Aunty Christ loves all her children

Aunty Christ can't wait to sue you, BP

2010-06-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I guess I always thought that most of the people I knew were okay with the fact that I hadn’t gone to law school. It’s bizarre to me that I’ve failed to be properly embarrassed for my lack of education all this time, knowing now how ridiculous I must appear to others.

Having just returned from a trip to my parents’ house, I am now sadly aware how much I’ve disappointed everyone all these years, not having gone to law school until now, and I’m sorry. What was I thinking?

Anyway, law school starts very soon. I feel like I need to say something about that in this blog, and perhaps even start writing consistently again—at least before I become too busy to write consistently again. So now I have. You’re welcome.

Aunty Christ thanks you very much, crazy chicken. And you too, tiny donkey.

2010-02-16T22:33:00.000-08:00

The thing about learning a new language is that all of a sudden one is filled with gratitude that one is able to communicate in any language at all. How magical! How miraculous, these things that I’m able to say!

These things that I’m unable to say, on the other hand, I’m not so crazy about. As I told my maestra de español the other day, “I was not having looked at the hour, then I was being late. I feel it.”

One thing about the Spanish there is that they want you to distinguish between what is forever, and what is only for a time. Which we do too, I guess. I am drunk versus I am a drunk. Though the difference is that one who speaks English fluently can do that kind of thing without thinking too much about it, and one who speaks Spanish haltingly is forced to consider the truths of one’s existence anew with every sentence. ¿Estoy cansada o soy cansada? ¿Soy triste o estoy triste?

So I mean it, from the bottom of mi córazon negro y frío, when I say that I am grateful to be able to write this small post to you people, without worrying about whether you people are my familiars, or children, or a group consisting of my betters, and being more hopeful than not that I am saying what I mean to say and not something about that time when there was a robot-pig on the crunchy trousers.

Anyway, this is why I haven’t been writing lately. No soy escritora. Estoy estudiando.

And I am stressed the fuck out, pardon my French. I really hope it’s not a forever state of being, but I don’t know yet.

Aunty Christ's Top Many Things of the Future List. Finally.

2010-01-04T00:25:00.000-08:00

I was going to write a list of things I wanted to see while I was in Chicago but didn’t have time to, but I realized that it was self-indulgent and inane. I wanted to go to a bar called Jimmy’s and a restaurant called … Hey, guys, where are you going? Don’t you realize how vitally important this shit is?

The purpose of that list, however, was really just to set up my second list, which is:

Things I didn’t want to see while I was in Chicago, but was forced to:

My dad in his underpants.

Now, this is nothing new. For as long as I can remember, Dad has always felt it meet and good to walk around his house of females wearing nothing but his tighty-whities, and that’s fine. Or: Whatever. He has made far worse intrusions on my psyche this trip alone. Really, at this point I suppose I’ve made a bigger thing out of it than it deserves—my point being only: What woman does not want to see her elderly father in his underwear? It’s Chrismassy!

Anyway, while I was back in Chicago, I was reminded how long it’s been since I’ve been outside of the country. The reminder came in two parts, as follows.

Scene One:

At the food bank where my dad volunteers and I help out whenever I’m in town, I had a brief conversation with a Japanese student had come to box cans with his host mother. Now, I’ve been to Japan twice. I ain’t a complete idiot when it comes to Japan—I think, anyway.

“Are you staying with your parents over the holidays?” he asks.

“No, I’m going home to Saskatoon on Christmas Eve. My boyfriend is having a party with some friends, so I want to be there,” I say. “Are you staying in the U.S. for the school year?”

“Yes.”

“Will your parents miss you over Christmas?”

As soon as I asked the question, I realized how stupid I sounded. Ah—another American who thinks The World Out There is exactly like America! Except with funny accents!

There was a time in my life, believe it or not, when I thought I would travel all the time. And then the Bush presidency happened. Not to blame my current homebodiness on Bush entirely. Sure, I’m embarrassed to travel abroad as a Bush’s America American, but I’m also poor, and I hate airports, and I miss the thug dogs terribly when I’m gone, and when I’m working I never get enough time off, and when I’m not working—well, I think I mentioned that I’m poor. All of which adds up to not having left the country in about ten years.

And now, apparently, having thusly settled my dumb roots firmly in my nation’s soil, I believe that Japanese families gather under their bonsai trees and wait for Santy Claus every December 25 because I’m culturally stupid.

(But what do they do for Thanksgiving???)

Speaking of culturally stupid, Scene Two:

While in Chicago, I saw a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen since our days living in Remote Mountain Village together. The first thing out of my mouth when I saw him:

“Your hair’s so long! Oh man—do people want to touch it all the time?”

I guess about now I should mention that this friend is black, and he wears his hair in dreads, which reach about halfway down his back. It was, actually, a little bit of a surprise to me to see how long his hair had gotten; but really? Really, Aunty? Do people want to touch your black hair all the time? Weren’t we just talking about this? And when we were talking about this, didn’t I keep thinking, “Huh. Well I certainly don’t think about touching black people’s hair”?

So yeah. Different topic—a distinctly American topic, in fact—but same conclusion: I need to get out. Out of my house, out of my country, out of my damn head, you know?

I wish I could explain, at least partially, why it makes any sort of sense that was the first thing that popped out of my mouth when I saw my friend. And, you know, that it made me feel better about it. Like less of an asshole. But what would I say? His hair looked … cool?

Oh, so I’m a moron. I talk without thinking. I need to think more—and talk more, probably.

I need to leave. I need to learn.

I need to be humble, and open, and hungry.

This is the little holiday gift I gave myself this year: A promise. Sometime in the coming year, Rich and I are going abroad, goddamn it. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it.

Without further ado here is my list of the Top Several Things About 2010:

(1) What we were just talking about.

(2) Law school! Maybe. Maybe not. I cannot make up my mind. But the good news is, despite studying not one whit, I got a much better score on my second LSAT, making some much better law schools a possibility and salvaging my battered ego.

(3) Thug dogs! Every year holds thug dogs and thug dog activities, of course, but this year has its own billboard. Or simulated billboard, I mean. Gosh, I’m proud.

Simulated on a computer screen! From a program that won't let you save images to your computer! And that I couldn't figure out how to grab a screen shot from because I'm technologically inept! So it ends up looking much lamer than you might expect things to look in this advanced age of 2010! Enjoy!

(4) Glink Zutonate! Every year Rich and I, having procreated no children together (clink glasses), name the year as if it were a baby. Last year was Specialty Foxx, based on a mishearing of some sort, if I remember correctly, and 2008 (or perhaps 2007?) was Brock Hambley. Not like either of those years worked out so well for me, actually—my children (very much like any babies I would actually bring into this world) were monsters, and I hate them.

This year, though. This year strikes me as my year already. As our year. Mine and Rich’s and yours too, by god. Just think: Last January I was scared out of my wits that I was going to lose my job any day, and had been for months. This year, I’m unemployed, and I’m (relatively) happy. Rather be dead than malingering.

Stillborn, stinking Glink Zutonate, we’ll breathe some life into you yet.

When two dillweeds love each other very much

2009-12-07T02:32:00.000-08:00

Generally speaking, Aunty Christ is not a very Christmassy person. It is shocking! It shocks, that admission. Over the last couple days, though, the spirit of the holidays has called my name, and touched my heart. And it has touched it hard, and in somewhat inappropriate places.

Or, you know, not the spirit of the holidays so much, but the Lifetime cable television channel, and its awful, treacly made-for-TV holiday movies. Who fucking watches these?

