Adios, Amigo

Yesterday, Mr. Man had an assignment (have I mentioned that Mr. Man is a schoolboy?) to write a bunch of aphorisms. In the midst of digesting the fact that Lambda Legal, a self-described LBGT legal defense fund, has ads running on Perez Hilton (who I've finally decided is too ignorant and transphobic to read anymore--read on), he decided to write some about the unspoken "lessons" one can learn about our culture from visiting Perez's site. Here's how our our gchat went:

Mr. Man: ow lambda legal is advertising on perez

me: omg

fucking idiots

!!!

???

that's cuh-razy

right?

3:26 PM Mr. Man: ya- it's crazy- but not too surpising

me: ya

no it's kinda smart

but not really

Mr. Man: there go the raises for thier employees....

me: pretty fucked up

no shit

not to mention who they're endorsing by their presence, and who they're targeting

3:30 PM Mr. Man: i am writing aphorisms inspired by perez hilton

me: haha yay

3:34 PMMr. Man: Things that could be learned from reading perezhilton.com

1. The young are the powerful, because they are beautiful, but the old can have power too if they get plastic surgery and/or have money.
2. Some women who are not transgender look like transgender people, and this is shameful.
3. A worthwhile cause is only worthwhile if it is endorsed by a celebrity.
4. What the rich and famous do is more important and meaningful than what everyone else does.
5. Everything is secondary to visual beauty.
6. Celebrity pop culture is nothing more than sensationalized mundanity.
7. Sarcasm is the best way to both make fun of and idolize people at the same time.
8. People who used to be celebrities, but aren't really any more are both funny and pathetic.
9. Appropriation of a radical queer style is okay if you are gay man, even if you are pretty mainstream, aside from your gay-ness.
10. Subscribing to strict gender roles is important is you want to be a celebrity- it's okay to be gay, but not too gay.

In one of my very first posts, I mentioned Perez Hilton and how I hated to love him but couldn't help it because he shared my love for Beth Ditto. Even back then, Mr. Man (the rascal who got me hooked on celebrity news, darn him) and I had noticed a disturbing habit Perez had of making fun of trannies, but we kind of just cringed and shook our heads in that "I'm disappointed but not really surprised" way, the way we did when that dumbass Dave Letterman (who I've always loved more than Conan or Leno) disappointed me so much a few weeks ago. Sometimes I'd post comments about how fucked up it was that PH would be such a hypocrite, not because he's gay, but because sometimes he champions the rights of trannies (or pretends to), most recently in response to Letterman's insensitive and trans-phobic remarks.

I should acknowledge that it's pretty fucking ridiculous that we visit this site at all. The whole celebrity thing is ridiculous, and although I like to tell myself that I need to know this stuff for work, or to better understand the mainstream, but I would have to admit that part of me enjoys it, in spite of being totally disgusted. It's like Diet Coke.

It's not just the trans stuff, either--Perez makes fun of people like Tina, the young girl who PH made famous for videos of herself dancing to pop music in her bedroom, who did appear to be homophobic, but is just a kid (who seems to have a learning disability of some kind). And he definitely tends to humiliate women much more than he does men...which is not so surprising, as that's kind of what people do in our culture.

PH often compares femme bio-women with MTF trannies, to insinuate that the bio-women are not femme enough, and therefore ugly. Nice. Sometimes, these bio-women are "villains," like Paul McCartney's now-ex, Heather Mills.

Today, he compared Ms. Mills to "Jeremy the out of control trannie," a homeless transwoman who recently crashed her car into a lingerie store who'd denied her application for a job. To get to those facts, I had to click through to the page where that expanded version (the post that lives on the main page is two pics with a teaser) lives, which is also the comment page. I tried not to read them, because Hilton's readers generally seem to be a shallow, xenophobic bunch, and they say some pretty offensive shit. Of course, today was no different, although there are a few people who chimed in to chide PH for his transphobic bullshit. He'd added his own commentary to the newspaper article he'd lifted, saying how no homeless person he knows has a car. I bet he knows a ton of homeless people. What a fucking idiot.

And that did it. Enough is enough. I'm through with you, Perez. I'll find some other mindless entertainment to rest my brain on when I need a break from being a productive person in the world. In fact, you can go fuck yourself Perez Hilton, and continue to be a hater and exploit the insecurities and prejudices of your (generally speaking--not us!) immature readers. It's not your fatness or your gayness that makes you ugly--it's the shit that comes out of your mouth.

"That's not good."

Pardon my undying (even in the face of incredible un-funnyness) love for the pun. Mr. Man and I had an insanely shitty day today. Literally.

It started first thing this morning with the toilet backing up on Mr. Man. Yuck!

Then, I took the dog out to poop and there was a hole in the bag and I didn't see it before I stuck my thumb in dog doo. Dammit!

Then, I got to hang out and watch our douche bag of a landlord plunge the toilet. He was all dressed up (in black slacks, a black mock turtleneck and dark green sports coat) and he didn't even take his jacket off to plunge so that made it kind of funny but it doesn't make up for the fact that he's a douche and anyway, it didn't work.

