New Rule #1,284 (aka The "There is no crying in baseball" Rule)

After The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver made me tear up on the subway yesterday afternoon while on my way to a (useless) meeting, I hereby institute the following rule for myself:

I will not read anything other than:

A) magazines;
B) thrillers (like Bangkok 8);
C) amusing capers (anything by Carl Hiaasen, although his last book reeked worse than a body decomposing on a 105 degree day in the Everglades);
D) satires; and/or
E) politically witty tomes (like Sarah Vowell or Beth Lisick) if:

1) I slept less than 6 hours the previous night;
2) I have not seen Husband in more than 24 hours; and/or
3) I am using some mode of public transportation, such as a subway or airplane.

This rule shall be invoked to prevent embarrassing episodes of me bawling (in public) because I am emotionally overwrought, and the book that I am reading (or the movie I am viewing) took a dramatic turn that breaks my over-feeling heart. Yes, yes. I am all about pretending to be stone cold, what with all my ranting "mothering this" or "cunt-face ass-eater that," but it is all a facade. The reality is that underneath my mean, mocking, hard exterior, I am the biggest fucking softie on the planet. These devastating books and movies (for example, the love story between Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) fucking impact me. I'm a wreck for hours after a book/movie gives me a truly earned sob (not like those manipulative pap movies - The Other Sisiter, anyone? - that Steph so dearly loves but bring "a fucking tear to my eye").

So this new rule is for the good of my mental state, as well as my public image. And don't you fucking forget it, motherfucker. Now I'm off to the Kleenex box and/or Husband's t-shirt to wipe my nose.

The Thorn is Out

When I applied to law school in 1996, the process was pretty straight forward. If you did well on the LSAT, had a decent GPA, and proved to be the slightest bit interesting, you were getting in somewhere. I applied to four schools, and was accepted to two second tier programs with scholarships, and waitlisted at two top tier schools. At the end of the day, I was glad that I did not get into my top choice program, as I suspect I would have felt compelled to finish law school and begin a miserable career as an attorney.

In 1997, when I applied to public administration programs, I knew that schools preferred people with some work experience. I hoped that my single year would be enough to get me through the doors of the two programs to which I applied. Immediately, I was accepted at one school and given a scholarship. The program I preferred to go to waitlisted me. Although I ultimately was accepted, I hated that the program was more business-focused than public service oriented, which struck me as odd for a public administration and policy school. I worked while I schooled, finished my two years there, and began a miserable career as a child care policy expert.

Given my history with graduate education, I am not sure why I expected it to be different this time. If anything, the admissions qualifications are even murkier: demonstrate talent. What the fuck does that mean? I tried my best, and sent my writing sample to two programs, knowing that only six people are admitted at one of them.

I knew that I didn't make the cut at Hunter when I didn't get a call in February (hence all my blather about silent bad news), but I didn't have an official rejection, either. At first, I just wanted it to be over with. The longer I lived in limbo, the more I knew that rejection would hurt. This morning, I sent an email to the program director, noting that I understood that the six spots were filled, but if something opened up in the late spring or summer, I would love it if they would consider me. She emailed me back a few hours later and said that she would keep me in mind.

Imagine my surprise when I found my rejection letter from the program in the mail when I got home from work. I realize that suggesting that they eat shit is inappropriate, but I sort of can't help but think it anyway. Fuckers.

It's in the Cards

These days, I find myself in an oddly similar position to what which occurred ten years ago. In the fall of 1997, I applied to two public administration/public policy graduate programs in New York City. I thought I had a really good chance to get into NYU, and I was hopeful that I would be accepted by Columbia as well.

NYU sent their response in February 1998. Not only was I admitted to the program, but they awarded me a 3/4 tuition scholarship! This made me happy, but having recently graduated from NYU's undergraduate liberal arts program also left me with an enormous chip on my shoulder. (Primarily my problem stemmed from a housing issue, but that's a whole separate rant.) Plus, my heart was set on Columbia. I liked how students could register at other schools within the university, and many of the social work courses interested me. Oh, and I really wanted an Ivy League degree to prove that I was just as good as all the rich kids with whom I went to primary and secondary school.*

When I was waitlisted by Columbia in March, I was devastated. Curling up in the fetal position on the cheaply carpeted floor of my 96 square foot kitchen with no stove or oven and crying my eyes out seemed to be a completely rational immediate response. While I eventually got up, I was depressed for days. Would I get in or not?**

Waiting to learn my fate seemed like too much to ask. I decided to visit a Tarot card reader. My former roommate recommended a place in the East Village. I made an appointment, and when the time came, I was led into the adjoining shuttered storefront. I posed my question: would I get into Columbia?, and shuffled the cards. The reader told me my story, the only details of which I remember are that I would get what I wanted, but it would not make me happy.

Not long after the reading, I made an appointment with a dean at Columbia to discuss how I could best position myself on the waitlist in case a spot opened. I presented the dean with three issue briefs I wrote at work, and discussed the policy analysis I performed at my job. She decided to admit me on the spot.

To end this long story, I turned down the huge scholarship at NYU and went to Columbia. I did not find the program as good as I hoped it would be for a variety of reasons, the chief one being that many of my fellow students only went to the program because they were rejected from MBA programs, and they had no interest in public service. The cards were right.

*Yes, I now know that this is the shittiest possible reason to chose a graduate school.
**Really, this means, why wasn't I as good as everyone else? The idiots were right - I was totally second rate. Why it did not occur to me that getting practically a fucking free ride to a fine graduate program was something I should boast about is beyond me. I really was so young and foolish....

Health Care Denied!

As I've mentioned before, my mom battled and thankfully survived breast cancer approximately 30 years ago. In recent years, she tested negative for the breast cancer gene, but my sister and I are still considered at higher risk to develop breast cancer because my mom had it. Of course, that does not mean we will inevitably get it, but it does mean we need to be more cautious.

