try bathing in WATER instead of cologne. That only fools frogs.

Last Chance.

Last chance to weigh in on whether I should add something stupid to my already packed schedule. The schedule wherein I have less than one day off a week. The schedule wherein I don't have time to poo. The schedule wherein I wish I had more time to work so I could afford more heat later on. The schedule wherein I don't have enough time to both attend class and do the work for it. The schedule where it's as if the reply button on email doesn't exist.

I'd like to write something. Maybe. Mayyyyyyyybe. Maybe. Something in the area of what I used to write,long ago, when the world was young. Not as young as it was during my ill-advised poetry and long skirts period. I'd like to spend some time finding out if fiction doesn't make me throw up anymore. Not that it actually did- more like a cringing constipation more than anything else. And only while editing.

People have been telling me that I'm somewhat nonshitty at the writing thing. Pretty much since I left Bennington, I've been launched into this bizarre world where

1. Everyone thinks I'm stupid (Coworkers, certain professors customers, strangers, monkeys, cavemen...) and theorizes that I'm lazy.
2. Everyone thinks I can, maybe, write (Some professors, strangers, boyfriend, some customers, lemurs, pirates...) and theorizes that I'm lazy.

I fucking hate it when people think I'm stupid. I can deal with being plain. (Which, basically, I am.) I'm not pretty. But I get the benefits of being pretty that would be important to me...so I'm fine with it. But I'm so tired of being 'stupid'. My boss laughed at me the other day, for putting the iced tea in the fridge (actually, she did, and I saw her). "That's just the kind of thing she does!" Glee. Bonding. I die.

My coworkers don't understand, either. I can help them with essays for school, totally push the team around at Trivia night. They've heard about my grades...and yet, it's known that I'm a dim bulb. Totally flaky. Totally dumb. Doesn't get it. I'm so tired of being the comic relief. I can take some of the blame myself. A lot of the reason people think it's ok to openly admit that they think I'm stupid is because I do so myself. It's my schtick, as much as misogyny is. As much as self-deprecation used to be.

I wonder why I run myself down in public about the things that bother me most. When it was my looks, they were my running joke. Now, when it's my intellect, I put on the dunce act. It hurts me so much. I actually want to quit my job, find one I'd be good at. I love my coworkers, but I desperately need to get away from them. But since I can't do that, I'll have to find a way to do something I'm good at on the side, or at least work on something that clicks for me.

My work at school doesn't help. People who've gone to real colleges wouldn't understand. An A at Umass means virtually nothing. Praise on a paper means virtually nothing. It means competence, not excellence. It means a serviceable, grammatical, spell-checked series of paragraphs graded by an objective, accessible rubric and aligned with attendance and extra credit. I don't want to go on being extraordinarily good at being noone in particular.

So maybe I'll write something.

Stop me now.

What the food in my fridge says about me (in bed)

Inspired by an article on Nerve .

In my fridge, right now, belonging to me:

Diet Coke (two liter, flat)
Eggs (one left of a six-pack, Eggland's Best)
Peanut Butter (Teddy)
Jam (Strawberry, smuckers, low sugar)
Hummus (real old- I should toss it out)
Frozen spinach (store brand, two packages)
Butter (store brand, one stick)
Mayonaise (Hellmans, in the upside-down bottle)
Nonfat Milk (Store Brand)
Chai Tea Concentrate (From work)
Sweet Potato (one)

First of all, just looking at that list, you can tell that this is a woman. And I am. And a young woman, probably. Definitely without a family. Definitely busy. All true.

Peanut Butter and jelly suggest that I'm childlike, innocent. Perhaps irresponsible. And I certainly am irresponsible. The long-left hummus certainly would support the hypothesis that I don't like to deal with the consequences of my actions. I leave leftovers way too long. There are many things in my fridge that will probably just spoil before they're eaten. I think I've never finished a package of eggs or quart of milk. I only bought eggs because I was baking brownies. I can't even make an omlet (or spell one). I certainly can't make scrambled eggs.

It also seems like I only eat things that can be spread on bread. That's just a phase I'm going through. I'm very contrary, actually. The more people tell me that giving up carbs, going lo-carb, cutting out bread, cutting out pasta and potatoes and all the wonderful beige, taupe, and tan foods that have sustained civilization for centuries is a good idea...the more I just want to gorge myself on sourdough, rye, pumpernickel. Anything sour. Anything soft. Anything with chew and flake and lovely crust. Sandwiches are just pretense for me, at this point. I'm in it for the bread. Bread and butter, bread and jam, bread with sliced tomatoes, bread with coffee, bread with tea...

