Car stickers.

I very strongly suspect that all those people who run marathons "for themselves" are for shit. If that was truly the case, if they were genuinely running just for themselves, why bother putting those obnoxious as all fuck "26.2" stickers on their cars? And with the huge number of vehicles I see locally as well as on the I-95 northeast corridor sporting said proclamations of athletic expenditure, the premise that this unprecedented increase in marathoners is bolstered by strictly personal improvement is absolute bunk.

I was cut off in the Trader Joe's parking lot by some asshole with one of those stickers. Rotten bastard.

Oh, and all those other stickers loudly advertising obscure acronyms for various locales. How pretentious can you get? I really don't care how well-traveled some random stranger is if the best they can do is put a sticker on their car because they're going to cut me off anyway. Seriously, I want to get a random letter generator and make bullshit stickers that mean nothing. And cut people off.

Rainrainrainrain...

This rain is unbelievable. If you, like me, are situated in the mid-Atlantic/northeast region of the US, you are most likely growing mildew, like the 3-toed sloths in the jungle who move so slowly that their coats turn green due to algal growth on their fur. The only pro is that I'm hoping this trend will reappear this winter, with appropriately cold temperatures so there will be mountains upon mountains of snow instead of acres upon acres of mud and militant mosquitoes.

In anticipation of the winter and the snow, I found a cool pattern for a nifty-looking hat. Also, a while back my mom got me like 5 skeins of this random shiny mohair blend wool. ("It was $2 a skein!! I mean, $2! What a bargain! Here's five, I got another 5 for myself.") The lacey pattern looks very nice, and I think the shiny filamentously fuzzy yarn will rock. This will likely take me until it's cold again, anyway, given the amount of time I can actually dedicate to knitting.

Maryland really, really sucks.

The other day, I thought to myself, "Damn, it is humid out here, and it's only the beginning of June. What's this stupid swamp going to do in August when it's run out of humidity because it spent it all in June? How can this place possibly get even more humid than it already is?"

Well, Maryland weather happily obliged, answering my question quite enthusiastically. It can get more humid by actually forming clouds at ground level. It can be raining AND be misty/foggy AND be wicked sticky and warm. This brings me to another thing pertaining to the humidity; we do not have an exhaust fan in our bathroom. We do, however, have a window. But this window's sill happens to be below chest-level for me, and it opens from the bottom. So, I can't use while I'm physically in the shower with the lights on in the bathroom, we can't use it when it's freezing cold in the winter because who the hell wants to take a shower with an open window in the middle of a cold, cold night in January, and in the heat of the summer, I'm not sure where it's more humid, in the bathroom or outside. And who wants to waste the air conditioning?

So, we can only use this supposedly ventilating window if I'm dressed/not in the shower for a couple weeks before it gets wicked hot and a couple weeks before it gets too cold. This window is supposed to be a substitute for an exhaust fan. It is not. Our ceiling is covered in mold, and we have even begun to grow mildew in the toilet bowl. Dear lord, it is revolting. Oh, and we've already asked them to replace the dry wall around the tiles in the shower because it's gone completely moldy. We have requested an exhaust fan. We shall continue to request said exhaust fan and complain about the blatantly sizeist "ventilation window" that I can't use if I don't want to flash the inhabitants of this bloody stupid place.

Which I don't want to do. Ever.

You know what we have here that sort of comes with the territory of living in a fucking swamp? Mosquitoes. Stupid fucking mosquitoes. Mosquitoes and mold. Welcome to Maryland. That's what they should have on the license plates; mosquitoes and mold. They have a heron on one of them, and I haven't seen a single fucking heron since I moved down here. But mosquitoes? Oh yes, tons. Everywhere.

Feminism these days..

So, feminism... is it over?  

Absolutely not.  The past couple days I came across some articles online that really got me furious.  The first was a bullshit article from askmen.com entitled "Why Women Can't Be Bosses."  It's amazing that shit like this can even get aired.  What's even more amazing is that according to the comments, this trash can get 44% approval.  It's mind-blowing.  The only thing I could think of was, "Wow, our patriarchal society is literally imploding before our eyes.  The 'dudes' are getting desperate."  I realized that this utter crap will soon be turned on me full force, when I enter the workplace as a dynamic female scientist with a PhD.  

And then I came across another gem, scans of a how-to book for anti-choice evangelists to bring the undecided over to their ban-abortion stance.  The thing that gets me is not their stance on abortion, because if you don't want one, that is 100% fine with me.  What's really disgusting is the constant reminders to fake concern for the woman, which implies that it's not natural for these dregs of humanity to consider the woman as a human being outside of her capacity to bear children.  Plus, there are gross scientific mistakes in it.  Eclampsia, for example.  Bedrest does NOT cure it.  If it's really severe, the only "cure" is an abortion.  

One good thing coming from this Dr. Tiller murder is that women are coming out of the woodwork and sharing their late-term abortion stories.  If it's a case of a detected anencephaly (the brain of a fetus failed to develop; see the wikipedia entry on it), conjoined twins, an infection due to leakage of water, thank goodness these women are speaking up.  My grandma told me that when Roe v. Wade passed, she felt an ineffable sense of relief despite being married with children.  For her, it meant that a huge burden was off the female population.  I believe that 100%.  

When I was 11 or 12, my mom told me that if I ever got pregnant, she would take me to have an abortion if I needed one.  It wasn't an invitation/permission to be wild and act irresponsibly (she made that very clear), but it was something that made me feel much more comfortable.  I had a backup, no matter what.  After that, my grandma told me that if I ever needed an abortion, I didn't even have to tell my mom or dad; she'd take me and wouldn't even tell my grandfather.  It was like huge, deep, soft pillows were always underneath me as I wobbled along growing into a sexually mature adult.  I didn't behave irresponsibly, but I always knew that no matter what, I always had a back way out.  I could always reclaim my life and walk away from a man, the same way men could walk away from an accidentally pregnant girlfriend pre-Roe v. Wade.  I would never be beholden to him.  I'd never be that person, as long as I took care of the being smart in school/productive in life thing.  I was on equal footing.  I could throw myself into the fray, and I was going to come up grinning no matter what because I was equipped to handle everything, even if I made a mistake.

It's just so... I don't know, improbably nauseating to think that there is a group of people who want to take that away from future generations of women.  Oh, and the anti-contraception argument?  I'm chalking that up to a crazy Puritanical I-must-suffer-life-is-a-veil-of-tears attitude that I can't for the life of me ever hope to identify with.

And I'm not sorry about that at all.

Lady Gaga

I officially love her.

Her music is pop with a dark kinky undertone, and I can listen to it without hating myself for liking it. She is absolutely fabulous, the best thing to happen to pop since Madonna back in the day. Lady Gaga has the most incredible fashion sense - it's like burlesque collided with Thierry Mugler, 20's theater, David Bowie, and a million other influences. It is bizarre and jolting, and I love the way it throws me off-kilter and generally surprises.

Oh yeah, and her music is nifty, catchy, and I will absolutely love listening to it now and in the future.

New York represent! :)