Thus I had my first mammogram was performed about seven years ago. I also see a breast surgeon for an exam every six months. The funny thing about mammograms, though, is the more you have over the course of your life, the more exposed to radiation you are in an area that should be protected from radiation. So while mammograms can save lives, they can also increase your risk of your tits being chopped off because you had so many mammograms. Damn, life is complicated.

Anyway, two mammograms ago, the radiologist suggested that I stop doing mammograms and have a breast MRI instead. The breast surgeon thought that wouldn't be helpful yet. My friend Dr. P (who is a colo-rectal surgeon - yeah, she cuts up assholes - ha ha ha) explained that MRIs are so sensitive that everything looks like it could be a lump and so many people wind up with unnecessary biopsies as a result. This year when I visited the breast surgeon, he prescribed an MRI for me.

Long story short, it was supposed to be on Tuesday morning, but the insurance company was "waiting for more information from the doctor," so I rescheduled it for tomorrow. Yesterday the radiology center called to tell me that the insurance company rejected the request. I can appeal the decision, and last night my mom offered to submit her pathology report on my behalf if it will help. Somehow I suspect the insurance company won't find it compelling. I guess I'll see what happens. They may think it is cheaper for me to get later stage cancer (as I may not be their problem at that point) than to pay for the fucking MRI.

And that my friends, is preventative health care in America.

Why I Vote with My Uterus

My uterus, although not functional, is very clever. It understands that any political candidate who does not respect it does not, on a fundamental level, respect me. I do not vote for anyone who thinks that I am not a person capable of making personal decisions based on my values, life situation, goals, and desires.

Over the years, I discovered something very interesting. So-called "pro-life" politicians - who love telling me that their religious morals are superior to mine - don't actually have much understanding or respect for life. First, they seem to believe that pregnancy is something that a woman just does for a little while with absolutely no consequences. They don't seem to understand that pregnancy is devastating to a woman's body. At the very least, the changes in hormone levels affect everything from how a woman feels to how she thinks. Pregnancy can cause everything from nausea to swollen ankles to diabetes. It can force a woman who needs to work to not be able to perform her job, putting her (and her family) at economic risk. And while less common today than in the past, pregnancy can kill a woman. For someone who wants to have a child, these risks are willingly accepted. But to force a woman to endanger her health and possibly life is unreasonable and shows that a politician could care less about the lives of actual women.

On a second level, "pro-life" politicians have suspicious disregard for what it takes to keep a person alive after they are born. Life is not being born and then you are done. Life is sustained at the most basic level through food, shelter, and clothing. Yet "pro-life" politicians are the ones leading the charge to cut support for affordable housing, for heating assistance, and for food stamps. Forget health insurance. It seems that kids with health issues like asthma don't actually need inhalers to help them breathe. It's ironic that someone who claims to care so much for life couldn't care less if a baby starved to death, had chronic untreated health issues, or had no where safe to live.

Beyond the basics to support life, there are the elements of life that give it true meaning beyond mere survival. Oddly enough, "pro-life" politicians don't seem to support aspects of life that make us human. Where's the support for early childhood education? The money to equalize the playing field in elementary and high school education? For financial aid to help low-income kids go to college? Hmmm....

"Pro-life" politicians are not pro-life at all, but merely anti-self-determination. The fact is that politicians who understand the need to legal and accessible abortion are also the same ones who support programs that truly are pro-life. They respect individual decision-making, sex ed programs that help people make informed decisions that prevent unintended pregnancies, and go an extra mile to provide life-saving public programs that in the long run, might actually discourage abortion by providing a safety net for families and children. Pro-choice politicians also recognize that as a woman, I have a right to life, too.

(Go one step beyond voting for pro-choice candidates and tell them to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal Medicaid funds from paying for abortion services. Today, on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, show your support for accessible abortion by signing the "Hyde-30 Years is Enough! petition. Legal abortion is critical for all women, but useless to those who can't afford the procedure. My uterus thanks your support.)

The Early Years

When I visited my parents in early December, I gathered up photos that best document my primary school years. Partly inspired by Suebob, who has been scanning her childhood and family photos into her Flickr account, I planned to scan them as soon as I returned to New York. Of course, I didn't get around to it before I left for Hawaii, as I was rather busy finishing my MFA applications and watching the first season of Hunter on DVD. Anyway, I decided it was now or never because who knows how busy I'll be once I get more consulting gigs/a part-time job, so between catching up on what is happening in Des's dramatically changing life, planning my February class, and seeking other paying opportunities, I invested some quality time with my $35 Canon scanner from Staples. That's right - it's school picture days here at CUSS!



From left to right:
The first photo is me in kindergarten. Seriously fucking adorable, right?

In the middle, I am in second grade. No, I didn't skip first grade. (In fact, the classist fucks who ran my schools wouldn't even let me be in the highest level reading group, even though I thought I should be. Us Jewish white trash kids clearly don't belong with the really smart kids, but the slightly smart kids, but I digress.) There's no photo of me from first grade because I couldn't find any wallet size pictures from that year. Honestly, it's for the best because I looked like shit. If memory serves me correct (and if it doesn't, my mom will let you know in the comments), I just got out of a multi-day hospital stay from my first asthma attack. It was scary shit. As for second grade, I had a fight with my mom that morning because I really wanted to wear this cute outfit that my great aunt and uncle brought me when they came to visit us from California. It had a red and white striped skirt and a red tank top. It was cold that day, so my mom wouldn't let me go to school in a tank top. I insisted on wearing this yellow Lemon Meringue sweatshirt with the red and white striped skirt. I thought I looked like a cheerleader. Yeah. My mom let me win the battle, perhaps understanding that I was providing fodder for mocking myself some 25 years later. At any rate, I am sad that you can't see the skirt. Let's not comment on the puckery eyes or buck teeth. I was just a kid, damn it, although I sort of see why I later wound up with braces instead of only a retainer to fix my overbite.