I get into these things. It was pasta a while ago. Sandwiches (sammiches) before that. Pie always. I'm compulsive and obsessive, but I've got no sense of commitment. I can't commit to any particular brand of insanity. When I was four it was egg salad, which I haven't had since. I'm in general suspicious of those nominal salads- chicken, egg, ham...

I love the Teddy and Smuckers, though. The low-sugar (no artificial sweetener, either) strawberry jam is just like the inside of a poptart. Warm, on toast, it tastes like pie and sunshine. Cold it tastes like fruit. It's slightly sour, which is wonderful. The teddy is just greasy enough to make me feel like a child; it seems like the only females in this country who still know the sinless joy of buttery chins and slick fingers are under eight. I know I was. But fuck it. I likes m' senshul pleshures.

I use mayonaise for two things only: tuna sandwiches and refinishing furniture. I think that says enough. I'm so fucking crafty. And so finicky. I'm seriously difficult. Nobody knows the multitude of food rules I have. And food is such a small part of life. I won't eat a hawaiian pizza. Not for anyone. Not without pulling the toppings off, at least. It violates rules. I won't eat rice. I have to move the ham from one side of a McDonald's breakfast sandwich to the other side, before I can eat it. Rules.

I actually like nonfat milk more than regular. It tastes better to me. Some people say that this means I don't like milk. I also don't like water. So deal with that. I'm such a lazy drinker. I hate fluids. I get tired of drinking them. I'm into straight espresso, liquor instead of beer, and dehydration.

I used to eat a lot of pasta. Now I eat a lot of things I used to eat on pasta. It's not a low-carb thing, it's a lazy thing. It's also a set-my-bathrobe on fire thing. I eat dinner late. I cook dinner late. I do both of those things tired. Microwaving works well with my lifestyle. And I like spinach. I really do. I mostly put garlic and parmesan cheese and salt on it. Sometimes I mix it with canned tomatoes, which are the reason I don't have scurvy. The sweet potato goes along with the spinach. I can bake it when I get home from work. It's filling. I also put garlic, parmesan cheese, and butter on it. A lot of people put maple syrup and honey and shit on sweet potatoes. That's so fucking against my rules, I can't stand it.

So what does it say about me?

A real feminist issue.

I got a pap smear today. I hate getting pap smears.

On the other side of the world, women wait in a hospital, some living in cardboard slums outside for months, waiting for an operation that will give them back their status as human beings.

Status they'd never have lost as even the poorest, most oppressed western woman. These women suffer from fistulas , caused by inadequate or absent medical care during childbirth. Basically, a fistula happens when a woman ought to have medical/surgical intervention and doesn't. A tear forms in the tissue between the bladder and vagina, or between the bladder and rectum, or both. The woman leaks, basically, until the defect is corrected. Most times,to her family and her husband, it's as if she died in childbirth. She is an outcast.

Surgical repairs are mostly crude or absent, and efforts are underfunded. Occasionally, flesh from the labia majora is used to patch a hole in the vagina, and it continues to grow hair. Multiple operations are common. In some cases, full continence is never regained even after multiple surgeries. This problem is alleviated, a community at a a time, when routine obstetric care becomes both accessible and affordable.

We don't hear much about this. We hear much more about female genital mutilation. We hear about burkas. We hear about child marriage among the roma. We hear about the trafficking of young macedonian optimists to saudi arabian brothels. We hear about those things because they conform to our idea of the exotic other. They're sexier as social problems. They conform to our idea of the exotic, musky, smokey land beyond our mundane 9-5 lives. The first popular romance novel in this country was The White Sheik (later it was Fellini's first film- I've heard it's moderately worth watching). Social problems that seem to be, at least partly, romanticizable (totally not a word) are completely more digestable. Nobody really thinks it's hot to be made into an object, made into nothing but a collection of parts and values. It's enraging, nauseating, horrifying, to think that women are being cloistered within their own bodies; infibulated to ensure chastity; raped and broken for profit. But it's about sex. And we like that.

Fistulas aren't about sex. They're about women's health. And they're about childbirth (something we, and I know I love to divorce from anything sexual). They're about piss and shit and fear of contamination. They're about political, economic, and pragmatic prioritization that neglects preventitive and urgent care, leaving some women with a chronic, sometimes debilitating condition that leaves them as lepers.