Actually, I have a story about that. Not a very long story, mind you, or a very interesting one, but the last time I visited the familial manse for Christmas, about six years ago, I walked in on my mom as she was watching a holiday romance on the Hallmark channel. And it depressed me so much. I don’t even know if I can explain why, exactly, except that holiday romances aired on the Hallmark channel are in themselves depressingly poorly done, and that my mom is kind of a pathetic and lonely figure in my mind, and together, the image of this sad and lonely woman watching a badly produced, badly written family Xmas abortion on the Sad and Lonely Christian Woman Channel made my heart hurt.

Ever since that seminal moment, however, I’ve been fascinated by the awful made-for-TV holiday movie. And again, I can’t explain why, exactly. Something about my general fascination with awful things, I suppose, although I’m not saying that mommy issues aren’t buried very deep in there somewhere. In the last two days, I’ve watched the one about the lady who asked Santa for a boyfriend, the one about the lady who spent Christmas with the policeman who had her under witness protection because she was about to be the star witness against her boyfriend’s family in a tax evasion case, the one about the two newspaper columnists who hated each other until they realized that they loved each other, the one about the small-town lady who wants to move to the big city but learns that life and love is something that’s only available to her in her hometown, the one about the big-city lady who moves to the middle of nowhere and realizes that the middle of nowhere is where all the hot dudes live, the one about the lady who turns 40 and gets her groove back with a hot young dude on an island (NB: Not to be confused with that other movie, which, despite its middle-aged-woman-affirming message, is relegated to BET because of its lack of relevance to white middle-aged women), and the one about the lady with the dead husband who, despite being dead, has some very specific feelings about his widow’s potential boyfriends. In between were commercials for some monstrosity called It’s Complicated, and now, at the end of the weekend, I find that I am having problems weaning myself off this crap. I briefly turned to The Green Mile a few minutes ago and was shocked when Tom Hanks didn’t get in a tiff with Michael Clarke Duncan after finding out that he was shutting down the town’s Christmas tree farm, only to have some completely unforeseen twist at the end bring them together again—for Christmas.

I think I’ve learned a lot over the last 17 hours of nonstop awful holiday show viewing, and I’d like to bring to you now what I call A Boyfriend Date for a Family Christmas in the Country.

The film opens. A wide-eyed young woman is trying on outfits and posing in the mirror while fun and perky music plays.

Music (singing): Here is the song that tells the audience how to feel about the story they are going to see about the girl who went on a boyfriend date for Christmas…

Camera closes in on girl’s face, showing her to be an actress last seen in a sitcom in the mid-1980s.

Juniper: I can’t wait to move to the big city, after Christmas! I’m so sick of family Christmases in the country, and I have such big plans! I shall muse upon these plans for a moment, so it becomes clear that I’m not only cute but also smart, and a bit of a dreamer.

Mom: Juniper! What about the town’s annual holiday fruitcake festival? Your grandfather didn’t perfect his fruitcake recipe just so you could abandon the town you grew up in and move off to the city like any normal person in the late 20th or early 21st centuries would.

Juniper: Now I have to say something that makes everyone realize that, as adorable and likeable as I am, I have some growth to do. But not so much that it’ll seem completely unrealistic that I do it in an hour and a half.

Blossom, the fat friend: Not like this entire movie isn’t unrealistic! Hey, I know you’re busy with your plans to leave town, but have you thought about just cutting loose and finding a new man to date? I mean, after your engagement to the baker ended so badly?

Juniper and Mom, together: No! Not the baker!

John Baker: I still miss you, Juniper, my dear. In a very shallow and conceited way, I mean. Actually, I miss the promise of your family’s winning fruitcake recipe, but I also miss your bum.

Juniper: I am only a little turned on and very, very mad!

Mom: I am a supportive mother, and so I am also mad!

Blossom, the fat friend: I wish someone liked my bum!

Don Goode: Hello there. It’s almost time for the first commercial break. Here I am, the unlikely love interest!

Juniper: I hate you!

Mom: Oh, but he’s so cute!

Juniper: My body says I love you, but I do declare that you’re the most frustrating man I’ve ever met, Don Goode!

Don Goode: Well, I’m just passing through, looking for the true spirit of Christmas. Say, have you noticed my rugged cheekbones?

Blossom, the fat friend: I did!

Juniper: Well, I’m still moving to the big city. I don’t care what you say, Don Goode!

Fruitcake judge: I sure wish I had some real personality or backstory or something, but I’m here to tell you that because of a series of unlikely events, Juniper and Don Goode will have to pair up as partners for this year’s annual fruitcake bake off!

John Baker: Well, I’ll just pair up with this skinny blonde lady then.

Townspeople: No one really cares what you do, John Baker, because even though you’re an award-winning baker, everyone knows that Juniper’s family recipe always wins this town’s fruitcake contest.

John Baker: Not this year.

Hot blonde lady: I’m so dumb! Did you notice my boobs?

Townspeople: Hey, this is a family show!

Cooking montage showing Juniper and Don Goode throwing flour on each other and laughing, Juniper showing Don Goode the proper way to shell nuts, and Juniper coyly hiding her grandfather’s recipe from him.

Don Goode: Would you like to go to the amusingly named local bar with me tonight?

Juniper: Like, on a date? Because I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this yet, but I’m leaving town to go to the big city soon.

Don Goode: Oh, well, I just wanted to ask you out so that I could admit something really shocking to you, like that I only came to town and paired up with you so I could steal your grandfather’s fruitcake recipe for the big frozen-dessert company I work for in the big city.

Juniper: Gasp!

Blossom, the fat friend: Hey, what does your mom think?

Mom: I think that I should dispense some homey words of wisdom. And maybe some ice cream.

Juniper: I’m obviously 35 years old. Why do I still live at home?

Mom: You don’t live at home so much as you live in someone’s awful idea of the way things should be.

John Baker: I’ve heard that Don Goode is out of the picture, so I would like to propose to you in a few scenes, if that’s all right.

Juniper: Oh, I’m kind of confused!

Blossom, the fat friend: I wish someone would propose to me.

Juniper: I’m a modern woman, with plans and everything! I can’t drop all that and stay in this bum town, with someone who doesn’t even really love me with all his heart.

John Baker: But Juniper, I do love you!

Juniper: With all your heart?

John Baker: (?????)

Juniper: That’s what I thought. No. I’m a modern woman. I reject your proposal, John Baker.

Montage of Juniper doing modern-woman things, like shaving her legs and buying a balloon for a little kid.

Mom: Now that it’s almost time for the fruitcake-baking contest, how do you feel about moving to the big city and away from Christmas?

Juniper: Conflicted. I’ll miss you, Mom. You’re the best.

Mon and Juniper hug.

Mom: I got you lots of presents. Here! Have all these presents!

Montage of Juniper baking a fruitcake by herself and John Baker and the hot blonde lady baking a fruitcake together. The hot blonde lady is grossed out by the fruitcake mixture, and spends most of her time filing her nails.

Fruitcake judge: And the winner is …

Juniper: Me?

Townspeople: Was there ever any doubt?

Don Goode: Do you have time for one more gift? I got you this kind of weird excuse about how I was never going to steal your fruitcake recipe after all, and I’m going to demonstrate that to you by playing a holiday tune on this here guitar.

Juniper: It’s what I always wanted!

Townspeople: Kiss him!

Juniper and Don Goode share three chaste, emotionless kisses.

Mom: And that is the spirit of Christmas. Where else could you find that?

Blossom, the fat friend: I wish I could kiss a man and find the spirit of Christmas.