The last picture is from third grade. I think I am pretty damn adorable again. For some reason, I remember deciding that morning that I must not show any teeth when I smiled. I don't even think I was conscious of the buck tooth look, but maybe I was. The shirt had a cute matching pink shirt and I wore these sweet maroon Mary Janes. I'd totally wear shoes like that today.

Stay tuned for the upcoming horror show: the junior high years. (No, I didn't skip fourth and fifth grade, either. My school was fucking evil and retarded in more ways than one. To make space for an early childhood center in the elementary school, they moved fourth and fifth grade to the junior school. Trust me, this sucked about as bad as sounds. By the time my sister was in fourth grade four years after me, the school realized that this plan fucked kids up and moved the lower grades back to the elementary school where they belong and remodeled the junior high to house an early childhood wing, which from my current professional view, is far less ideal than keeping the very young children also at the elementary school but still works out OK enough. Blah blah blah.

It's My Birthday, Too!

It is still Dec. 26 in Hawaii, where I am blogging from, so it isn't technically my 32nd birthday yet, but I was born in the 'burbs of Chicago, not Hawaii, and it's the 27th there. Yay my parents for having me.

My friend Elizabeth grew up in Hawaii and is in town with her husband Al (my friend from college), so we shall be spending the day with them. Elizabeth suggested driving up to the North Shore, which is sort of ironic because the suburban area I grew up in is also known as the North Shore but instead of being a winter surfing mecca, my North Shore is a frozen tundra. First we will eat breakfast at the super cool hotel that Husband and I are staying at (for free courtesy of his hotel points). The Royal Hawaiian was built in 1927 and is known as The Pink Palace. Everything is pink - towels, sheets, etc. It's very cool. I love historic places. Anyway, it is supposed to have an amazing albeit pricey breakfast buffet, but we're going out on a limb for my birthday.

Otherwise, I have been sort of quiet since I can't walk too much since I was viciously attack by a sea urchin on Christmas Eve after falling off a rock while preparing to snorkel. Husband and I arrived in O'ahu yesterday and had a delicious and delightful Christmas dinner with Elizabeth's charming and cultured family. Today we went to the Aloha Swap Meet, a fun flea market outside Aloha Stadium. After that, we headed to the Hawaiian Medical Heritage Center at The Queen's Medical Center to check out a small exhibit. Since we are weirdos, we decided that it would be fun to eat at the hospital cafeteria and buy t-shirts from the gift shop. After that, we went to a laundromat.

Hope that everyone is having a fun and sea urchin-free holiday!

Foreskin and Seven Days Ago

Last week, I attended my first bris. Given my semi-rigid belief that generally people are born with what they need and we should just accept that bodies are hairy and not typically in need of improvement (e.g. - breast or butt implants), it seems like I should be against circumcision. Oh contraire, mon frere. I'm no connoisseur when it comes to penises, but I do prefer them to be foreskin free. The whole smegma thing just grosses me out too much and I don't trust most guys to be clean enough. Yeah, it makes me a big fat fucking hypocrite. Oh well.

Despite my support for circumcision (not that I am against the uncircumcised), I was a little queasy when I thought about attending a bris. Due to my incompetence (I forget that cars need to be cleared of ice before they are safe to drive and one must budget time for the task), I arrived at the bris a wee bit late. As I was taking my boots off in the hallway outside my friend's parents' apartment, I heard the baby begin to wail. "Oh, I guess I missed it," I thought with a mixture of relief and regret. I was wrong - who knows why the baby was screaming his sweet little head off at that point - and eventually witnessed part of the procedure. Oddly enough, the baby barely cried as his foreskin was removed. He was then given a nice rag soaked with liquor to suck on, and drunk, he slept like, well, a baby. It was interesting.

This past weekend, Brother-in-Law (BiL) and Sister-in-Law (SiL) borrowed our PT Cruiser, Fred the Red, to drive to New Jersey for their new nephew's bris. I'm pretty sure that this was the first bris that BiL attended, other than his own, which I am sure was a very different experience. I don't know exactly what happened at this bris, but BiL must've been either overjoyed at his nephew's pact with God or distraught at the penis chopping, because he had an overenthusiastic encounter with a curb that circumcised Fred' wheel well and prevented him from driving straight. (While none of this was funny on Sunday, the little scenario I postulated here is sure slaying me now.)

My point is that I don't think circumcision really hurts anyone (unless its botched, which is always a possibility), and at the same time, I completely understand why a parent would not circumcise a kid. When I wrote on BlogHer a long time ago about a study that showed some very minuscule health benefits from circumcision, some extremists accused me of being a callous genital mutilating monster.* Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also help kill unborn babies. What can I say? I'm just a bad character all around when it comes to the defenseless.

*It strikes me as hilariously ironic that one women yelled at me about the sanctity of preserving genitals as nature intended and months later emailed me about her scheduled Brazilian wax, but I digress.

Smarts

The word smarts really does function for me on two levels: I want smarts, and it smarts when I don't have them. Standardized tests always leave me smarting. No matter how well I do, I feel like it's not good enough because I know too many really smart people who do better. I'm the idiot, which honestly says significantly more about how damn smart all my friends and loved ones are than it does about my lack of smarts, but it still smarts.

Back in the last century when I took the SAT, I "only" scored an 1100 1110 (thanks for the correction, Mar - I'll chalk it up to a typo or being brain dead after the exam). (This was before they jiggered up the scoring a few years ago.) I earned a 600 on the verbal section and a 510 on the math. Thinking I could do better, I sat for it again and decided to answer more math questions. Unfortunately, I answered them all wrong and thus got only a 470 on the math while the verbal remained the same. Compared to my peers in high school (and later college), I was a total fuck up for scoring under 1200.

