The Day My Dad Unfriended My Sister from Facebook or I Come From a Long Line of Hotheads….

Today, my dad unfriended my sister from his Facebook friends list.

It seems pretty juvenile and childish when you say it out loud. It looks somewhat more reasonable in “print”. I think…

My dad is a 69 year old recent retiree, who has a lot of free time. He watches t.v., calls and e-mails politicians, fights with conservatives on the internet and at Wal-Mart (this is according to my stepmom) to fill his time when he cannot go fishing or camping. He doesn’t have a hair trigger, but he also doesn’t keep his mouth shut.

I can remember sitting in my grandmother’s (his mother’s) livingroom listening to her call Reagan either a “bastard” or “lying S.O.B.” when I was a kid.

I myself have been known to argue virtually, in person, e-mail politicians, and argue with them in meetings. I would like to take all of the credit for being an impassioned loudmouth, but as illustrated above, I come from a long line of hotheads.

So, it should come as no surprise to me (although it does), that my sister is also a hothead. She and my half brother moved to Texas when we were kids with their mother. They are now certified Texans. Not to generalize, but they’ve turned into gun toting CINOs who bitch about the government while receiving aid FROM the very horrible socialist/marxist/communist government that they rail against. It is fucking wrong.

So, in an effort to keep my blood pressure low, I blocked her from my feed. I don’t have a clue what pictures of “Socialist in Chief” she puts up anymore. She is too ignorant to even argue with about it. Don’t even get started with guns. Charlton Heston would be jealous.

Apparently, the voting down of the background checks in the Senate yesterday unleashed a firestorm between the two of them. This included my dad dropping the f-bomb in the form of “they are not coming to take your fucking guns.” My dad, btw, owns multiple guns, but has REFUSED to join the NRA since probably the mid 90′s when they started getting ultra conservative. I’ve seen him tear up his old NRA card before (SEE! Hothead).

A little extra information for you….my kids are biracial (black/white) and while my dad was racist when I was growing up, it sure turned him around once he had grandkids that they could be a kid who had all kinds of racial prejudice heaped upon them. The reality of all of his shitty racist views bit him in the ass. HARD. I’m glad for it too. I wouldn’t say he’s perfect. Let’s just say, you better not mess with grandkids or say something racist (HOTHEAD).

He now acknowledges the coded racism, dogwhistles, and not so subtle racism that this country has AMPED up since around 2008. She put up a picture that is supposed to be President Obama crying and I am pretty sure that snapped it.

They exchanged words. He unfriended her and told me he’s not going back.

In one respect, it makes me sad/mad that my father may not have actually gone this far had his grandchildren not been biracial. It might not have made him as sensitive to that crap, right? It makes me sad that she doesn’t get that she’s attacking her own family with racist tactics and lies.

I wish my family didn’t fight, but I know that these fights are going on now all over the world and have been going on forever. I do know that we are moving towards (not there yet!!) a more accepting society of all people. In doing that, tough decisions will need to be made by people about what they will tolerate, even within their own families. Am I obligated to still be close to you as my family member when you are essentially talking shit about my husband and kids? I don’t know. My immediate inclination (HOTHEAD) was to snap and start arguing with her, but I’m trying to be calm. Sort it out. Figure out how to have a reasonable discussion with her about this situation aka not be myself. NOT be that hothead.

It is a fine line between being calm and letting someone know that you won’t take their bullshit.

It isn’t that women have no sense of humor, men just aren’t as funny as they think that they are aka being a douchebag isn’t “edgy”…….

As a woman in America, I would venture to say at least once a month (if not more), I get to hear the tired trope about either a) have no sense of humor, b) aren’t funny, 0r c) all of the above.

Sigh.

Hmm, how many times have I heard women saying this?  Lemme think. About zero. Oh, I’m sure some woman someone has told me that, “Men are just funnier…” or something to the effect.

How did the male perspective of humor become the default? Does that mean that men are just inherently funny or is their humor promoted as the default humor because men tend to have more power and “humor” (male version thereof) is just an extension of said power? And if women were considered equally funny, then women would be active and men would be the passive hyenas laughing (even when the jokes weren’t funny??).

Well, as a woman who used to hang out with more men than women, let me break the cold honest truth out for men: all of you are not funny. I would say the majority of you aren’t funny; in fact, the funnier that you think you are, the less likely you are to be funny. We too have seen that stand up act that you are skimming from, butchering, and pretending is your own fresh material. We own televisions. We leave our homes.

If you think about it, especially if you go backwards (I cannot believe I am saying this) in time, you will find well known comedic genius tended to be more thought out. Those people that were hailed as funny 20 or 30 years ago, had (usually, not always, but usually) humor that was meant to cushion a blow to a significant truth or ignorance in the human condition. Pryor, Carlin, Williams, Bruce, Martin, Rock, etc. They might say foul things with foul language, but there was a point.