Juniper: I think I’ve learned something today, and what I learned is that I will never leave the town that I was born in.

Don Goode: Also, I wanted to give you this engagement ring. I hope it’s not too creepy. I want to stay with you forever right here in this town.

Juniper: That’s not creepy. It’s Christmas!

Townspeople: Ha ha ha ha ha! Now we’re going to sing a song!

Thank you for watching A Boyfriend Date for a Family Christmas in the Country. Is it just me, or do these holiday shows make anyone else a little misty? Someone get Lifetime on the phone. That was the best one yet!

Aunty Christ lives in her own little turkey world

2009-11-29T12:54:00.000-08:00

The only people who would find this amusing are the same people who pretend to throw balls to their dogs, only to misdirect the dog’s attention and hide the ball in their pocket, and then laugh and laugh and feel utterly superior to the poor creature.

Which is to say that I find it extremely amusing. It, in this case, being Yahoo! Answers, Gender and Women’s Studies, or Y!A GWS. This is what’s been taking up all my time lately, frankly. It’s an odd day indeed when Rich and I aren’t on the couch all morning nursing our own private obsessions—him with his electronic AV Club pals, and me with my imaginary Y!A morons. I’ve even started addressing actual people and events in the breathless, blindered tone of a Y!A querier:

“Why do men always wanna see movies like The Man in the White Suit, and women wanna watch The Godfather II?”

“Why do men always cook squash soup when women wanna go out for breakfast?”

Or, with all respect to The Simpsons, “Why are men named Rich Bachelor, and women are named Aunty Christ?”

It’s actually a really wonderful way to view the world. Let’s take a look, shall we? A question:

Why do most women act like the terms "sexist" and "true" are mutually exclusive?

I have repeatedly seen on here and heard otherwise the objection that a comment is sexist against women, as that is somehow supposed to nullify what was said before it. Why do most women feel that just b/c something is said that truthfully paints the majority of them in a negative light or otherwise makes them feel bad, that it is untrue?

Congratulations! You’ve just proved yourself to be unworthy of further discussion. Next!

If women are so afraid of men as they claim, why do they so voluntarily act in such antagonistic ways?

towards them? THis cold range from picking arguments to actually initiating violent physical contact (such as slapping).

You often hear women on here chiding guys for acting in anyway that could even remotely be construed as creepy (such as approaching a woman to initiate conversation) and there are constant posts about how men should and must respect a woman's comfort level.

Ok, fine. Women are in constant fear of men overpowering, raping or otherwise hurting them. We get that......but then, why do women antagonize these "potential rapists" so often, without provocation? An example I saw just last night at a bar was a woman striking a guy in the back of the head who walked away from an argument with her.

I mean if you are afraid of a pit bull, you don't go slapping him on the snout to p*ss him off right? Why do women not apply this same common sense with men?

(****And please: no arguments on the morality of hitting anyone...let's just look at this practically)

Okay, fine—let’s look at this practically. So either women must admit to you that they are in no harm at all from any man ever, or they must cower at home with their doors barred against the big, mean men who might hurt them? Or maybe a woman can be around men, but must at all time have a smile on her face and not react in any way that might provoke a man into raping or otherwise abusing her?

You make a good point, sir. My gender thanks you.

IS single-motherhood is a cancer in our society?

Do you agree?

Single motherhood trains girls from a much younger age than boys to be multi functional through the role models of women. Girls see their mothers going to work, college and rearing children. The boy is more lost as he does not understand his role. I know his role is exactly the same but you need a father to "Show" him this.

Women bemoan men and boys acting like sissys but we forget who is raising boys and young men and it's women. LOL

Now the reason for single motherhood is an immaturity problem like the man running off or the mother blocking access. Then the girls grow up and are promiscuous only keeping the cycle going because the boy is too young to be ready to be a father and he doesn't know what to be as a role.

Something like that.

Additional Details

Yes I titled it like that to drag you in! LOL

U fail. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!11!!

Why are women (in general) worse at basically everything when compared to their male colleagues ?

-Sports
-Business
-Politics
-Law
-Finance
etc etc etc

Here is an answer to this provocative, well-considered question, from a “Top Contributor” no less:

Because of hormones distracting us. (pms) It makes us not think with the same logic as man. It causes psychological troubles.
Because we loose blood once a month and it is very tiring
Biological clock and we have to take maternal breaks
We still do most of the children raising at home.
Sports? Because we have smaller muscle and we have hips that makes us run awkwardly.

I am anti-feminist because equality between the sexes is impossible and against nature but you should still respect woman.

Ow, my awkward hips! And another excellent point:

This is an unfair question...you fail to list the thing women are better at then men:

- taking advantage,abusing, and showing no appreciation for men's natural desire to please women
- the tenacity to act so selfish and whine for what they want without being embarrassed
- avoiding blame or accountability while showing zero remorse or conscience
- convincing people they are more caring, nurturing, and sweet hearted when their behaviors - looked at objectively- tell quite a different story

I’m sorry, sir. Why are you even talking about not-me right now? Do you not care that I would like my feet rubbed?

Another person asks:

Is this place just full of male whiners, or is it that women's issues have been mostly solved...(more)?

leaving men with the problems that need to be addressed?

Clearly: both.

And then (by the same guy):

Men: Have you ever considered that women view men as chumps who exist to support women and buy them things?

Have you ever looked at women as being people who frolic through life, giggling all the way because they view men as fools whose only reasons to exist are to provide sperm and dollars?

Thank you! Finally, someone with the balls to say what we’ve all been thinking! Am I right, guys?

Do you think psychological abuse should be made a crime to even out the playing field?

It seems that women have the upper hand when it comes to nagging and being control freaks.. thats basically them using their strengths.. the problem is when men use their strengths on women theyre protected from physical abuse by the justice system.

Psychological abuse does not always heal with time... some are scarred for life mentally and it affects their lives.

Exactly! That’s what I’ve been saying all along! Women are scarring men for life mentally by, um, nagging them! It’s exactly the same as rape, beatings, and murder, which as anyone knows, only men are ever punished for!

Why do feminists like to think they are the ones who can really understand what oppression means?

Did they finally make a claim on that word that they had it copyrighted and made sure that the word oppression only applies to women and feminists?

Yes. We’ve made a claim on it and had it copyrighted because we totally forgot about the blacks and Muslims and transgendered people. Whoops! Our bad. We promise to stop nagging those guys, though. If we can remember to not do that, what with all our giggling and frolicking and whatnot.

As a woman, do you feel insulted that feminists are portraying you as a victim because you're a woman?

Making sure everything is blamed on others except women portray women as weak; incapable of making rational thinking; and incapable of making good decisions. We are not victims all the time, feminists! Sometimes we make bad decisions! When will you preach the concept of responsibility instead of blame?

Again: Thank god someone finally said it! Feminism is all about making women seem weak and incapable of rational thinking, right? Whereas dudes apparently, if Y!A GWS is any indication, have the utmost respect for us!

Arent the declining marriage rates womens fault ? Why should a man marry, if marriage means to?

share his wealth 50 50 when he can not find a woman that makes the same ammount of money as he does and also takes care of the home and kids, because feminism and the modern divorce laws are not his fault ?

Yes! Men should not be forced to marry women, who don’t earn as much and are expected to take care of the house and the kids and such. Men should be allowed, finally, to marry men!

Thank you, sir, for your support of gay marriage. We appreciate it.

So, as you see, it’s all enough to drive a person completely insane. After several hours of looking at this, one expects to go outside of the house and see a world turned upside-down, everyone sitting in a toilet-armchair, watching Ow My Balls! and making preverbal utterances.