I should mention that the kitchen sink is draining slow and the pipe outside, that all of our wastewater clearly flows out (it's directly below and outside of the bathroom) was leaking, and Mr. Man had called our douchebag landlord and told him about it, and he didn't believe him (and blew me off when I brought it up, plunger in hand, today).

Anyway, he called a plumber and took off, and when the guy (who was a cute kid, actually, and btw Mr. Man, I forgot to tell you that he loved Bitsy) finally showed up, he looked around and when I told him about the pipe outside, he of course wanted to check it out, so after showing him our poop-filled toilet, I led him through our embarrassingly messy boudoir, and sent him out the window and down the fire escape, which is the only route to the backyard (yay row houses!)

I sat in the windowsill and smoked a cigarette and watched him. He started knocking off some of the insulation that is wrapped around the bottom 6 ft or so of the ancient pipe, and when he did, almost immediately, the pipe sprung leaks that shot straight out from it, and the poor guy had to run for fucking cover.

"That's not good."

"No shit." (again, I apologize)

So, tomorow'll be another shitty morning with the landlord and because he thought the kid's estimate was too high (easy to think when you're not the one having to get creative about finding places to poo) another plumber. We're thinking that now that we got ourselves a Hummer, we oughta just spring for one of those fancy condos (wink).

Know what else is shitty? Madonna's new video. I haven't listened to or followed Madonna in a long time, but I was excited about this video because she was supposedly going to "save the world in 4 minutes." Save the world my ass--what is that shit.

omg I almost forgot to mention the last poop story of the day--what a crazy shitty day--you kind of have to laugh and wonder what the fuck the universe is trying to tell you. I met Mr. Man this evening at the opening night of the Transmodern Festival, and in the middle of some experimental theatre that frankly went on a little way too long, one of the characters was a turd. Seriously. WTF?

First the sweet, then the bittersweet...

I don't know how I missed this before, but as I was checking out Lolcats (aka I Can Has Cheezburger) this morning I noticed a link to its canine equivilent, Loldogs.

There goes the rest of my day.

In a little sadder news, our sweet thang of a dog, Belle (aka Chooch McGooch McGooner) is starting to suffer what we suspect is hip dysplasia. She's ok--she doesn't whine about it or anything--but it takes her an extra long time to get up here onto the couch these days (right now she's lying next to me, snoring). It's really sad watching her haul her butt up, slow-like, one leg at a time. Makes her seem much older than her 6 years. I suspect it's from all the Frisbee we've played over the years--Frisbee being notoriously hard on dogs' joints.

Will we stop playing with our Aerobie Skylighter Flying Disc? I think not. Judging by the obsession with which she plays (it's like crack to her) and the pride with which she carries it home from the park, I'd say it's still worth it. And I'm not just saying that because I'm proud to have the most bad-ass Frisbee-catching dog in the park. I may be (like a lot of 30-ish, child-less women) projecting a lot of maternal feelings onto my sweet doggie, but I'm not the show-mom type.

We're starting her on Glucosamine and buffered aspirin and I'll get her out to the vet when I can afford it, to see what else I can do. Maybe one day I'll get her one of those foam ramps so she can walk up onto the couch.

BTW Aerobies are the best flying discs in the world. For one thing, they have a soft edge around the sides, which protects your dog's mouth (if you've ever seen a dog mangle an actual Frisbee-brand Frisbee, and cut its mouth on it, you know what I'm talking about. Remember that, Carrie?).

Plus, they hover like nobody's business. Once, back when I had a pickup (sigh) and always kept one in the back of it, I saw one levitate in my rear-view mirror as I sped down the freeway. No shit. They're scientifically designed.

The Good, the Bad, and the Babies

I'm not going to be one of those bloggers who apologizes for her absence--I think that's a little presumptuous, especially for a mouthy femme who has all of about 8 readers a day (you are by far the hottest readers a girl could hope to have, though, lovebugs). I am not, however, above acknowledging and explaining my recent lack of posts.

First, we were in NYC again. Loverly. The glorious, filthy, mercurial big apple has thus far (knock on wood) never ceased to spread her legs for me, even if she occasionally keeps me from blowing my proverbial load with the odd stopped subway car. I'll spare you the "oh I did such fabulous things in NY last week" thing, but I must say how lovely it was to see (albeit too briefly) so many of my very favorite people in the world. I also feel the need to give a shout-out to the amazing Cai Guo-Qiang exhibit at the Guggenheim (muchas gracias to Miss D's cute friend Blair for the tickets). It would take at least another long post to describe this show, and since I probably won't write it, I hope at least some of you will see it and we can talk about it.

I came home energized and excited about getting back to work, which made the last few days, which would have been frustrating at best, particularly excruciating. We've had problems with our DSL (there isn't any cable in this neighborhood) pretty much since we moved in, so we'd finally got Verizon to hook us up with a technician (a process which entails "escalating the situation," according to the operator) on Monday.