I thought that we were finally starting to get somewhere with the rise of people like Chappelle, Izzard, DeGeneres, Black, Cross, Goldberg, Griffin, Cho, Sykes, and the list goes on….

I mean, we’re talking diverse people here with diverse voices.

Then what the fuck happened? In the last few years, I have seen what I called the Andrew Dice Clay revival aka “dudebro” humor through Tosh, Jezelnik, Holcomb, MacFarlane (not a stand up, but an asshole with a cartoon empire), etc.

What the hell? I knew it hit an all time low when MacFarlane was hosting that sham of an Oscars. I already have issues with Oscar phoniness, but you’re going to let this man who has the maturity of a 14 year old host this show and sing about seeing actresses’ boobs. Geez.

Here is where I take issue with it

• The notion that making racist, sexist, ableist jokes is “fresh”. Yeah, that shit isn’t fresh. Maybe if those things were overcome in our society, we could make jokes. I think every single one of those assholes has made repeated jokes about rape and domestic violence.
• The notion that women are obligated to laugh at anything men deem a “joke”. If you make some horrible joke about domestic violence and expect me to laugh, it doesn’t mean I don’t have a sense of humor when I don’t. IF I laugh at NOTHING, then the assertion is true. Not laughing at a joke about DV doesn’t mean I don’t have a sense of humor.

What saddens me is that the Tosh and Jeselnik and other frat boys that I went to college with who gets show on Comedy Central will be always lauded as “so funny” for basically just retelling asshole jokes.

Women laugh….when something is really funny to us. We laugh.

 

 

 

 

Have a burnt cookie…

Shane Windmeyer is a gay rights activitist.  Apparently, he and Dan Cathy, the Chick-Fil-A anti-LGBT bigot have been calling, texting, and e-mailing.

Shane Windmeyer has met face to face with Cathy. Cathy no longer is funding groups that are actively trying to prevent marriage equality;  just groups that don’t condone gay marriage.

And Cathy hasn’t changed his beliefs about gay people being people who deserve love and rights.

So, thumbs up! Back to eating chicken sandwiches, agitators! AMIRITE?

No.

Now, I am not a gay person. So, this is just my personal opinion. I’m not trying to question or dismiss Shane Windmeyer, but he met the guy and he didn’t have horns. Cathy met Windmeyer and he DOESN’T have horns either.

The result? Windmeyer now admits he is a friend of Cathy’s and he’s a HUMAN. Cathy stopped funding hate groups, but still doesn’t realize that love isn’t restricted to straight people.

I have problems with this.

Windmeyer, by meeting Cathy, and not getting spit on…thinks Cathy is a okay. Cathy still thinks he doesn’t deserve to marry the person he loves.

I married outside of my race. If I were in this same situation, I would not write an article proclaiming Dan Cathy’s humanity because he still thinks my marriage is an abomination.

Bad people still have manners. They still look human.

Maybe I have the luxury to feel that way because I, as a straight person, fully enjoy that right. Windmeyer may feel the need to go for the velvet glove instead of the iron fist to get Cathy and his ilk to come around.

Here is where I REALLY start to have issues.

I repeatedly see this notion that those in the disadvantaged situation must convince and pamper those preventing THEIR rights into coming over to their way of thinking. They must be “tolerant” to intolerance. So, those who are trying to prevent rights are fully within the realm of reasonableness to act like petulant children because people not like them might get something that they fully enjoy. Those within the group being insulted? They must take the “high road”.

What utter horseshit.

Dan Cathy made a PR move in an attempt to get business back. The only people impressed by this are people who have never been in a position of disadvantage where breadcrumbs were thrown to shut them up. Dan Cathy is still a narrow minded bigot. Since when is being a decent human being worthy of a gold star? You’re SUPPOSED to not be an asshole.

He doesn’t get a cookie for still hating people.

Actually, I take that back.

I made a special cookie for Dan Cathy. I put it in the oven and walked away. I forgot all about his special cookies but at least I MADE HIM COOKIE BATTER AND PUT THEM IN THE OVEN.

So, here Dan, here is the best I could do for you: a big ole batch of half assed burnt cookies. I fully expect you to eat every single one and talk about how great they are. Isn’t that a great gift that I’ve given you?

Nostalgia

I’ve been busy. And in hiding. WELL, not REAL hiding. Just post Christmas hiding.

I always feel this way in January. I’m not really a Winter person and here it is upon us. Blergh. And I hate it.

For some inexplicable reason, this time of year, when I was single and kidless, would be when my drinking activities would ramp up. I guess, you can’t really do anything other than sit inside, so why not sit somewhere and drink? And smoke. And then put on your fifteen pounds of clothing to go back outside and go back into your house. Or sometimes, someone else’s house, depending on how the night went. My friend and I were talking about February one time and I told him that all it made me think of was drinking, smoking, and anonymous sex. It seemed like the right time of year for all that. Everything outside was dead and I felt like hiding from it.

