When Angry Hippies Attack

All Them Girls

2011-10-14T16:41:00.000-05:00

Same Song

or, Can't Redistribute The Pretty, verse 2

I just left this comment over at Althouse, on a post about how people perceive a makeup-wearing woman to be more competent and likeable than a bare-faced one.

Feminists are always reflexively against anything that levels the playing field in the beauty pageant that is life. They wish so badly that there were no beauty pageant, thus they try to handicap other women's ability to compete through shaming peer pressure. Then, they reason, they themselves will be considered hotter, per Sailer's Law of Female Journalism.

I agree with most of the ladies', including Ann's, opinion that the older gal should pay a little extra attention to her cosmetics, but a lot of makeup that once looked good on smooth skin looks kind of terrible on aging skin. Foundation, concealers, powder, blush ... you've really got to be careful if you don't want to emphasize the condition your condition is in. A magnifying mirror, at least 10x, comes in awful handy.

Possibly no one but a chick who used to be a pretty young girl can fully appreciate the extent to which women resent The Beauty Pageant That Is Life, and how remorselessly cruel they will be attempting to kneecap the competition.

Whoopsydoodle!

2011-09-21T12:21:00.000-05:00

I accidentally married a man who won't eat shrimp and grits. He won't eat duck breast either. When they said marriage was work I never dreamed they meant REDUCED NOM-ORTUNITIES.

But since he's already moved up to start work in DFW, I believe I'll whip me up some dang shrimp 'n' grits.

You Got to Have Your Independence

2011-09-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

But You Don't Know Just Where to Start

Yesterday I put on a pair of shoes I used to wear to the office all the time and they pinched my feet dreadfully. Did I really just accept that that's what shoes felt like? And they weren't high-heeled Cruel Shoes, either, they were J. Crew ballerina flats. Three months of housewifery and my feet are spoiled rotten.

All Revved Up

2011-09-19T17:31:00.000-05:00

With No Place to Go

Yes! Yes! Yes! It's all happening.

One More!

Wrecking Ball

Feelin' Fine

Read that Peter Mueller is also feelin' fine. This makes me happy. Wish that Crosby felt fine. Marc Savard, too.

Training camps having already started, if Doughty and the Kings can't agree on a deal who will suddenly cough up a long-term $7 million/year contract? Imagine my excitement if the Avs stepped up. Look, I know it's not going to happen, but I can dream. This is a great photo.

Temperatures have plunged below 100°, the silly season is almost over, and life will once again have meaning.

How Many More Times

2011-09-19T14:59:00.000-05:00

Treat Me the Way You Wanna Do

Heh. The Instapundit, linking to this post by Walter Russell Mead, says pithily

Theocracy is forever descending on the United States, but somehow it always lands in the Middle East.

If liberals ever actually studied any history, they would have read about the many relatively short-lived spiritual and theological fad movements. They might even be grateful to live in a place where such groups, not exactly cults but full of zealots, can be born, flourish briefly, and die a natural death without being persecuted by authority. But they're not grateful, not at all. We need Social Change!

Was talking with a friend and mentioned that it was important that Christianity was the dominant religion worldwide, in number of believers. She automatically spluttered with denial. It was simply not possible! No way! I gently suggested that perhaps she merely wished very much that it weren't so. She challenged me to Google it. Wikipedia says this:

With around 2.2 billion adherents,^[split into 3 main branches of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, Christianity is the world's largest religion.^[149]

Footnote 149 goes to a site called Adherents.com from which I got this pie chart:

I thought I had read some figures like this years ago. It not as though anyone is keeping attendance records, as noted everywhere I looked during my 5 minutes of online research, so these numbers are but approximations. I confirmed my own bias, which is the important thing, and exposed another fictitious article of the liberal creed. You can rest assured that if confronted with this she will automatically respond that it's the sneaky and malignant Christers, spreading lies, and that there's Just No Way more people are into Jesus than Buddhism. For being such diversity-mongers, progressives are weirdly unable to understand anyone not exactly like them.

Coping Skills

2011-09-16T22:25:00.000-05:00

What the Hell Are They Exactly?

I used to have them, or at any rate things didn't used to be so difficult. Having spent the previous hour in the company of a great many people, it took a lot of stern self-talk to go to the pharmacy to get my Flonase. I will sneeze and sniffle and my eyes will run uncontrollably if I don't use it, and I used the last dose today, and I know all this and I have to have this drug but just entering the store was agonizing. I had to buy a lip gloss to cope. It must be amazing to not be drained of all happiness by the fucking grocery store.