I hate getting a pap smear. I never want to have children. The latter is a choice; the former I can't prevent. I live in a country where gynecological care is nearly mandatory. I'm not trusted NOT to have children without a yearly check from a gynecologist. What absurd luxury. What ridiculous excess. What a world. A ceasarian section costs nine month's pay in Nigeria (Outreach programmes for obstetric fistulae. Kelly, J.. Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Mar2004, Vol. 24 Issue 2, p117, 2p-118) and my unneccesary yearly exam (that I bitch and bitch and bitch about) was free.

So two things.

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I should be committed.

I went to the wedding of a friend this weekend. Here's an artist's conception of the difference
between my friend, getting married at 23, and how I would appear, getting married at 23.
Kristin is the Blonde.

Note the subtle differences in affect and expression. Note the attitude of peace and joy evidenced in the portrait of my friend, Kristin, on her wedding day. She wore her mother's wedding dress, carried chrysanthemums and sunflowers (a perfect combination for a late summer wedding). Now, if I'd been in her position, I'd have made some subtly different choices. Such as being so insanely overwhelmed by the concept of commitment that I become, instantly, afflicted with pyromania, trichotillomania, and excess salivary output. I would probably use the tasteful bouquet as tinder.

It's worth mentioning that Kristin is the one who taught me how to light a fire. She was a girl scout. She's a Fullbright scholar. She's bilingual and the most amazing optimist and idealist. She knits and sews and doesn't eat things that are coerced out of animals.

I love bacon and not fulfilling requirements. I may not have brushed my teeth today. I keep thinking I'll start a novel, but I'm afraid to commit to anything more than ten pages long. I lose sleep over my gym membership. I want a tattoo, but the thought of purchasing something that, ideally (barring regret and laser removal, or accident and amputation) I'll be wearing when I die, is just too morbid.

I don't want to get married at 23. I'm not sure I ever want to get married. I'm also resentful that I can't decide not to get married based on my insane fears and personal disdain for going out on any kind of emotional limb. I can't decide not to get married because I just can't get married. Twenty three isn't adult enough to get married around here. Life is just too expensive, and requires too much training. I can't pay my own car insurance, and have no serious hopes of being able to any time in the next couple years. I'm a student. Maybe soon I'll be a law student. That's years of schooling. That's years of extended adolescence. That's years of living the transient life of a bright nineteen-year-old, pizza and beer and coupons and classes.

I don't want to get married. But I want to have a life. I want to have an independent life. I want to support myself. I want to be an adult. It aches, a little, seeing my friend's adulthood affirmed. Her fornication is now fully societally endorsed. Her closest peer, her only backup, is someone she's chosen. I'm living in some sad gray area. I'm an undergrad, but so old to be one. I'm working a teenager's job for a teenager's salary. I'm in an alleged serious relationship, but haven't even had the endorsement of introducing that relationship to my family. My boyfriend hasn't introduced me to anyone, either. He's too old to bother, and I'm too young to feel comfortable. How am I supposed to introduce this person to my family, when I realize that the only reason he and I live even psuedo-equivalent lives is because of my family's generous bankrolling of my lifestyle?

I wouldn't be able to afford my apartment if my parents didn't help me with rent a little during the school year. I wouldn't be able to drive if my parents didn't give me car insurance for Christmas. I wouldn't have the privacy to disappear over the weekend to play grownups with this man, or even the means to get there, without my parents. I wouldn't have a hope of finishing college and starting a life without them. I'm a child allowed to play at being an adult, given the patient indulgence of my parents, and the benign, willful denial of my personally irresponsible circumstances by my boyfriend.

I want to be a real person, so desperately. This is getting Livejournal. Fuck it. I just wish I'd finished school at one go, at 21. I just wish I'd picked a path at 17 and stuck with it. I wish I had some of the optimism or independence or confidence or sheer BALLS that Kristin has.

College: Waste of time or waste of money?

Salon.com has another article about higher education .

This one is about an anthropologist who decided to study american college students, as if they were pacific islanders or yanomamo or bushmen (apparently, you don't call them San anymore- that's bad). That is, ethnographically and inaccurately. Like Tom Wolf without focusing so much on felatio. Or the charming white suit.

I'm 23 and a college student. An undergraduate. This is my seventh or eighth year as a college student. If you do the math, that means I started college before I finished high school. I've been in college longer than I've been driving, fucking, working, or been able to make a decent pie. I've been in college longer than most american marriages last.

And I can say one thing to this anthropologist: As fourth-tier universities go, you've done a pretty good job- just stop being such an apologist.

I go to a fourth tier university. Most of my classmates shouldn't be attending university at all. This is evidence of two separate but related phenomena in our society:

1. Students aren't well prepared for college level work.
2. Students are pushed into college even when innapropriate for their goals and abilities.