How ironic it is, then, that I got an 1100 1110 on the GRE. This time, the test is administered on a computer so you can't skip any questions and if you answer a question incorrectly, it gives you an easier question next which lets you earn fewer points if you get it right. (The upside is that you get your score immediately.) That left me with a 470 on the math, which quite frankly, I'm sort of proud of because its been a damn long time since I've done algebra, geometry, or any of that other crazy stuff. My goal for the verbal was 650, and if you just did the math, you'll know that I fell slightly short of achieving that, racking up 640 points.

So that's that. I'm glad it's over with, I'm more glad that writing programs don't care about math scores, and I'm hoping that I never need to take another one of these horrific tests again. Thanks to everyone who wished me well!

Replaced!

Husband was out at the 2007 edition of the annual Beer & Deer Tour (this involves going to bars around the city and playing the game Big Buck Hunter; t-shirts are sold to those who participate and prizes are awarded in various categories at the end of the event. I wish I was making this up, but alas, I am not.), so no humans were home when I came back from Chicago last night. Tycho the Rabbit greeted me by shoving his ass in my face when I went over to pet him. I went into the bedroom, and discovered that Husband replaced me* during my short trip to my parents' house:



I guess Theo-Suzanne is nicer to both Husband and Tycho. Theo probably also didn't eat the cinnamon roll he meant to bring home for Husband from Ann Sather restaurant, or a hot dog at the airport, or large quantities of holiday cookies, or chocolate that expired a year ago but still was luscious, or Halloween candy, so I guess he also has less gas than I do. I can't say I wouldn't prefer Theo to me under those conditions, either.

*Husband claims that they were playing dress up when I was gone, and Theo wanted to dress up like me in my pjs while Husband dressed up like a pirate. I still think he replaced me.

My So-Called Sartorial History (No Pictures)

As I was falling asleep on Wednesday night, my mind drifted over to the closet at the other end of my room. Mostly I was thinking about the hideous white peasant shirt that I wore in that picture of myself from 1994 that I posted a few days ago, but somehow that brought me to my super favorite, long gone outfits from when I was in 5th grade.

{Time warp}
My mom and I are shopping at a low end department store. When I spot the pink sweatshirt covered with little hearts overlaid by a huge heart with a giant white cat head wearing a bow in the center, I know it must be mine. The matching pants also have little hearts all over them. In fact, I love the outfit so much, I also buy it in blue. On days that I feel especially daring, I can wear the blue shirt with the pink pants or vice versa. Awesome!!!
{Time warp back to present day}

As I reflect on the Gitano debacle, it occurs to me that I was sometimes, in fact, fashion forward in my Jewish white trash couture. The sweatshirt I am wearing at this very moment has an environmentally friendly message. At the top, it reads, "DO YOUR PART," and has six little scenes with Peanuts characters depicting green acts. The sweatshirt admonishes those staring at my chest to: "Pick up litter for a cleaner environment;" "Recycle to conserve;" "Carpool for cleaner air;" "Don't pollute for cleaner water;" "Plant trees for future forests;" and "Educate for worldwide awareness." If only it also mentioned "Vote for Al Gore to prevent global warming."

I picked this gem up in the early '90s at Venture, a Chicago-area chain store. Venture is like the poor man's Wal-Mart, if that makes any sense. (It doesn't, I know, but just go with me here.) As Venture's days dwindled, the store didn't even bother re-stocking shelves. Unfortunately, this phase lasted for years before it finally went out of business. (For reasons that befuddle me to this day, it was also my sister's favorite place to shop.) Before its painful demise, Venture had some bitchin' clothes. Now I like to think of it as the Target of the 1980s, but at the time I shopped there for outfits, it was way uncool to admit that you bought clothes there. I always lied to the snooty little assholes who asked me where I got my shirt, saying, "Oh, I think it was Marshall Field's." (For non-Chicagoans, Marshall Field's was a nice department store that Macy's recently took over and decimated.)

Anyway, thanks for sifting through another self-indulgent blog post. I hope it brought back equally amusing/horrifying childhood fashion memories of your own.

Come Light the Menorah

Hanukkah begins tonight at sundown. Over the last few years, Husband and I have become less and less interested in Hanukkah. We managed to get each other one small gift this year. I hope he will like the $10 glass Mets mug that I picked up last week. I have no idea what he is giving me. I'm sure it will be far more clever than a $10 glass Mets mug.

Husband and I may not be taking the religiously insignificant holiday of Hanukkah seriously enough for the likes of the Holiday Sales Industry. Cartier, Macy's, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Barney's all have ads on pages 2,3, and 5 of today's New York Times wishing me a Happy Chanukah. They all spelled it "Chanukah," too, which makes me wonder if the Times issued some sort of guidelines for luxury good purveyors who wanted to sell me shit. Macy's, Lord & Taylor, and Bloomingdale's went an extra step and wrote little Chanukah poems and greetings. The sentiments bring a fucking tear to my eye, I tell you. Tiffany's has an ad, but it doesn't wish me anything. Instead, it reads, "'Tis the Tiffany Season," and depicts a "dreidel in sterling silver, 3" high, $200."

After seeing all the ads, I realized that I never again need bother look up when a gift-giving holiday officially begins. (Last night Husband and I debated whether Hanukkah kicked off tonight or tomorrow night, and I googled it.) From now on, I'll just look at the ads in the paper and go from there. None of the department stores or jewelers would let me forget an important religious occasion, would they? How thoughtful of them.

A Taxing Situation

Someone's gotta pay for the Iraq War, and it sure as hell isn't going to be the uber-wealthy. Instead, they get special tax cuts for being so special. I mean, everyone knows that God shows His favorites by making them rich, so it would just be totally wrong to make them pay for God's blessings. It would be punishing them for things that weren't their fault, you know?

The working poor can only pay through indirect means, like cutting programs that help them make ends meet. Check. Still, we need more money to pay for the Goldy tax cuts and Iraq War. OK, squeezing the middle class will shake out a few more pennies. Who does that leave? Oh, the self-employed! Yay!