Given what I’ve seen in GWS, I expected other sections of Y!A to engage in same kind of illogical commentary. Say, in Economics, a question posing “I had a $20 in my pocket and now it’s gone?” or “Do you agree that we just feasted for five dollars?” But no. There, people are asking questions about the economic effects of a significant fall in the value of the pound against the euro and the effect that increased reserve requirements might have on the GDP.

Leaving me to wonder if it’s about talking about gender that makes people stupid, or if the subject merely attracts 12-year-old boys and morons. Discuss.

Someday men will walk on Mars, but Aunty Christ will still be a monkey

2009-11-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

Hey, I don’t know if you’ve heard this yet, but I guess the job market is really unrealistically competitive right now. Here’s one for the God You Suck Files.

As I may or may not have already pointed out, I’ve been applying for jobs for about a year now, at a rate of maybe one or two resumes a week. Sometimes the jobs I apply to are a little too big for me and my skills; sometimes they’re a bit too small, both in wages and responsibilities. Every once in a while, I happen upon something that’s just right—something I actually want to do, and can do, and have done.

But I haven’t gotten any of them, and at this point, hundreds of rejections later, I feel like I am not so much a person as a flaw. If I talk about this, I’m subjected to my friends’ advice on the various way in which my flaw manifests itself. I am applying for the wrong jobs. I cannot communicate with the people who interview me, or am communicating in a wrong way. I do not look professional, perhaps. Have I considered that my resume is bad? Or perhaps it is rather that my experience is not valuable. Or I don’t sell myself well because I don’t have faith in myself. I probably think too highly of myself. Whatever it is, surely I can see that I am generally not a very good person. And above all, I must believe in myself.

Last week I got an interview with an office I would have loved to work for. It’s a small non-profit that gives free legal advice to crime victims, run by a woman who used to work for the D.A.’s office. In terms of fit, it landed somewhere between Just Right and Too Big—I don’t have experience in some specific areas the job would have covered, but I do have advocate experience, and that would have been a small part of the job, and the rest of it was just general office work, which I’ve done and like well enough. And I thought the interview went well. Or in any case I liked the lady who ran the office, and I was able to answer most of her questions adequately—yes, I’ve done that before; no, we don’t use that application, but I am familiar with this similar platform. That kind of thing.

Upon returning home, I found that she had sent me an email ten minutes after I had left her office. It said:

Ms. Chrit (sic),

Thank you for applying with the Dream Job Firm, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to interview you. We are going to fill the position w/ another applicant. Good luck w/ your job search, and please don't be discouraged: out of approximately 150 applications we received, yours clearly stood out!

Like I said, rejection and I go way back. I understand that I’m not going to get every job. I even understood that I was probably not going to get this job. And yet.

Ms. Employer,

I apologize for contacting you again, especially since you must be very busy with your interviews on top of your ordinary responsibilities. However, I must say that I am very disappointed and wonder if I might encourage you to share with me what your reasons are for not feeling that you would want to work with me; I intuit that you must have had a fairly strong negative reaction, based on the fact that you've cut me from the running before completing the interview process.

Normally I wouldn't bother you with this question. I honestly just wanted very badly to work for you, and felt like I had the background and skills to do a good job for you. I guess I'm a little surprised.

Good luck to you. I enjoyed meeting you.

I was thinking that I would get silence in response. A big nothing. A secret, or a mystery. Instead, the next morning, I received a phone call, from Ms. Employer, saying Oh my god, I did not mean to send that to you.

Looking good, right? No. She continues. She says, I was getting emails ready to go out at the end of the week, but I slipped up and sent yours early. We’ve found the perfect person who can fill the job and—really, she could do my job! I should probably just cancel all the interviews I’ve scheduled. But thank you for coming in. It was great meeting you.

Which, despite giving me something of an answer, which was what I professed to be looking for, made me feel better not at all. And then, a few days later, an email.

Aunty, now is when I'm REALLY contacting the applicants we interviewed. Again, I'm so sorry I screwed yours up. The job market is just really unrealistically competitive now; it's very, very tight. Your application looked great - we only interviewed about 20 of some 150 applicants, and you were one of them - and your interview went really well, also. It's just a hard time to be looking for a job, and someone happened to apply whose bio matched the job description perfectly. I AM glad I got to meet you and talk w/ you!

So I sent (just to be nice):

Employer,

Thank you for contacting me. I really appreciate it. Take care.

Immediately I receive:

I still feel so badly. I'm really sorry.

At this point—argh. Just drop it, lady. I’m really, really, really sorry I asked.

At least it’s not as bad as one interview I had this summer. Rich and I drove to a tiny town about 45 minutes away from our house, to an office where I spent about three minutes telling the attorney that I didn’t mind the drive, it wasn’t really that far to go for a job that I really wanted, that I’m from Chicago, fergadsakes, where I always had at least a two-hour daily commute, and two minutes listening to him say that he liked my resume but didn’t think that I’d want to drive so far, really, and then the interview was over and I never heard from them again.

Now that was weird.

I admit it. I’m kind of hating the job market right now. And my back-up plan of going to law school that so excited me just a few weeks ago? I had a meeting with the head of my paralegal department last week to talk to him about law school, and he seemed dead-set against it. In fact, he seemed dead-set against me, in general. To everything I said, he had two responses:

1. I don’t think that’s the right thing for you to be doing.

2. Now see, that’s your problem!

Me: I’m really interested in water law, and I think it’s going to be a growing area of concern in the near future. Although I like the paralegal program, I think I can be more effective in making public policy as an attorney, so that’s why I’m thinking about law school

Him: I don’t think that’s the right thing for you to be doing. Now, have you done an internship yet with a water law attorney?

Me: No, I was looking into it, but I’m having trouble finding someone local who is interested in taking a student on.

Him: Where have you been looking?

Me: The internet.

Him: Now see, that’s your problem!

Like so. Except with me not being very articulate, since I had only gotten one and a half hours of sleep the night before. Maybe that really was my problem. Anyway, I am supposed to talk with him again next week, but at this point, I worry that he’s actually talked me out of law school, what with his not very good reasoning and total lack of understanding of who I am and what drives me. Which, at this point in my planning process, makes sense. I found this quote from David Byrne the other day, in my wanderings. He’s talking about not wanting to read a bad review from a critic who’s long dogged him, but it rang true to me as well.

While taking criticism on board can be constructive, it can also be detrimental to the creative process if it’s considered while that process is still under way. It undermines one’s enthusiasm and will — which is OK, beneficial even, but only after a tour (for example) is over. This review, by all reports, wasn’t helpful criticism anyway — it seemed to be one of those reviews that comes from some psychological issues the writer has — and therefore even a belated reading is not going to help us refine what we do.

That said, I’m not really sure what to do now. Do I want to go to law school? Is it even possible for me to find a job? I think in times like these it’s best to retreat to lick one’s wounds, and ruminate upon the restorative properties of several bottles of wine.

Aunty Christ lost her shaved ape and forgot what she was looking for

2009-11-13T11:42:00.000-08:00

The Brits, of course, are famous for their humor—or, as they say, “humour” (snobs)—so perhaps it’s no surprise that this fucking cracked me up. I saw that one Freakonomics dude on The Daily Show a few weeks ago, and I was actually considering checking out his work, seeing how Aunty Christ loves a book wherein a technical subject usually inaccessible to laymen is dumbed down enough for her stupid head to understand. See also: Brian Greene’s books on string theory, Robert Glennon’s scary works on aquifers, anything by Stephen Jay Gould. But the Guardian’s Sady Doyle causes me to reconsider.