Is There Anyone Left on Earth Who Doesn't Know that Life Isn't Fair?

2011-09-16T17:15:00.000-05:00

Quite a Few, As It Turns Out, and Many Live Here

Even if progressives were somehow able to redistribute all wealth into something they pretended was equal, they can't redistribute the brains. Instantly the smarter will be directing the stronger to take wealth away from the weaker and dumber and it'll look unfashionably unequal in no time.

Here's another thing you can't redistribute: The Pretty. Though a multibillion dollar industry exists on the hope that it is possible, you can only change so much. And for the fellers, redistributing The Tall is not really possible at all. These two things are even less fair than wealth inequality because there's no remedy for them and because humans are hardwired to prefer the pretty and the tall. Unless you're a tall chick. Men are not so crazy about that, I have found. No heels for you!

Why Are Women's Feet So Small?

2011-09-15T23:32:00.000-05:00

So They Can Stand Closer to the Sink

I'll tell you how I knew my husband was The Man for Me. This happened years and years before we ever dated. A group of us had been out to dinner and he was giving some of us a ride back to our cars. I was in the backseat. I said something and he said "Shhhhh. Men are talking." I laughed so hard I had to lie down on the backseat. I'm calling that as the moment he became my favorite person in the world. Plenty of guys are capable of working that kind of anti-PC humor but not with his style.

I'm Not Qualified to Write about Hockey

2011-09-15T22:20:00.000-05:00

But I Won't Let That Stop Me

GMs do stuff that I don't understand, like hire Peter Budaj to be the backup goaltender in Montreal. Montreal! Did we not see enough of this guy in Colorado? Speaking of which. Yeah, I guess they're being fiscally responsible but it would have healed some of the hurt in me if'n they had signed Vokoun instead of Varlamov. I have a bad feeling about that guy. They could have "rebuilt" (whatever) with a near elite goalie.

I guess it's getting near the time to start hyperventilating, because another glorious season of the Greatest Game on Earth begins in a couple of weeks.

All Hail the Queen

2011-09-15T14:54:00.000-05:00

But Why, Mary?

I have a lot of love for Mary J. Blige. She is right up there with Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan in my Personal Pantheon and her music is in daily rotation on the ole iPod. What I want to know is WHY for the love of all that is holy would they autotune the Queen of Hip Hop Soul?

I know that I am old, and that I'm probably beginning to lose the pop culture plot. But I always thought autotune was an effect they put on vocals when an artist couldn't really sing. No one's ever accused Mary of that. One of the reasons I love her is that she doesn't seem stuck in a hip hop ghetto, that she will collaborate with artists of other genres and lend her magnificent voice to all sorts of songs. Autotuned vocals make me think of the Bed Intruder Song. That song kicks ass, but not because Antoine Dodson can sing.

Is that a Real Poncho or a Sears Poncho? pt.2

2011-09-13T17:18:00.000-05:00

"But I Got the Crystal Ball!" he said

Dude. I was just expressing my great and sincere like for Retro Renovation via Facebook and saw, in the handy little sidebar, that 49 of my friends actually "like" Barack Hussein Obama. I knew plenty of folks who got misty about ole Dubya back in the day--what the fuck is wrong with these people? We're talking about *!#damned politicians, for fuck's sake.

Positive Body Image

2011-09-12T23:34:00.000-05:00

Liberals Invent the Weirdest Virtues

I've been hearing about this one since at least 1990. As I recall in those days the official story was that the patriarchal-industrial complex invented an unrealistic standard for women's beauty, one that no women actually lived up to, except fake Barbie bitches. Despite women's being more intelligent and superior in every way, evil misogynist men were easily able to brainwash every single woman in The West into believing that she should adhere to this standard. Since most women didn't measure up to the ideal they had Body Image Issues. Women, sweepingly, as a collective group with no individual variation, felt bad about themselves. This constituted a Crisis! I guess the underlying premise here is that women should never experience the slightest amount of emotional discomfort. So much of what passes for feminism seems to boil down to that.

Then we had the Real Women Have Curves years. At the time I didn't really have curves and found this pretty fucking stupid. Many women actually tried to get me to admit that I was anorexic and rolled their eyes when I wouldn't play along. They seemed to think I was trying to get one over on them.