Seriously, I don't mind paying my fair share in taxes. As a person who has seen the benefits of an excellent public education, tax write-offs on owning a home, and other general good fortune, I believe it is my responsibility to support the same opportunities for other people. My commitment extends, however, to all classes. It strikes me as insanely unfair that I am for some reason paying a higher share of my earnings than people who made 10 or even 100 times more than I did. Last night I calculated how much I managed to eke out this year (and was impressed that my high priced consulting gigs yielded about 30G! Go me!) and then Husband informed me that 60% of that is going to taxes because of FICA.*

I understand that people like Paris Hilton need their hard earned money in ways that I don't, and that their valuable contributions to society's entertainment via porn tapes leaked to the internet completely dwarf anything I might be doing. But is it not a little fucked up that their tax rate is about half of mine? I guess I'll need to screw some little people over so that I may earn God's favor and exempt myself from taxes. Better luck to us all next year.

*Our income disparity does not help my situation. Hello, marriage tax penalty, which gives me a double whammy!

Face(book)ing the Facts

Some time ago, Suebob or Des wrote a post about why she doesn't have a Facebook account. I nodded my head. Hell, I can barely handle a MySpace page. Facebook just seemed like overkill. No way I was going to set up a profile there.

Well, as Alex often writes, the only way to guarantee that I will do something is to swear that I would never do whatever it is. In fact, it is completely Alex's fault that I even went to that cursed Facebook site in the first place. Her brother supposedly had some pictures of himself as a goth for Halloween, and she was told to check them out on his Facebook profile. We were on the phone while she tried to do this, and one thing lead to another, and before I knew it, I had my very own Facebook profile and was busily searching for friends from high school who I haven't spoken to in about 420 years. Of course, that shit is almost as addictive as M&Ms.* Bah!

Anyway, Husband and I are off to visit our friend Mara for Thanksgiving, so I will be wrested away from a computer for the most part. This is good so that I don't spend any more time on that wretched Facebook site (is there a damn user guide available anywhere?). I'll probably sneak in blogging (some addictions cannot be denied!), and I definitely have a good essay ready for BlogHer about a ridiculous ban on the holiday refrain, "ho, ho, ho." Happy Thanksgiving!

*Yes, my pretties. If you have a Facebook profile, let me know so we can be friends!!!

I'm Bugged

Sometimes I suspect that I am under electronic surveillance, but when I say that I am bugged, usually I mean that something is annoying the shit out of me. This is not infrequent, especially when I read or hear the news. However, this morning as I was reading the op-ed section of the New York Times at my dining room table, I was bugged in a far less typical manner.

A tickling sensation spread over the outer part of my left foot. "What the fuck?" I thought as I looked down and shook my leg a little. For a second, it seemed as though the pink satin ribbon near the edge of my pajama pants was brushing against me and causing the feeling. Then the roach ran out from under the cuff.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" I screamed.

Husband remained in his chair, frozen, while I ran into the kitchen for the roach spray. "Want a newspaper?" he yelled?

"I'm looking for the spray!" I barked back. Fuck it. I grabbed a big paper towel and dashed back into the dining room. Husband was standing over our invader holding a section of the paper. (Usually he runs away screaming, so I was very proud of him for aiding me by monitoring its movements.) I pounced and nailed the fucker (the roach, not husband), but I didn't kill it. I sprang at it again. It ran towards Husband. He lifted his slipper and stomped it. This was most impressive for him.

I scooped up the smooshed, gooey, juicy roach with the paper towel and took it to its watery grave. After flushing it down the toilet, I mopped its guts off the dining room floor. Then I shuddered, thinking about how a roach was on my bare foot. Nasty!

Weirdly, yesterday I had composed an essay about women and the fear of bugs to post on BlogHer today. (Cue the spooky music.) Next time, I think I will write about how much women love it when money randomly comes out of their shower heads instead of water.

Name Change

Remember how I was all against changing my name when I got married? Well, nothing is different there. However, I did discover that my book was assigned an ISBN number, and the author credited with writing the master pizza (as I like to call it) is Susanne Reisman. Check it out on Amazon.com. Houston, we have a big fucking problem.

I'm only freaking out a little bit. OK, that is a lie. I am in full on spazz mode.

A few days ago, I read a blog post somewhere (my brain is beyond fried, so I have no idea where, sorry) about how women want to be taken seriously and not judged solely based on their looks. This statement made a lot of sense to me. Then I read one of the comments, in which the writer begged to differ that women don't want to be objectified. Compelling evidence was presented in the number of plastic surgery procedures conducted on women each year. When I read that, I sighed because I can't really disagree with that point entirely.

Sure, there are a lot of reasons why women undergo plastic surgery. Even I submitted to the knife, although it had nothing to do with how I looked. (Only plastic surgeons do breast reduction procedures and I needed to unload half my chest before my damn shoulders and back caved in from the weight dragging me down in front. I honestly thought I would look worse after the surgery. I'm happy that I was wrong.) Can we really separate out the effects of living in a world that so values feminine beauty and sexiness (demonstrated by only a very small variety of body types) with someone wanting plastic surgery for her own self-esteem? I don't know. For example, there are a number of women I know who chose to get breast surgery after having a baby so that they could look like they did before pregnancy changed their bodies. That doesn't strike me as buying into some beauty myth since they were just trying to return to themselves.

It's hard not to want to look good in a world that places so much value on looking good. While I put about zero effort into my appearance, it doesn't mean that I don't obsess about it, too. I know that I will never have a flat stomach and lean thighs. It is just not my body type, and wrangling myself into a shape that is unnatural for me would mean that I could never eat ice cream, cake, or cheese. No thanks. At the same time, I cringe when I look at my "big" hips in the mirror or when I notice my bulging thighs when I am sitting down. I don't care enough to wear make-up, shave my legs, do my hair, or strut in high heels let alone get plastic surgery, but I'd be lying if I said that I don't want to be considered attractive.