My friend posted the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s Dream yesterday on Facebook, tagging me.

That’s when the Winter nostalgia that I always forget about hit me like a brick. About ten years since I have seen her and almost 20 since we first met.

Twenty years ago since we had classes together. Drank vodka until we were sick together. Went to parties together. Sang loudly together. Smoked pot and danced together. Watched Simpsons. Ate shitty college cafeteria food. Checked our mailboxes for a letter. Played kickball on the lawn. Walked to “town”. Laughed. And laughed until we couldn’t breathe and our faces hurt.

I could suddenly smell that room and the air of the campus.

I smiled and then realized that I will never be in that place again. Not physically, but mentally. Even if I went back now to that place with those people, it wouldn’t be the same. Everyone has changed, and grown, as we are to do as people. That is what made me sad.

That was one of THE best times and I can never again visit that pocket of time, other than in my head, to experience it again. I’m not sure that I fully embraced that until that particular moment.

The nostalgia always rattles around, but I think you believe you are the only one feeling that way at times. When another person is sharing that memory and feeling that pain of being unable to access that moment again, you almost cannot breathe.

Nice guy syndrome: misogyny, patriarchy, and entitlement

Reblogged from Sarah Gets Critical:

• 
• 
• 
• 

As terms such as "friendzoning" have slipped into the everyday vernacular, we see a new form of misogyny forming in the younger generations. In my generation, for one, a large proportion of my peers now make use of "ironic" sexism, ie. women in the kitchen/ironing, sandwiches, and so on. These jokes are, apparently, hilarious because we live in a post-feminist society where gender equality pretty much, uh yeah, exists, sort of.

Read more… 914 more words

This is AWESOME!

Bed Giggles

On New Year’s Eve, we went to a New Year’s Eve party. There isn’t much partying when you are making sure the preschooler isn’t destroying the house and watching a baby. It is still fun, but there is restraint on it, for sure.

So, at one point near the end of our evening, an older kid was playing with the baby:

“Hi baby, Hi baby, Hi baby, Hi BUUUUUUURP!”

He let out a Barney Gumble burp that would have made Homer Simpson raise an eyebrow.

He said, “Excuse me!” and took off.

My husband broke out into laughter (of course). An older gentleman at the party said, “WHO IS THE PIG??”

I mildly chuckled at that whole thing at the time.

Fast forward a few hours. We put the kids to bet, kissed after the ball drop, and went to bed early like all good boring New Year’s Eve parents do.

As I was falling asleep, that situation with the burp and the question came back into my head.

I played the scenario out again. I started giggling and giggling and giggling. My husband just laid there and tried to ignore me as I stiffled it.

Giggle, Giggle, Giggle, Tears, Tears, Tears, Giggle.

Stiffle.

GIGGLE, GIGGLE, TEARS…..etc.

I tried and tried and TRIED to stop it, but it was like a dam. There was NO way I was going to stop that gush of laughter.

I finally was able to calm myself after a good half of an hour of this.

It occurred to me that I cannot think of the last time that I laughed like that. This happens to me from time to time, where I just lose it and I mean LOSE IT, over something and cannot stop laughing.

As adults we rarely get to laugh when everything is weighing down on us. In fact, the thought of laughing at something even angers us sometimes.

This ISN’T FUNNY!!!

But when you try to stifle something that is you, it will come out. If you try to “control” your spirit, it will unleash itself.

No matter how tired you are.

How old you are.

How angry you were earlier.

It will come out, usually when you least expect it and need it the most.

I felt cleansed after that laugh. I know I need to do it more often. I can FEEL it.

I hope I don’t have to wait three months for it to happen again…….

A Bushel and a Peck..

Everyone in America knows about the horrible events that went down in Connecticut by now. 26 innocent people were gunned down for a reason that we may never known and can never probably understand.

I watched a ton of coverage Friday and then just tried to divorce myself from it over the weekend.

This morning, I was getting ready and turned on the television. The little ones were still asleep and the national news came on. Immediately, they started talking about it and I felt like this was as good a time as any to finally just face this situation that I was avoiding.

They played the President’s speech and as he started reading their names, I lost it. I mean, really just sobbed. What horror. What unimaginable horror must that town feel right now? I can barely think about my pithy problems because I think time might just stop for me if I had to endure such the loss of one of my children in that way.

I cannot imagine waking up in a week and having presents that no one is going to open. It makes me physically sick.

After a few minutes, I managed to get myself together and the older one woke up and came out of his room. He came and sat down next to me on the couch, which is pretty customary for most mornings in our house. All I could do was hug him and smell him (yes moms do that) and tell him that I loved him. He told me that he loved me too.

I even sang to him, which is kind of odd for the morning, but he went right along with me…

“I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck, and a -”

“..hug around the neck!”

followed by giggles.

I still have that lump in my throat now for those families. May they someday make peace with the unthinkable. My thoughts are with them.