What the fuck is WRONG with people?

Because I assume that all eight of my sexy readers are personal friends (except those two guys who wound up here by keyword search after I blogged about 2girls1cup and the primary debates, and I'm guessing that was a one-hit thing), you've probably heard me utter this phrase once or twice before. But seriously. What the fuck IS wrong w/people?

Several years ago, I was in NYC on a date gone slightly awry with an old girlfriend-ish person from out west. We wound up at some crappy bar in the East Village where I, in an effort to build some sort of emotional blockade between me and her, struck up a quite chummy conversation with an ad executive.

Of course, he and I had ZERO in common, and I think ad guys are as gross as my date did, and I was particularly disturbed by the fact that one of the products he was shilling for was Bratz dolls.

Anyway, I was kind of drunk and getting a kick out of disregarding my date's desire to keep it intimate -- in my defense, she had done a lot of shit that, at least in my mind, totally warranted my behavior -- and got a little manic and cheerfully went OFF on this guy, kicking my new strappy platform-clad feet onto the stool between us and explaining how while it was wonderful for grown women to creatively engage with the outside world in part, by way of sexy clothing, war paint and accessories, that it was perverse to peddle a dumbed-down, sickly version of femme to small children, and that most disgusting about his work to me was how it evidenced the fact that our society not only peddles sex so cheaply, but that it's more about the money than the sex (let alone the respect for femme).

I went on to argue that whatever he was making on that campaign was worth less than my self-assuredness that, nearing the end of grad school, I would soon be getting paid, however pitifully, for doing good work in the world. That my gender and my sexuality were still mine, in spite of millions of images that twist it around and try to force-feed a beaten-up version of it back to me, and also worth more than this stupid ass system that would let a sexless white men like him to make millions off a cheap, phantomy, bland impression of femme identity. In short, that he was in the wrong business and would be better off making less money but doing good work and being kinky and smart.

My final piece of evidence against him was the fact that it was 2am on a weeknight at a bar in NYC and he was still wearing an unimpressive suit jacket. As I wrapped up my argument, I demanded that he pull his tie out from his jacket pocket and surrender it to me, which he did. I wore it as a belt for awhile and briefly entertained the idea of making that my schtick, letting gross rich guys buy me drinks and give me their ties while I told them how stupid they were, maybe making a book with the ties, but I never did.

Anyway. I'm not sure why this is the perfect example for how I'm feeling today, but I will say two more things, then send you off to think about me giving that adman whatfor:

1. It's not like me to engage with the opposition. I generally loathe to engage with anybody I suspect might hold radically different viewpoints from mine. But I know that I need to learn to, and I hope that more activists will, too, because it seems to help get things done. It's just as lame of me to assume that a person hasn't any humanity or lacks the ability to understand my point of view as it is for them to do the same to me, and it's even lamer of me to judge people who wear khaki. (I'm working on it -- I think it's PTSD from living in DC during the Bush Administration)

2. On the other hand, it's not lame of me to get pissed at shitfucks like that guy whose tie I stole, because their priorities are fucked, and they're fucking the rest of us. How does that guy sleep at night. How can our government pass a stimulus plan that lets these piece of shit bankers wipe their asses with our money and continue to ride the backs of the poor, meanwhile kicking them out of their fucking houses. How can a CEO knowingly distribute a food product contaminated with salmonella to millions of people and show his fucking face in court, let alone plead the 5th? How do people wear khakis???

I guess I just feel like I should be engaging more, with the opposition as well as people engaged in the same fight, but things (globally, politically) are so gross that I can't even see how. And I guess right now I'm just not feeling the wonder of my hotness (maybe I should take a shower :) or anything else. Surely, it'll pass, but in the meantime, send a girl some wonder, guys. Remind me how hot you are, what cool shit you're up to. Puh-lease, help me balance the wonder of the sexy and creative and SMART against the the greedy and boring.

Tell me something good. I would do the same for you.