Are there any women out there who don't worry about their looks? Do women care much more about how they look than men? Statistics tell us that increasingly this is not the case. Still, I have to agree with both the blog poster (we want to be judged on our abilities) and the commenter (we want to be objectified). We live in a world that splits women in half. What we want and what we can achieve within its social structures make us schizo. As a result, generally, most women want to be judged for their abilities and objectified. It's fucked up.

Have I Seen You Before?

Did you see Borat? (Answer yes for this to work.) Remember the scene when Borat meets up with the feminists in an art gallery to discuss women in America? I admit that I thought that scene was fairly amusing, and in subsequent interviews after the movie came out, I thought that the only person who took the sham in stride was the feminist artist.

Tonight I got to meet her. Seriously! Unsuspecting my encounter with a "star," I went to a fundraiser for Bitch magazine, which is an independent nonprofit media organization. When I arrived at the gallery hosting the event, the owner and the magazine ladies were discussing Borat. I didn't think anything of it until the artist turned to me and said, "I was in it." And then it all came together in my little mind. She's pretty damn cool in person, too.

Goals/Gaols

Today's goal is to finish writing up all my lower Manhattan site visits. As I was thinking about my goals in general, my head got the word confused with "gaol." "Ha ha ha," I thought to myself, "isn't it weird that the two words are spelled the same way?" Then I remembered that they weren't spelled the same way, although sometimes goals are like little gaols that trap you, aren't they?

Maybe I need to get out more.

Shhhh...

Remember that Bjork song from a few years ago, "It's So Quiet?" It came out when I was in my second year at NYU, and the newly installed video machine in one of the dining halls played the Busby Berkeley-style musical production constantly, alternating with Tupac's "Kalifornia," and Weezer's "Sweater Song." I tried to get the machine to play some song that was from the soundtrack of "Clerks" that was so great that I forgot what it was called or who it was by, only that the video had many of my favorite scenes from that ever-so-fine film. (God, sometimes I miss the mid-90s.)

Video or not, it has been quiet on the 'net this week, hasn't it? I mean, I write a screed over at BlogHer calling "pro-life" leaders terrorists (something I wholeheartedly believe), and pretty much no one blinks an eye. (Not to denigrate the fine people who agreed with me, but I expected outrage, sputtering, and disgust from the other side.) Comments on CUSS, usually limited, are even fewer than usual. So it goes. Optimistically, maybe people are on vacation?

Then, in a weird twist, I find myself agreeing with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal! Husband reads the Journal daily for their financial reporting, which is claims is excellent, and both of us find the op-ed pages and movie reviews to be beamed in from Uranus. (It was discredited as a planet for a reason, folks. Ha ha ha!) I don't understand how I find myself in bed with conservatives when it comes to Israel, but I hope they keep their pants on.

The world is a mysterious place.

Corned Beef on Wry

"Eat kosher corned beef!" the sign in the delicatessen window across the street from the Bronx bus stop I was at commanded. I snickered in my head because I am infantile. When my silent laughter subsided, I resolved to do as I was told after I visited the Judaica Museum at the Hebrew Home for the Aged, on my way back to the subway, and before I went to the dentist in Brooklyn and received a face full of Novocaine, rendering any corned beef - kosher or not - impossible. (In fact, the right side of my face is numb through my ear as I type this. My only consolation is that the dentist is fucking adorable.)

The Museum was nice. More important for the purposes of this story, the deli was kosher. I knew in my heart of hearts this meant that they would not have white bread. No Jew worth his circumcision eats corned beef on white bread. When I tried ordering corned beef on white at a deli a few weeks after Husband and I started dating, both he and the waiter stared at me. The waiter shook his head in disgust, and I wound up with a roll.

"Who orders corned beef on white?" Husband marveled as the waiter scurried away from the embarrassment I caused.

"I do. The bread gets all mushy and yummy..." I explained.

Husband wrinkled his schnozz. "That what rye bread is for."

"I hate rye bread," I wrinkled in response. (They say people in successful relationships mirror their partner's body language, you know.)

Husband stared at me for a good minute and then spoke slowly. "Are you sure that you are Jewish?"

And that, my friends, is how Husband learned that he was dating Jewish white trash.

Back to the present day, I stepped into the narrow entryway of Loeser's Delicatessen.

"What kind of bread do you have?" I asked tentatively.

"Rye, wheat, and rolls," Fredy the owner (who I recognized from all the newspaper clippings and family photos on the wall behind me) said.

"I'll take corned beef on a roll, please."

"Coming right up."

It didn't come right up, though, and I was getting nervous about being late for the dentist. I definitely needed time to brush my teeth once I got there. Can you imagine how horrifying it would be to have corned beef stuck in your teeth from a sandwich you ate on the subway on the way to the dentist's office when he goes in to shoot Novocaine in your face to drill out a cavity and fix a broken tooth? Thus when the sandwich was ready, I grabbed it without checking what it was and ran out after wishing Fredy "L'shana tova" (that's "Happy New Year," which is right around the corner for us who celebrate Rosh Hashana).

Only on the subway did I discover that he put it on rye. It was delicious anyway.

Dickheads, Penis Heads, and Clear Heads: Getting Dicked in Good and Bad Ways

After I wrote about self-described dickhead Tucker Max yesterday on BlogHer, I moseyed on over to the salon where I have gotten my last few hair cuts. Out of six cuts, I'd say three were very good, and two were acceptable at best. The sixth and last I will get from this woman? Oy. I look like an actual circumcised penis. Irony is an evil wench sometimes. Fortunately, Des agreed to try and help with her hair cutting talent, so perhaps I'll only have to wear hats until Sunday when I see her.