Freakonomics, of course, is the science of choosing an appropriately wacky or controversial subject (sumo wrestlers, abortion), applying a little economic analysis to it and coming up with a shocking conclusion that will make people blog about you. In that respect, the how-to-charge-for-sex piece was a no-brainer. Expressing any opinion about prostitution will bring on outrage (and attention) from one corner or another, no matter what your opinion turns out to be. Of course, if you are aiming for maximum impact, it helps to be—as [Steven] Levitt and [Stephen] Dubner are—really, stunningly, remarkably wrong.

Apparently, what the two authors are nice enough to do in their new book (titled, of all things, Superfreakonomics) is compare and contrast two prostitutes: one who is, by all markings, a success, and one who is not. One makes between $350 and $500 an hour, and one makes that much per week. One loves men and the general work of prostitutin’, and the other hates them, and it. Doyle says, of the lesser prostitute:

Hey, here's an interesting thought: Maybe LaSheena doesn't like men because she's trapped in a cycle of poverty, and one of the only ways for her to stay alive is to have sex with men, whether or not she really wants to. Maybe that's enough to make LaSheena dislike men. We'll never know, however, because Dubner and Levitt don't ask. They don't care to humanise her.

Better to be a prostitute like Allie, the book’s authors conclude, who is not only rich and white (we assume, since the book, again, doesn’t actually treat its characters like actual people, you know, with actual backgrounds and traits and stuff), but, if she doesn’t actually like her chosen path, at least knows how to play the game:

Boy, oh, boy, does Allie ever love being a prostitute! Why, do you know that she just went ahead and did it on a whim, as a sexy adventure, and not because of any nasty old compelling factors like poverty or addiction or a man literally arranging for her to be raped over and over again and taking money from her rapists or anything like that? Well, it's true. The Freakonomics gentlemen said so!

Oh ho ho, that makes me laugh. LaSheena, if sucking cock for $20 a pop doesn’t make you recognize your clients as the generous, lovable people they clearly are (not to mention: strong, handsome), perhaps you are in the wrong business! Please stop being so not-rich and not-white and with-few-options and bitter.

Sady Doyle, thank you for saving me a couple bucks. Also: I love you.

This story is a few years old, but for some reason never hit my radar at the time, despite its obvious universal appeal. Pony is an orangutan in Borneo who was completely shaved and kept in a “prostitute village.” The best/worst part of the interview?

Did the clients realize that they were in fact getting an orangutan?

Oh yeah, they would come in especially for it. You could choose a human if you preferred, but it was a novelty for many of the men to have sex with an orangutan. They shaved her every other day, which meant that her skin had all these pimples and was very irritated. The mosquitoes would get to her very badly and the bites would become septic and be very infected, as she would scratch them constantly. They would put rings and necklaces on her. She was absolutely hideous to look at.

I want to say that this falls under the category of “Those brown people and they kinky perversions*,” along with, say, Tijuana donkey shows, any number of popular myths surrounding African Americans (or, for that matter, Africans), and the entire country of Thailand. But since this wasn’t a huge news story in the States, maybe not. Maybe it’s just one of those examples of people being totally fucked up. And I guess that’s perhaps what one should expect when one googles “shaved orangutan.” Total fuckedupedness.

Moving away from prostitution for a sec, what else do we have here? Well, apparently, Rachael Ray doesn’t think unemployed Ohioans have it hard enough: She is going to cook them dinner. I suppose as long as they don’t have to talk to her, or serve her a meal in a restaurant, it can’t be that bad. Right? Right?

At least that gives me something for my gratitude journal today. At least I don’t live in Wilmington, Ohio. Thank goodness.

*By which I mean white Americans’ fascination with the idea that those of other races are more prone to nonstandard sexual practice, and not an actual something that is based in any kind of reality outside of someone’s mind.

What I was going to say

2009-11-10T10:50:00.000-08:00

I’m not supposed to talk about me, because this isn’t about me, but I’m not sure how else to explain what it is I want to tell you. Seventeen years ago, I was raped, and every single day since, I regret not reporting it. There were a lot of reasons I didn’t want to report it: I wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure what had happened, I was confused, I didn’t really think people would believe me, I could see that it was, at least partially, my fault. But most of all, as soon as I walked into the hospital, I just wanted to get out. I wanted to take a shower, and go to bed, in my own pajamas. I didn’t want to have someone poking me and asking me embarrassing questions. It all seemed really unbearable at that moment. I didn’t want to feel like a victim.

So I went home. Like you want to go home now. Listen: No one can make you do this if you can’t do this right now. Walking out of here is a perfectly reasonable reaction. But I want to tell you that five years from now, 17 years from now, if you run into him again, you’ll realize that you’ve been walking around with this huge sack of shit in your chest because of what he did to you. And then you’ll realize that nothing’s ever happened to him. He’s this awful, hateful person, who nearly destroyed your life and made you crazy and stole from you—and he’s walking around with kids and a job and friends. He’s happy, he’s carefree. Nothing’s ever happened to him. He hasn’t even been inconvenienced by his unconscionable actions. No one—but you—will even know what he’s done.

But no. If someone had asked me to think about this when I was standing in the hospital 17 years ago, I still would have gone home. Between “You’ll regret leaving” and “I cannot stay,” cannot wins. But know this too: Right now? These next few minutes and hours and days? They’re going to be really hard, regardless of whether you stay or leave. By staying, at least you’ll be able to calm a few of your fears. You can get a checkup, to make sure you’re in good health. You can get prophylaxis against STDs, to make sure you stay in good health. You can get the morning-after pill, to make sure you’re not pregnant. I think you might feel better knowing that you’ve made an effort to take care of yourself, even while you’re going through something that most people couldn’t even handle.

All this is not to say, however, that you can’t leave, or you shouldn’t leave—we trust you to know what’s best for yourself. If you need to go, believe me, it’s understandable.

But I really hope you stay.

Love,

Your Aunty Christ

Just another Aunty Christ rape post. No big deal.

2009-11-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

It’s a little alarming to realize I’m telling myself that the call I went on with the homeless woman who got hit on the head and sexually assaulted with a bottle because she wouldn’t give her heroin to the guy who camps next to her wasn’t “that bad.” It wasn’t that bad because I wasn’t there very long, and because the long, frustrating process of trying to find her a place to stay and a way to get there had only begun when she announced that she had to leave the hospital, like, now and start her long, frustrating day of gathering enough change from passersby to secure more heroin. What would have been five hours of sitting and chatting to the patient and making phone calls on her behalf in order to secure the somewhat-satisfactory result of a place for her to stay, given grudgingly by the one resource I have access to, was truncated, ending too quickly for me to fully realize how even-less-satisfactory this result was.

There’s a kind of crocodile-wildebeest attitude that those who are part of the System have toward those who are outside of it, I notice, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I feel instinctively that it’s a heartless thing. We are here to witness and document your defeat, but we cannot help you. That would be enabling your mistakes, which are numerous and which have put you in danger in the first place. So the weak, enfeebled wildebeests fall prey to the crocs, every time. Because, that’s life. Or that’s how you learn, or something. If you saved them once, you’d have to save them every time. Hakuna matata, dude.

Of course, treating someone like a grown up person who can make her own decisions isn’t at all a bad thing, whereas treating someone like a dumb infant sometimes is. American culture is all about the tough love (á là Intervention: “You wanna go get high? Fine, but don’t expect us to be here for you when you get back.”). But it’s also, I want to say, about infantilizing adults as much as possible: TV, religion, Snuggies. Goddamn it, fucking Snuggies. What is the Snuggie if not our warm, fleecy route back to the womb?