College has become the new high school; you need a degree (or are told you need a degree) for any job that has a chance of offering a middle-class existance. This goes along with the increasing length of adolesence in the US. People are forced by obscene housing costs and underemployment to live with their parents into their mid to late twenties. There's no hope of marrying, having children, living alone, or any of the traditional markers of adulthood until the mid-thirties at least, so an extra four years of education doesn't seem like a significant delay.

Of course, it can be. And it's a huge expense for individuals and their families. And it's not appropriate for all individuals. Vocational education has been neglected in this country. If it were a dog, it would be bald, underfed, flea-bitten and left in a locked car with the windows closed in August. I went to a vocational high school. People could leave with an education that would prepare them for careers in auto body, plumbing, carpetry, nursing, early childhood education, metal work, and more. In a few years, my old high school will move to a new building, and the vocational facilities will not be rebuilt. Parents don't want to be told their child won't be preparing for college. Career education has become a dirty word. People think that it's somehow less than the other tracks; it's not. The days of slotting slower learners into practical classes are over. Parents don't want it, though. They want their children to go to college, no matter what.

So college has become the place to go. And with this influx of students who don't quite know what they want, who don't quite know what to do with a degree, who don't quite even know if they wanted to continue their education, are pushed into fourth-tier universities. They go for the experience, for the extended adolescence, because it's what is expected of them. They go because there is an impression that without college, they will be waiters and janitors and maids.
The kids who, five years ago, graduated my high school with a top-notch vocational education are solidly middle class now. They're in unions, they have a trade, and they're making more than three times what I do. And they're competant professionals with the same chance I have of a fulfilling life.

Their younger sisters and brothers in my classes at UMass aren't as lucky. The standard education obtained from my high school doesn't prepare you well for college. English focuses on the five-paragraph essay, useless after 12th grade. Science progresses from the outdated taxonomy of plants, fungus, animals, bacteria and viruses to a cursory hurtle through Newton's laws. History is a whirlwind of commitee designed curricula. Native Americans and their belief systems are stressed- whether the war of 1812 happened before or after the civil war is not touched upon. And these kids are in college. And they're the majority. And they're lost.

They want good grades but they don't know what they might mean. They're not planning on graduate school but have been given a vague impression that college is something they're meant to do well in. They want to do well on the tests but don't really understand what they're meant to get from the course. They grade-grub. They want an A for showing up and trying hard. They don't want to write too many papers. They want to connect with their professors, but don't really want to work too hard. They feel that doing well is something they are owed.

I've had people in my classes complain that they shouldn't have to write papers in a course that wasn't english or creative writing. It's not fair, they claim, to be graded on anything but knowledge of the subject. I've had people in my classes complain that there is no attendance grade- what do they get for showing up? I've had people complain that material is too hard, the reading is too long, and the lectures aren't interesting to them.

Students demand the questions for a test in advance; if not the questions, they want a study guide; they're positively up in arms if the professor doesn't post her notes online. Nobody takes their own notes anymore. People don't know how. They resent information presented in class that isn't found in the book. They aren't lazy. They aren't stupid. They're just not at college to learn. They're at college because everyone they've known has told them that a bachelors degree is a passport to a successful adult life.

Of course they resent their professors; they are the ones making it harder for them to get that degree. It must seem slightly sadistic to these bumbling undergrads when a professor requires deep thought and analysis rather than a 1,2,3 pass system.

But this is just the fourth-tier university students. This is just my current classmates. My old school was entirely different. My discontent is different. I've been at UMass about eighteen months, give or take. In that time I've taken many classes, in many disciplines. Not once have I been asked to write a paper more than five pages long. Not once have I been allowed to choose a topic for a paper myself. (No teacher at Bennington would DREAM of teaching a course without at least one free-topic paper). Not once has a teacher required insight or application of concepts in a paper. I feel my teachers have been somewhat beaten by their students. By the need for objectively graded exams for sticklers with litigious leanings. Beaten by the need to have a course that is both relevant to the brain-sparing sophomores and palatable to the burned-out seniors. Not once have I been able to give a teacher a full enough impression of my work in order to ask for a reccomendation.

I take courses at the Harvard Extension sometimes. I like the way that the profs there respond to their students. I like the way most of the students there seem to know how to be students. I like the way analytical writing can be treated like a joy rather than a chore. I like the way profs make personal comments on papers. I like the mutual respect evident in the classroom. I like the way it seems to matter that I wrote my paper, rather than someone else writing an equally good paper for the same assignment.

I miss being a real student.

I dreamed about zombies again last night.

So now I'm baking muffins.