In other news, I read in today's New York Times that the American Cancer Society is devoting their entire advertising budget to the "consequences of inadequate health coverage." Research shows that delayed screenings and treatments due to lack of insurance are largely responsible for improving the rate of survival from various cancers. What with recent Census data informing us that 47 million people now have no insurance at all, I think this is a wonderful idea. I didn't see Sicko, but I hope that the ads take into account that many who pay for insurance find themselves screwed by their companies when they get sick. We need comprehensive reform.

Finally, back in the heart of corn, pig, and soybean country, fairness and rule of law trumps homophobia and irrational hate. That's right - Iowa, my sister's adopted home, is the second state to allow gay marriage! Yay! It makes me so happy. Of course, there is an appeal, as people appear to not be able to be happy for those adults who find love. With the most recent Republican "scandal," (Oooh - a man likes gay sex! He better resign as opposed to the Congressman who cheats on his wife with escorts.), it just reminds me that those who shout their homophobia loudest often are people who have homosexual tendencies and hate themselves for it and are determined to punish everyone as a result. As they say in Iowa, what's with the cob up your ass? (Seriously. They say this.)

The Seventh Deadly Sin

Rarely does pride come after a flood, but the Reisman family frequently defies conventional wisdom.

"I think we have the more trash than anyone in the neighborhood!" my mom reported to me breathlessly yesterday when she described their clean up efforts.

In chimed my dad, "It covers the entire front lawn!"

See? Jewish white trash like us can be #1 at something in the upper-middle class neighborhoods in which we dwell.

I'm off to catch an express bus to the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, which has an art gallery full of residents' work.

It's a Jungle Out There

Thursday, Des and I set out to see the bull elephant sculpture with the huge dick in the United Nations sculpture garden. (Nothing promotes international understand and peace like bronze elephant cock.) Unfortunately, the sculpture garden is closed for renovations. This may explain why I could never find more information on its hours when I searched the UN website and then called repeatedly. (The calls sent me through a maze of despair in why I pushed many buttons, but never actually spoke to a human.)

Fortunately, the elephant is situated near the street. Ironically, it is impossible to see the elephant's genitals because it is literally surrounded by a lush, overgrown bush. At least that makes me laugh.

Now that the weather has returned to August, it was very steamy and hot as Des and I pounded the pavement of the concrete jungle known as Manhattan yesterday, seeking adventure for my book on things to see and do that are off the beaten (subway) track. We were lead to Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace, which is awesome. Many of TR's safari victims, namely a lion, an elephant foot (not penis), and rhino's foot, are displayed. The tour guide, a very knowledgeable volunteer former history professor named Russell, explained that while TR indeed was an amazing conservationist, the times were certainly different.

"He took a disturbing amount of pleasure in shooting things," Russell acknowledged.

Still, Des and I agreed that TR is pretty much our favorite US president. The times were very different in some ways, and shockingly similar in others. TR stood up for the rights of labor over corporations, health care for all, public parks so that everyone could enjoy the outdoors, and the sense that "with great wealth comes great responsibility," the motto of his Quaker grandmother. (I am glad that her words left a great impression on him than those of his own mother, who grew up on a plantation in Virginia and supported the Confederacy during the Civil War while his dad went off to the front to provide logistical support to Union troops.)

Before I left my apartment, I read a nauseating article in Rolling Stone about the profiteering that is going on in Iraq by corporations allied with Republicans. Not only are they scamming billions from taxpayers and the administration could not care less, but they are directly responsible for the death and mutilation of hundreds of Americans - both troops and civilians - in their fraudulent work. Grover Nordquist was quoted (and maybe this was in a New York Times op-ed, not the magazine article - I read them both at the same time) as saying that they are working hard to get the US back to where we were before that "socialist" Theodore Roosevelt ruined everything. Yet if only our current leaders followed the civilized example of Theodore Roosevelt and served the people instead of indulging their savage blood-lust for money, we'd be a lot better off. It's sad when I look back fondly at the turn of the century as more enlightened.

Whew! I Am Still a Feminist!

After my recent discovery that I will laugh hysterically at some guy who tells horrific stories about the women he has sex with as long as a heaping side of steaming poetic justice is served up (for example, guy has anal sex with woman and video tapes it without her permission, a heinous act that is rewarded when she has diarrhea all over him, then pukes to top it off), I was wondering what was wrong with me. I've also laughed at jokes in the movie Varsity Blues about date rape, which is not at all funny. I know that. My credentials as a humorless feminist are going right down the toilet.

Thus it was with great relief that I found a little test over at Fetch Me My Axe about feminism. Belledame222 came out 96% feminist. Could I prove myself worthy of her?

You Are 96% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

Yay! Go me. (Although what's with the picture of the hot woman with red boxing gloves? Is it saying that feminists are combative or that we have to fight to get our message out? Weird.) It seems that you can be a horrible person who laughs (and cringes!!! I swear I also cringed a lot!) at select self-described assholes and raging dickheads and still be a good core feminist.

An Eye Opener that Burns

Laurie challenged me to write about Tucker Max for BlogHer for Blog Day later this month. I thought that was a brilliant idea, once I realized that she didn't mean Tucker Carlson. (It took me a few hours.) My usual clueless self had no idea who this Tucker Max character was until Husband told some story about his book. It seems that he turned down some publishing deal because he thought he should get more money since zillions of people read his dating/sexcapade stories on his website.

"The publisher didn't think that frat guys buy books," Husband said. Long story short, Max wound up selling the book to frat boys out of an RV he rented and drove around the country.

"Serves him right, I said and folded my arms across my chest, satisfied at his failure. The stories, I was told, were very misogynistic tales of fucking whores and all that good stuff.

I never bothered going to his website and checking them out myself until yesterday when I was desperately trying to do anything but write up three months of work that I did for the city so that one day, they might actually pay me. When I read the first story, something unexpected happened: I couldn't help but like the asshole. Is he a drunkard? Totally, and I am not too keen on slobbering drunks. Is he a shithead? For sure. Are his stories not flattering to women? Absolutely. Would he probably rate me on his vile "Tucker Max Female Rating System" as "a common stock pig?" Likely, although on a good day, I might make "Respectable pig," neither of which I particularly appreciate being called. Is he a good writer? Now that I am learning about what makes good writing, I also think he is a terrible writer.