Well, age is quite the neutralizer, innit? No one sternly and patronizingly orders me to Eat a Sandwich! anymore. I don't look the least bit delicate and waify. But during this time the idea of Positive Body Image has calcified into one of those bizarre, invented psuedo-virtues. Women are no longer allowed to be critical of their own bodies. No, there's only one correct opinion to have of yourself, no matter what you look like, which is that you are a damn supermodel and anyone who disagrees is a sexist bigot!

I'll grant you that it's tedious to listen to a woman who wishes she looked different run herself down. The problem isn't that she's thinking the wrong thoughts about herself, though--the problem is that she can't quit thinking about herself. Changing your thoughts from negative to positive won't solve this problem. No one who takes her thoughts about herself seriously is ever happy or satisfied. The only solution is some of that selflessness that feminists think is The Problem with Women Today. However, those who believe in the false virtue of positive body image will never believe it, and will never change.

This would all be harmless if feminists didn't encourage women to abandon real virtues in order to make room for these useless substitutes. I know from experience that following the tolerant liberal feminist playbook I learned in college does not result in a happy, useful existence for most women.

Another Solemn Vow

2011-09-09T18:13:00.000-05:00

... that I make to you, O my brothers, is that I will not put a sweater on either of my dogs. I make no promises about Halloween costumes, though.

Holy Crappity Crap

2011-09-08T16:48:00.001-05:00

I Guess This Thing's Turned into a Journal

Yikes! A journal. Run away! However, I solemnly promise not to use "journal" as a verb as that represents moral failure in my crazed, judgy opinion. Nonetheless I myself am often helped by reading about other people's struggle with this very common malady. Reading lightly through some blogs I was reminded that most who feel as bad as I do, and brother do I feel bad, drug themselves to the gills. You have to be extra crazy to be proud and even feel a sense of accomplishment in resisting the pressure to drug the pain away, but I am and I do.

Really, though, the reason is that I was medicated for depression beginning at age five and continuing until I left home to go to college. I hated it most fiercely, hated how it made me feel, and it did not help me feel better, and no one would listen when I begged to be allowed to quit the meds. Eventually, I became one of those teenagers who experienced an increase in suicidal thoughts as a result of the antidepressants I was taking and attempted to overdose on any pills I could get my hands on that I thought would kill me. I planned it for months. So, you know, I didn't die, and I am pretty glad of this now. I feel bad bad bad but I don't want to die and I don't have to take meds. Maybe they would enable me to function as a wife and partner better ... that might be a reason to take them. I don't rule them out for that reason but I guess today I'll be grateful for my freedom.

The Ongoing Chronicle of Mental Illness

2011-09-08T16:09:00.000-05:00

It Sometimes Causes Me to Be Miss Judgypants

Seriously, though, I must have a teeny touch of the old agoraphobia because unless it's a very Spiritually Fit day going where there are more than about four people is traumatizing. Today the grocery shopping expedition was a mix of fear and agony. I felt battered and exhausted afterward. How in the hell did I ever work in bars? If I didn't have to fulfill my housewife duties I would rarely leave the house except to walk the dogs.

I coped by noticing that a young man was wearing Polo shorts which had the embroidered logo all over, like lobster or duck covered go-to-hell pants. Unfortunately these shorts took a shot at WASP insouciance and missed. He looked like he was covered with crickets. It was hallucinatory. On reflection, this coping strategy lacks effectiveness.

However. I am inspired to make a couple of pairs of GTH pants for myself.

Feminism is a Crock of Shit

2011-09-07T14:20:00.000-05:00

Which American Girls Could Use Less of

PEOPLE. A world in which a 15-year-old girl can attract capital funding and the attention of the entire fashion media for a cute little moodboard website aimed at teenage chicks is not a world in which women and girls are oppressed or even inconvenienced IN ANY WAY. Nonetheless Tavi Gevinson is a feminist. Okay, the girl is very young, and you get a pass for believing foolish nonsense at that age, except of course many women now in their sixties believe the exact same nonsense. She resurrects that old feminist lie that the problem with women is we're too nice!