What American culture is sadly not about is treating people sympathetically when they most need it. I get it. We don’t want to encourage drug addicts. We don’t want to waste precious resources on the homeless. But why does this manner of dealing with people always feel to me like we’ve decided that some people are fine to deal with and some people are beneath our notice? I guess what I’m really asking is what’s wrong with saying, “We understand that you have two competing needs right now. Go take care of the one, and come back. We want to help you. You are worth helping.”

Probably once I’ve been doing this a little longer, I’ll realize that everyone’s a schemer, and then I’ll wonder what the point is, even—why I’m even bothering to go to the hospital at 3 a.m. to help some damn person who doesn’t really want the help I am allowed to give her.

At one point tonight, I realized that what this all comes down to, what we’re really talking about, is privilege. Before I started doing this work, I couldn’t have comprehended someone not wanting to report a rape because she was afraid her only clothes would be taken away. But it happens all the time. It breaks my heart. Oh, all the things that happen that break my heart—little dignities that we take for granted, withheld.

So while I was appalled to hear Rihanna’s interview about her attack, I have to say, I’m even more appalled at things that happen every day, in my town, to people who we’ve decided don’t really matter, and can leave without a good plan about how they will stay safe, and if they show up on our door later on, we have already told them that we will not help them.

Thing One and Thing Two, Now with Bonus Thing

2009-11-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

Thing One

Lately I’ve been rethinking my choice of fake internet names. I used to go by a different name, when I had my last blog, which was also the name of a goddess of suicide victims. But then I got sick of crazy people getting all crazy on me, and me not being able to say what I wanted to say in my blog in my blog. Fucking crazies. So now, I am Aunty Christ, and the thug dawgs are Goofus and Gallant, and I live in Saskatoon.

So sorry, blog verité this ain’t. But I no longer have the problem of anonymous creepy people googling my name and the company I work for and then reading my blog for years without so much as emailing me to say, “Hello, this is your cousin Barbara, and I found your stupid blog.”

But I do have the following problems.

(1) Creepy guys from around the globe looking at this blog after doing a search for things like:

40 yars anuty photo pucy

aunty free fuck

aunty shit

hot midel age wife and aunty fuck with dog

i want to find wodow aunty for sex

So now I have learned a couple things. “Aunty”—in someone’s world—means something other than what I think it means; i.e., a woman whose sibling has a child. And I am an awful speller. (But a marvelous pirate: 40 yars and a bottle o’ rum!)

(2) First comments are difficult.

“Hello! I am a person you don’t know with an extremely off-putting name, come to say stuff to you.”

Am I a crazy right-wing Christer? Am I a crazy satanic cult leader? No one knows! But one thing’s for sure: I am probably crazy.

(3) Lars Von Trier has a new movie out called Antichrist, that people say puts forth the claim that women are E-vil. Not having seen the film, I can’t say how I myself feel about it. All’s I know is I’d rather not have my good name associated with spur-of-the-moment clitorectomies, you know? Self-induced or otherwise.

Thing Two

Part of my prize for winning that essay contest I was bragging about involved the magnificent treat of being allowed to volunteer at a conference for a particular (satanic? right-wing? I'll never tell) association. I was stationed, with a classmate, in the basement of a hotel and instructed to ask attendees which class they wanted to attend, and then pointing them toward the correct door. We were also given goody bags for our trouble, and told that, although we were not invited to eat with the regular conference-goers, we could have all the candy we wanted, and enter numerous raffles to win extravagant presents such as LexisNexis fleece jackets and such.

The lady who was showing us around the joint told us that we should come back later in the evening, after the dinner (which we were also not allowed to attend), to partake in the festivities. “The theme is How the West Was Fun!” she said. She then repeated it—“How the West Was Fun!”—like that was somehow going to make it better.

I did not attend.

Bonus Thing

I have been plagued lately. Totally wracked with illness. Lately, I have had canker sores, one right after the other, in an unrelentingly painful month. Now, first off, I should point out that canker sores are not cold sores. We’re not talking about herpes simplex 1 here, we’re talking about baffling open sores on my tongue that make me sound like Cindy Brady.

(In a related story, Rich and I took the new car in for a new car stereo yesterday. While we were standing around waiting for the douchey salesman to present our total, he ran up to us and said, “Hey, what year is it?” “2009,” I responded—meaning the car—which was good, as that was his intended meaning as well. Rich and I laughed about that for a second, and the salesdouche ran up again. “Is that an Accent?” he asked. “Um, I think so?” I answered, a little taken aback this time. As he went outside to check our car model, I told Rich, “No, it’s a fucking speech impediment.” “It’s a lisp,” Rich said. “Totally uncalled for.”)

Googling “canker sore” and “canker sore treatments” reveals not much I don’t already know. They are caused by everything, apparently, or perhaps nothing. I already use the special toothpaste for freaks like me, I have the numbing gel, etc.

Actually, no. Google provided one new element I hadn’t considered: Apparently celiac disease causes canker sores too, sometimes. Other things that celiac disease causes include several symptoms that I (along with, perhaps, everyone on earth) have, and are sometimes said to be attributed to everything, or to nothing, depending on who is talking. As I was checking off symptoms in my head, however, on the one hand, I started to feel like everything’s falling into place, just like halfway through an episode of House, where the title character says, “This explains everything.” On the other hand, I started to realize that I am truly disgusting:

Gassy, bloated, farty, cankerous, with herpes-like blisters on my chin, exhausted all the time, cranky, anemic, depressed, mind-fogged, and, lest we forget, forgetful.

Whatever did Rich Bachelor do to deserve such a prize, you ask? Does he rescue babies from burning buildings? Did he start a nonprofit panda-hugging organization in a past life? Ha ha, no. Just incredibly lucky, I guess. If I do have celiac disease, then perhaps all of these wonderful personal qualities are just symptoms. But I am reminded of a friend of mine, who went to the doctor complaining of a lump on his shin. “Is it cancer?” he asked. The doctor poked it and did a few quick tests and gave his professional conclusion. “Some people are just lumpy.”

This has been fun.

Aunty Christ just wants your extra time and your

2009-10-24T20:04:00.000-07:00

Hey, Internet. Please cease and desist the following: Fail, facepalm, nomnomnom. Thank you. Love, Aunty Christ.

Although all but the last in that series has amused me at least once, I am increasingly annoyed by all of the above—and, quite probably, any and all new neologisms that will come to replace them. Nomnomnom is actually just disgusting, and I feel bad for using it here. I certainly shan’t ever again.

Dear Society, I find your interest in the following topic to be troubling: Cougars. Please drop it. Love, Your Aunty Christ.

It’s true that it’s only the terminology that’s (kind of) new—oh, for fuck’s sake, why don’t we call in-shape older ladies cougars?—as, for at least as long as I’ve been alive and paying attention, men have seemingly felt ambivalently turned on by hot old broads. What was Dynasty if not one person’s ode to the sexy mama? Call it the hag-whore syndrome. The thing that irritates me about this cougar business is that, on the face of it, it appears to give value to ladies who otherwise have no worth (Come on! They’re over 30!), but in reality, whatever value they are given in terms of male attention is negated through asking us—everyone, I guess—to view them as clowns

I could go on, but really. That was topical maybe a year ago. I’m just trying to vomit up all my peeves, old and new.

Why is that, you ask? Am I trying to make room in my spleen for future annoyances? How perceptive of you, my child. I am!