So what won me over? The man wrote a story about how he accidentally got his own jizz in his eye. Damn, that is funny. He also makes himself look every bit as bad as the women dumb enough to consort with him. (He admits that he got his own jizz in his eye! Someone crapped on him! That is funny, funny shit!) Also poetic justice is meted out in almost every story. Not that he learns any lessons per se, but he degrades himself genially along with others. And, he sort of reminds me of my friend the Big O., which scares me.

It's not like I want this dude to be a role model, which he inevitably is to the lamer portion of the male population. (Those guys will always find some douche bag to look up to, anyway.) Stories about jizzing in one's own eye will always amuse me to no end. Call me a self-loathing misogynist and take my feminist card away if you must; I can't help it.

I'm Gonna Be Rich!

I'm sitting in a workshop on how to monetize your blog. Advice I received thus far is to use key words that will lead lots of people to my site (e.g. - "Jewish pussy"), then cleverly blend paid links and ads into my site. If I follow this advice, I will become a wealthy blogger and a fine pillar of the porn industry. How exciting is that?

On top of that, some people who sat at my table for lunch tried to convince me to do affiliate selling. That means when I complain about Brazilian waxes, readers will be able to click on ads for home snatch wax kits or pubic hair dye! Isn't that awesome!

The downside is that the blog pimping session led me to realize that Blogger templates are motherfucking (see? I'm using a key word! If only I had a paid link to people who fuck mothers, I'd make $1!) impossible to customize, so unless I switch to another format, we'll more or less be keeping the pepto pink. So it goes.

Given my options, I will leave the moneymaking to Husband. He likes that shit anyway. My life is definitely too hairy for all that. Ha ha.

Some Things Never Change, Some Things Go Down the Toilet

Sister spent a good portion of the afternoon yesterday cleaning out a storage closet in the basement that formerly served as our dad's office. Not only does the room - a walled off section of the basement - contain toys that we have not used in years, but it also has records from our educational careers. Every report card, including ones from Sunday and Hebrew schools, was saved. My dad began compiling dossiers with the material.

My dossier contained a psychological report from testing that I underwent on June 3, 1983 and June 10, 1983. I was in first grade, and my mom and I cannot figure out why I was referred for testing. (My best guess is because I developed serious asthma that year and nearly died.) What fascinates me are the following findings:

[Suzanne] appears to be a sensitive, aesthetic child who also demonstrates issues with power and control... who is experiencing very little difficulty in terms of her own perception of her behavior, intelligence, school functioning, personal appearance, popularity, happiness and satisfaction, as well as perceived level of anxiety. It appears that Suzanne has a very positive self-concept and that she is experiencing herself in very positive and instrumental terms.

Yay! Go young me. Too bad all that disappeared a few years later when puberty hit like a tons of bricks, never to be recovered again.

In this [mother-daughter] relationship, it appears that Suzanne could be experienced as oppositional, negative and determined to seek her own way even if it is at her expense and contrary to even her own best interests. At times, it appears that Suzanne views herself as having carried a power struggle to such extremes that she has ruined things for herself... She does appear to perceive herself as capable of winning these power struggles and when she does so she may even give in to her mother's original demands because she may even, in her heart, agree with these demands. Her power struggles may include highly manipulative and effective methods which at times may be highly dramatic (e.g. running away).

It scares me that even at 7.5 years old, I was doing things that I do today. Except that I'll engage in battles of wills with just about anybody, not merely my poor mom. In the end, though, my evaluation said that, "She appears to enjoy her home life and views it as a great source of protection and contentment." Very true today as well.

Speaking of enjoying home life, in the ride to my grandmother's party last night (which I only wish I had the foresight to podcast), we discussed teddy bears, butter biscuits, and beavers. This is Granny's lingo for breasts, vaginas, and fur coats.

Aint' Nothing Like Kosher Honey

Seriously, I love people. Months ago, I discovered that a very high portion of the hits to CUSS came from searches for "jewish pussy." Who wouldn't be curious about this phenomena, so I posted a request for information. (I'm not even going to bother linking to my original post, but it more or less asked people what the fuck they expected to find when searching for the chosen poon.) Anonymous replies were encouraged, partly because I don't want to know who is obsessed with kosher snatch and partly because I thought people would be more honest.

Honest to God, the replies continue to trickle in. I got these two gems over the past few days:

Although I am not jewish I have had my share of jewish pussy. I find that jewish women are very horny and thus when I search jewish pussy I associate the lust of the women which I've had to the pics I seek.

I think our horniess is due to consumption of gefilte fish, but maybe I am wrong.

being a member of the tribe- and orthodox, if i am going to be human, and desire a look at a woman other than my wife, it HAS to be jewish...besides, I agree, Jewish women are the best looking though I might be slightly predjudiced!! As to the questiom What would my wife think of me looking at other women...she doesn't care where I get my appetite as long as I enjoy only her great cooking

I actually don't care what his wife thinks of him looking at porn, but I found the answer to unasked question horribly depressing even though it was also hilarious. (And again, I'm nominating for gefilte fish as the cause of Jewish lust.)

You know what I hate though? I hate when people get all pius about porn and sex. Does it really matter if you ogle titties and snatch of another ethnic group or race as long as you respect women? Not really. If I believed in this God, I'm guessing that God has bigger concerns than whose photos you spill the precious seed on. It is always the people who are the most sanctimonious who are the most deviant at the end of the day. All the politicians and religious leaders who rant and rave against homosexuality, porn, adultery, masturbation, etc. turn out to be addicted to jerking off over gay porn while "legally sinning" with escorts. Yes, I sure love people!