I will spare you, lest I risk boring the pants off my 8 precious readers, the details. But I will say that I've moved around a lot, and had problems with cable almost everywhere I ever lived, but I have never suffered a clusterfuck of customer dis-service as unprofessional as what we've been through in the last 4 days, during which time we've seen 3 technicians (the second of whom, Greg, gave me his personal number and said to call if it went out again, which, as desperate as I was to get fixed up, I didn't recognize as a shady move until he left me hanging all day the next day and Mr. Man called Verizon for the millionth time only to find out he hadn't put me on a work order at all).

The third guy came in apologizing and told Mr. Man that we'd been labeled "chronic complainers." I guess if your DSL isn't working, Verizon thinks you're just supposed to shut the fuck up and pay your bill, or assume that every poor $8/hr operator you talk to (because it's never the same one) is going to treat you like an asshole.

If you've never seen a Gemini deprived of her primary method of communication, consider yourself lucky. I was completely insane by this time yesterday. Envision me in tears...anyway, it's back up now, has been since this afternoon, and my wrist is already sore from all the furious typing, but my trust in the communication gods is still pretty shaken.

It's hard because (like most of you, I'm sure) I really love the internet. Not only do I like to read blogs and shop and research stuff, but my career is in a much more amazing place because of it, and in fact, I really do believe (just like old Al Gore) that the web is our best hope for fixing what's wrong with the world at large. It's like the printing press and Martin Luther's 95 theses or whatever (except that there weren't global warming or nukes back then). But I'm worried that with shit like net neutrality, the nets will go the way of food and television and become a worthless corporate imitation of what they should be, and this kind of big-business bullshit just gives a girl more cause for concern.

Sigh.

In much more cheerful news, we arrived home from NYC to see that the tomatoes we decided to seed indoors had sprouted. They are gorgeous, though it's hard to believe that anything will ever come of them. I also took advantage of some net-free hours to start some more seeds (I hope you all waded your way through my last long rant of a post and treated yourself to the Lorax and if you need seeds, let me know, because we've got extras), including rosemary, basil, anise, tobacco, nasturtiums, chives and catnip. It's like having a few dozen (!) new babies in the house.

Home Sweet Home

Mr. Man and I actually got home on the 29th, but the jet lag, the overdue spiritual cleansing of the house (which up until just before I moved in, also housed a crazy bitch who I won't comment on here but suffice it to say had left something of a bad air in the place), a long, wonderful visit with two of his besties, getting back to work (sorta) and a day or two of overdue processing (phew!) really took it out of me and it's only now that I remembered that I started a blog last year. Oops.

Anyhoo, my trip home was a little depressing--I hail from Western Washington State, an area which was ravaged by floods in early December. Although the closest acquaintances of mine to be personally affected by the flood was the cuh-razy sister of my "estranged" sister-in-law and the new-ish boyfriend (who I'm not quite sure about) of one of my besties, and the freeway and most public areas had been cleaned up pretty good, there was a definite air of depression and loss in Lewis County. Also, my little brother's wife (the estranged sis-in-law, who I love--the "estranged" term was her own, and tongue-in-cheek, though I can tell she feels bad for having done by brother so wrong) left him last summer, and although my adorable neices are dealing and I think they'll be fine, I feel bad for my bro and just wish the whole thing had gone differently.

On top of that, a truly estranged friend of his and mine passed away and we skipped out on the service, which I think is fine--the deceased, a drug addict from way back, had fucked my brother over in some unforgivable ways, which complicated the "grieving" process. I'm not saying that we should or shouldn't have gone to the funeral--I think there are lots of ways to say goodbye to someone, and lots of people piss people off before they die--but the whole thing took me back to an even sadder time, when my brother was a junkie and made me reflect on what kinds of chances this guy ever had, which were not many. Erk.

The day after Xmas I flew to Denver to meet Mr. Man's mother, brother and brother's girlfriend. Which went ok, in spite of the fact that the four of them had spent most of the previous six days together, and his mom, like my own, is a pretty tough case. His brother's girlfriend seemed to have suffered the most stress, which resulted in her hiding in their bedroom the length of my visit and saying about three words to me the entire time I was there. Which made for some uncomfortable moments. Erk again.

So talk about PHSD (post holiday stress disorder)! It was really good, after all of that, to get back to our own little house. We finally got some decent food (the families don't know how to eat anything but processed yuckiness that Hillary Clinton endorses) and cleansed the place in our birthday suits, and then welcomed our friends to the Charm by taking them to a fabulous New Year's Party, held by our best new couple friends (we seem to have hit the equivalent of a queer networking gold vein with this couple, who we also adore--the party was crawling with adorable and brilliant queers). And although we are both still suffering some of the fallout of PHSD, and getting back into the swing of domestic bliss, I am wicked glad to be sat on a comfy couch, free of all things familial (except the pet-daughters) next to the best boyfriend money could buy.

Happy New Year.