One of my favorite blogs, a few weeks back, had a post in which the blogger explained that she had recently remembered that one must make time for things that make one feel good, as though it were a job or something. Which is something that I knew, once, too, and then forgot, and now have had pointed out to me again. And while it’s true that there is almost no end to the time that I can set aside to do things like drink PBR Light or become irate at things I find on the Internet, I often tell myself that I will go for a bike ride once these four files are done—but then I realize that the thug dogs need to go outside, and then it’s time for a PBR Light, and fuck. Will you look at that? Where does the time go.

Being reminded again that my brain, small as it is, can’t be expected to make time in its busy schedule for things that are good for it, I have joined a gym. Earlier tonight. So, I haven’t actually been there to exercise yet, unless exercise is meant in a more general fashion, such as “Signing up for a gym membership was an exercise in frustration.” I also, at the gym, petted two small dogs, so it’s kind of worth it already.

Along with the recommitment to health (gym!), I have decided to start going to the Humane Society every now and then to “volunteer,” by which I mean, of course, kiss and coo at tiny animals like an insane person. I mean, fuck. Why not. It helps the Society somehow (I guess), and it helps me immensely. An hour of kissing tiny animals is like eight whole hours of kicking Glenn Beck, for me. Although, to be fair, I’ve never actually kicked Glenn Beck, so for now it’s just a hypothetical comparison. I kind of would like to try, just to test out my theory.

Long-time readers will remember that I have an irrational love for differently abled critters. This little guy is blind in one eye and therefore adorable. I kissed him so much! Yes, I did!

And here is his mate, who is wearing, like, the worst rug ever. Shh! Don’t tell him. He thinks it looks real.

So, I’m feeling kind of happy about life and all that. Can I say, though, that the blog world—at least the one I inhabit—is kind of crazy lately? Can I say that? I cannot go into every example, because that would take a very long time indeed, and I kind of feel like getting out of the house at some point. But briefly: Reading comment threads annoys me more and more these days. In one of the blogs I read was a comment thread in which one young woman commented (kind of off-topic, to be fair, though not in a really alarming way) something along the lines of “Meghan McCain? Don’t like her. She’s disingenuous and smart enough to fool some people into thinking she’s changed the subject, but not smart enough to say anything interesting.” Other people said (in essence), “But Meghan has been trashed by men for her appearance, and trashed by everyone for being a young woman in politics, and as feminists we really shouldn’t pile on to criticize a woman who’s already been criticized so much. Especially when so much of the criticism is just due to her being a woman.”

And I see that point. (If that was the point that was trying to be made—I’m explicitly not using direct quotes, as I’m trying to talk about my interpretations of such, and not what other people, who I do not know, think about some public quasi-political figure I could care less about.) On the other hand, if feminism is about not criticizing or judging or hating other women, no matter what they do or how very much I hate them? Can’t do it. I just can’t. I hate everyone, fair and square, by fuck. I promise not to hate you because of your gender, race, religion, fashion sense, hook hand, nasty breath, smelly lunch, accent, what have you, but there’s a good chance there’s something about you I dislike. Your giant out-of-control dog with whip scars all along its back. Your propensity to scream at everyone you live with. The garbage that you throw into my back yard because you’re too lazy to place it in a garbage can. (Yes, each of those examples describes my neighbor. Yes, I hate her a lot.)

Point is—or at least I think this was my point—people are awful. They make me want to pet tiny animals. (Until such time as Mr. Beck’s shins are available.) People comment on blogs. Blog comment threads are awful.

Except for mine, I mean. You guys are the best.

Aunty Christ buys some beer

2009-10-15T00:11:00.001-07:00

Won the stupid essay contest. Even without the form. Put that in your ear, sticklers.
Didn’t get the ACLU internship.
Still waiting for my LSAT scores. And by “waiting,” do I mean refreshing my Yahoo email every 1.5 minutes? Yes I do.

A few nights ago, at the local organic grocery store, I bought two 18.7-ounce bottles of Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal, two giant cans of thug food, an overflowing sleeve of Dancin’ Goat coffee beans, and a carton of half and half. Threw the whole mess on the conveyor belt and watched the checkout boy ineptly hit on the foursome in front of me, who desired to buy a six-pack apiece. They were approximately—I think—22-23 years old, each of them.

“Can I see you fine-lookin’ ladies’ IDs?” our hero said.

They collectively patted themselves and concluded that they had left their wallets at home.

“All right, all right. Next time,” said our red-cheeked lad.

I stepped to the cash register and slid my debit card through.

“You want a bag for these?” he asked. I nodded, and he shook open a tiny paper bag and started to put my items inside

Moments later, I had a heavy, fully packed bag, with the cream carton and the beers’ foily heads peeking out.

“Uh—you kin stick it under your arm.”

“I’m sorry?”

““Wha’?” said our boy.

“That sounded odd,” I said.

“Huh?”

“The way you phrased that was strange,” I said, very slowly, as if talking to a very small child, who is hard of hearing and perhaps a bit slow.

“Wha’?”

“It’s all right,” I enunciated. I balanced the bag in my arms and quickly walked away, taking comfort in the knowledge I’d be home soon with Rich, who shares my disgust in stupidity, wherever it is found.

“Hello, Sir. I think you were telling me where I might stick this? Your ideas fascinate me.”

Aunty Christ is lucky in bed

2009-10-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

To be completely up-front about it, this is less of a blog post and more of the kind of long, rambly letter I would write to you if you were my best friend who lives too far away for us to talk every day.

Rich and I met the She-Bear and Rich’s mom and her husband and Rich’s brand-spankin’-new-college-freshman niece at a Chinese restaurant last night. It was fun, and it was also something of a special treat, since I haven’t seen any of them in a very long time. Case in point: Halfway through dinner I noticed the She-Bear (who I haven’t mentioned on this site for a while, so I will point out to you that she is Rich’s gorgeous daughter, who is a brand spankin’ new college sophomore) had gotten her braces off, but I was embarrassed to say anything because (1) it had been so long since I’d last seen her, that it’s quite possible she actually has had them off for eight months or so, and (2) it had been so long since I’d last seen her, that it’s quite possible that she had them off the last time I saw her, and in the intervening time period I completely forgot about that and now it seemed totally new to me, and now I fear that for the rest of my life, every time I see her, I’ll say, “Hey, you got your braces off!” and it will become clear to everyone except myself that I have lost my mind.

Anyway, at the end of the dinner came the obligatory fortune cookies, and one by one we went around the table reading from the slip of paper that fate had bestowed upon us. They were all pretty typical fortune-cookie fortunes: You have a surprise coming, or You are a good person, etc. Except for mine.

Like so, more or less.

And it’s true. I really do.

All of the above was my long-winded way of saying that I am so, so just baffled by life right now.

Over the past few weeks, I entered an essay contest for free entry into a workshop-type networking opportunity thingy, interviewed for an unpaid internship with the ACLU, and took the LSAT. Over the last few days I realized that I only submitted half of what I needed to submit to qualify for the essay contest, so that’s something that I can probably just assume I’ve failed. I’ve been waiting on pins and needles for a response from the ACLU people, but since I was told at the interview that they would make their decision in about a week and a half, and Friday marked the week-and-a-half point, I’m figuring I’m on the Easy Let-Down E-Mail list and not the Congratulatory Phone Call list.

So that leaves the LSAT. And here’s the thing: I was feeling superconfident about the LSAT immediately after I took it. On the practice tests I’ve taken, there’s always one logic game that I just don’t get and have to guess on and invariably get wrong. On the LSAT, though, the logic games were easy. The reading comprehension was easy. The essay was a breeze and a pleasure.