You know, women and girls are taught to ask for things in a way that's kind of especially shy or especially careful. But when we're working on deadlines, it's become easier for me to just, like, straight-up ask for things and say that there's something I would like to be fixed in some article. And everyone's a feminist and understands our crazy schedule so…

I am not here to pick on Miss Gevinson. It just depresses me that Tavi appears to believe that after "being in all these meetings with publishing companies and advertisers and stuff" there's still a need for feminist action to remedy the sexist injustice of not being taken seriously. Young girls will read crap like this and decide they need to be bitchier, since nice is obviously some lameass doormat thing to do. I remember when I thought this very thing, 20 years ago. Feminists are still peddling the same line. Tavi is practically a unicorn, her combination of talent, intelligence, wealth, privilege, indulgent parents, and receptive audience are so rare. Where would she even get the idea that some kind of sweeping, general wrong is being done in a country where Rookie is greeted with so much enthusiasm? Can we recalibrate the injustice meter yet?

A Beauty Delivery System

2011-09-06T14:05:00.000-05:00

It's Called Art

Scott Adams, a fairly rational-sounding man, asks whether there is some way to get a "daily beauty fix."

My point is that for years I experienced a beauty-free existence. You learn to live without beauty, and you usually don't miss it in any given moment. But I think it grinds on you over time. I assume humans are hardwired by evolution to appreciate beauty, presumably because beauty is a marker for where the food is, and where the good hiding places are, and who the healthiest mates might be.

All of this made me wonder if there's a beauty analogy to music. Music is to the ears as beauty is to the eyes. We have iPods and other music devices to fill our ears with wonderful music. Could we invent a system to give us our daily beauty fix? It's an untapped market.

As far as I'm concerned, art is something manmade that I want to look at all the time. My house is full of paintings, prints, and sculpture that I never get tired of seeing. When I need to hit the reset button, this painting does the job for me nicely.

Scott Adams is a pretty smart guy, so I expect he already knows the purpose of art and was just hoping to encourage people to think about it.

Artists roll their sensitive elitist eyes with contempt when a person looks at yet another deliberately ugly piece of art and asks "but what does it mean?" Oh, it upsets them so, the thought that these awful ignorant racist rubes think that art is supposed to have meaning! Perhaps the rubes are wondering that since the artist did not think it worthwhile to create beauty, he must be trying to express something else, and it is not clear what that is. Thus the question. Most of these artists are indignant because no one recognizes their genius or even takes them seriously. Thus, "we" "need" "social change" to ensure that they are undeservingly exalted. I love art but artists are always seconds away from a shin-kicking. (That was what we call a figurative expression, not a threat of violence by the way, in case anyone was gearing up to freak out. Don't actually kick anyone in the shin, K?)

Belak's death not a suicide?

2011-09-05T13:03:00.000-05:00

This fella who is a columnist for The Hockey News is implying that Wade Belak's death was some David Carradine-style accidental hanging.

I guess we'll find out. God, this is awful.

The resistance of the hockey media, especially the Canadian media, to speaking plainly about Belak and Rypien is astonishing. Of course, I haven't researched this claim exhaustively, but it seems only Mirtle is just coming out and saying that Belak committed suicide.

People always want to know why someone has taken his life. You tell them "he was in so much pain and despair that he thought it would never get any better and he couldn't face it anymore" and that's never satisfying to them. No, the cause has to be something simple and easy that the asker of the question doesn't like. In my brother's case, my mom and our priest decided It Was Drugs! Drugs, I Tell You! and that became the story. It was the late 80s. No one wanted to know that there was an entire ocean of family pain and dysfunction under that glib determination. I didn't have the heart to tell anyone the truth, and no one wanted to hear. Even though they ALL asked.

Hmm, I seem to be doing that odious thing of making someone else's tragedy about me. I know it isn't about me. I just always get this way when I hear about a suicide. Someone of my acquaintance takes his own life just about every year. There's not much to do to help the bereaved, either. They'll have to find their own way through the grief. It's just a bitch anyway you look at it.

Georges Laraque's column on this matter is good.

We Are the Goon Squad and We're Coming to Town

2011-09-05T12:50:00.001-05:00

beep beep

Fashion-y things that everyone loves but I don't on account of they look terrible on me:

skinny jeans
maxi dresses. They are the slippery slope to slattern.
belts over dresses
Lord have mercy, "playsuits." Ugh! I remember the last time they came around, which was the early 90s. I bought one, and I was thin enough to pull it off, but I felt like a total idiot douchebag every time I put it on, so I gave it to Goodwill unworn.

If I left the house more I would surely identify many more such sartorial cliches. I won't post any pictures or link because it is also a cliche to pick on people on the Internet. Shooting fish in a barrel does not make you a legendary marksman, people, it makes you a bully.