I really like that dress. I think I need to wear lipstick, though. I missed a critical lipstick learning period in life, though, so I wonder if I'll never learn how to wear it, and what colors look good on me. It can't be that my coloring is too weird for lipstick. I'm pale. I need it. I just feel like a dork wearing it. I want to, but I can't.


Is anything less interesting than the above paragraph?

Bret Easton Ellis can fuck right off.

He went to my college. Not the one I'll be graduating from; the one I was kicked out of.

And his books aren't so great. Really, I promise they're not. I watched Rules of Attraction, as a movie. It kinda sucked. It was only worth it to watch someone overdose in a facsimile of a dorm I spent two years in. The campus didn't even look the same- that's where the producer fucked up. Bennington is a strange place. It looks strange. It does not look like a college. It doesn't look like anything. There's only one brick building on campus- all the dorms are white clapboard houses that look like farms or upscale new england group homes for addicts or neurotics. Which is basically what they are. I've read some of the books- they suck.

They're alright. But they're not so great. Not greater than anything I could write. Not greater than anything anyone with a snide sense of self-satisfaction and half a college education could write. This fucker, though, takes something anyone else could write, and smears himself, brands himself, markets himself all over it, until it's entirely covered in his goo. No one wants to read about rich kids debauching themselves with the tacit approval of a decadent college administration anymore. They've already READ it. And it's got Bret Easton Ellis all over it.

Which would be fine. If the books were great. But they're not. They're style. They're marketing. They're a product of the decade they were written in- all surface and coke and savage, glittery, acid materialism. Fuck him.

I'm 23, able to string together a half-decent sentence in english, and spent the requisite time at Bennington. Where's my 300,000 second novel advance? Where's my motherfucking FIRST novel, even?

Gay, folks. Gay. There's no opportunity in the world anymore. The eighties sucked half of it out, and the internet boom sucked the rest of it. There's no point in being 23 right now. Motherfuckers used it all up. Alex P Keaton fucking Dot Com fucking Real Estate fucking Social Security fuckers. I'm young, bright, hard working. And I'll be poor forever. Unless I go to law school. Which I probably will. But I'd rather write a shitty novel.

"We're happy to serve YOU!!"

My supermarket receipt claims that they were happy to serve me.
Me? Lil' ole' me?

fucking doubtful.

I'm not even happy to serve people and I'm a customer service whore. I would be much happier, sitting at home, fucking around on the internet, baking cookies, and in general living my life rather than doing my job. I assume that's true of the great majority of people alive and working.

This whole "happy to serve you" thing is fucking ubiquitous. It's everywhere. It's become the "have a nice day" of the 21st century. Why don't people say what they mean anymore? What's so bad about "We appreciate your business."

I guess it's because the whole world is now supposed to be a GFE. We all want kisses with our blowjobs; nobody wants to confront the fact that the person you're paying to do something for you is doing it because it's their job; and the reason the company they work for exists is not to make you feel good, but to make a profit.

I like my customers, by and large (Except one guy-this one guy can go to hell). They're mostly considerate, polite, pleasant people. I'd like them just as much, probably, if they weren't my customers. But I don't forget that they are customers. And they don't forget, either, judging by tips. But the line is blurred. Customers have favorite baristas, baristas have favorite customers. But my business is a lot different from the grocery store.

I don't know the woman who rang up my groceries. She did it well, and quickly, but there's no secret that she'd rather be somewhere else. That's what working in a grocery store is. It's not a vocation. It's a job. It's menial and tedious and there's no intellectual stimulation or cozy conversation with regular customers. She's not delighted to serve me; she's TIRED. She served me well, though. No mistakes. Fine service, really. But, delighted? eh. And that's fine.

So maybe we can stop pretending. Maybe we can stop asking people to pretend to be our friends for minimum wage. How lonely are we, as a society? How in desperate need of reassurance are we that anyone we give money to has to be 'happy to serve YOU!"? Can't competance ad professionalism replace chumminess? At least competance rings true, if you have it.

Again, I really like a lot of my customers. I treat them well, they treat me well; I had more customers than friends ask me how my grades came out at the end of last term. (3.85, if you're interested) I remember who is working on a book, whose children are young enough to exhaust them, who is studying to go back to school. We're acquaintances, by this point- but behind the counter remains behind the counter, and in front is in front. I'm always a little bit happier, a little bit less tired, a little bit more optimistic at work. And these customers respond, in their part, by tipping. They pay for their coffee; they tip for the service. It's a personal interaction, but a business context. I'm comfortable with that.

Can someone else be comfortable with that?