But did I do well enough to apply to any of the law schools I want to go to? I won’t find that out for another two weeks.

And it’s killing me.

Well, and frankly the realization that I had only sent part of what I needed to send in for the essay contest kind of completed this overwhelming feeling that something is definitely wrong here. There’s that: an easy mistake. And this: I arrived five minutes late to the ACLU interview, which is a huge no-no. I didn’t leave myself any time to get lost, or to run into traffic—both of which I did—and when I finally parked, around the block from the office, I walked eight blocks out of my way before realizing that I needed to head back the other way to get where I needed to go. And the LSAT? Which I’m now totally obsessing about and hoping that I did well enough to go to, well, not Yale or Harvard or anything, but somewhere within the continental United States and not in, like, Guam or Honduras or something? I did two practice tests while sitting in various bars in Maui drinking fruity cocktails last winter. And that’s it.

I’m putting all this together in my head:

Wanted to win free entry into stupid workshop, but failed to fill out form correctly and didn’t get it.
Wanted to get internship at ACLU, but failed to show up on time and didn’t get it.
Wanted to do well on LSAT, but failed to study at all for it.

So, I’m sabotaging myself, right? Does it mean that I don’t really want what I think I want? Does it mean that I know I’m going to fail anyway and want to be able to blame my failure on lack of proper preparation rather than lack of actual talent or smarts? So dumb. So, so dumb. If I were anyone other than myself, I’d know what to do with this, I think. As it is, no clue. Not a single clue.

Damn fortune cookie. Tell me something I don’t know.

Aunty Christ is perhaps incoherently mad

2009-10-01T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hello. Were you hoping that I’d comment on the Roman Polanski rape thing? Because I swear to god I will pull this thing over and talk about the Roman Polanski rape thing right now, if you don’t stop hitting your sister.

Ahem.

Over at Bitch Ph.D., where I hang out on occasion, when I’m not obsessing over other internet things in an effort to avoid actual work, or over other things in general in an effort to avoid actual life, is a post about the Roman Polanski rape thing. In which post is postulated that the really really offensive thing about this particular rape is that the person who Roman Polanski raped was, at the time of the rape, only 13. While Mr. Polanski was 43.

Bitch Ph.D. writes,

I want to make it clear that I really think that the root reason why Polanski raped that girl, rather than just "had sex with" her, is that yes, she was 13 and he was 43. And I suspect that most people who feel firmly that Polanski was a bad man think the same thing--that it wasn't the alcohol, or the drugs, or even the "no" that are the salient issue, but that enormous, enormous age gap. Yes, it would have been rape if she was 40 and he was 43 and she'd said no--or been drunk/drugged--but I don't think we'd be quite as shocked that some folks want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And in the comments:

Do you not think, though, that if they had been peers--say she was 40--and everything else had been the same, that while yeah (duh) that would also be rape and offensive and blah blah, that it would be somewhat less *outrageously* so?

Point taken. The age gap—that’s pretty outrageous, right? We should all be pretty disgusted by that. And we are, right?

But here’s the thing. I can’t help thinking that when we start placing value judgments on rape situations, we uphold this ideology that values some victims above others. Which totally happens—I get it! The 13-year-old girl is a more shocking victim than the 50-year-old widow. In fact, maybe we find the 50-year-old widow completely laughable as a victim, Right? I mean, she’s old! Who wants to have sex with an old? And anyway, shouldn’t she know better? Hey, lady: Try being more virginal and sympathetic next time, and then maybe society will give a shit!

So, okay. What we’re working with here is a system where the rape of a 13 year old is more shocking and abhorrent than the rape of a 50 year old. Probably, if we were thinking straight about this and not all mad, we could come up with some kind of chart rating the abhorrence level of the rape of various victims:

Children under 14
Children between 14 and 17
Virgins
Young blonde women (particularly if they’re good students)
Mothers
Drunks
Non-English speakers
Drug users
Homeless women
Gay women
Men
Prostitutes
Gay men prostitutes
Drug-addicted prostitutes
Drug-addicted gay men homeless prostitutes

Or some such thing.

But, you see what I just did there? Thirteen-year-old rape victim: Cute as a button, innocent as all get out. Awful! I am shocked! And disturbed!

Forty-two-year-old alcoholic who sometimes lives with her sister, but lately has been living in her car unless she has enough money for a hotel room, who was raped by the night manager of the hotel: Well, that’s too bad, I guess.

Forty-year-old meth addict who sometimes lives with his sister, but lately has been sleeping in the park, who was raped by a guy who picked him up on the street after asking him for a blow job: Well, why the hell did he go with that guy? Why didn’t he fight him off? Didn’t he kind of deserve it? Guy? Raped? Come on!

What it comes down to, what we’re really creating with this value system of victimhood, is a society where it’s kinda-sorta okay to rape some people but not others. Now, am I arguing that it’s not supposed to be shocking when a 13 year old is raped by a 43 year old? Not at all. I just worry that once we decide that the rape of a 13-year-old girl is more horrifying and outrageous than other cases, then it necessarily follows that the rape of a 40-year-old woman does not offend our senses all that much, and so forth and so on.

Again, this is the system that we already have right now. And it sucks. People should be striving to do more for victims, be more compassionate towards all people who are raped, not arguing that the system where some rape is rape-rape and some rape is not really rape just makes good sense, when you think about it.

Some links, for further investigation:

In case you’re still wondering if it was really rape or just statutory rape, here’s the girl’s grand jury testimony.

In case you are under the impression that the girl looked older than 13, and thus Polanski didn’t do anything all that bad, here’s a photo.

In case you don’t know where the term “rape-rape” comes from, here’s the clip.

N.B.: I will stop all this infernal rape-blogging soon. Next post: Puppies—why are they mommy’s wittle baby? Yes they are! Yes they are!

Aunty Christ needs a self-esteem boost

2009-09-25T23:18:00.000-07:00

Overload overload.

Before I go on, I should say that I detest sects, brotherhoods, guilds, groups in general, any assemblage of morons congregating for reasons of profession, tastes, or similar manias. All these cliques have numbers of grotesque characteristics in common: repetition of type, their jargon, their arrogant conviction that they are better than everyone else.

I can see that I am complicating the problem, but I see no way to simplify it. Besides, anyone who wants to stop reading this account may do so now. He should know immediately that he has my unqualified permission.

What do I mean by “repetition of type”? You have undoubtedly noticed how disagreeable it is to be with someone who has a tic in one eye, or whose lip is constantly twitching. Well, can you imagine a club of such people? Such extreme examples are not necessary, however. Merely think of a large family, in which certain traits, certain gestures, certain intonations of voice, are commonplace. I once had the experience of falling in love with a woman (without, of course, declaring it) and then fleeing in terror when faced with meeting her sisters. And something truly horrendous happened to me on a different occasion. I had admired certain traits in a woman I knew, but when I met one of her sisters I was depressed and ashamed for days: the very traits I had found so desirable seemed exaggerated and distorted in the sister, slightly caricatured, but not greatly. The vaguely distorted vision of the first woman that I saw in her sister, besides the impression I described, made me feel ashamed, as if in some way I were partly to blame for the slightly ridiculous view I now had of the woman I had so admired.

-The Tunnel, by Ernesto Sabato

Over the past few weeks I have been fixated on this part of what I should point out, in case you haven’t read it before, is a really, really wonderful book about a couple of my biggest obsessions: obsession and the unreliability of memory. It’s so, so good.

I really need to read it again, actually.

There is an actual, specific reason I bring this up now, but in a more general sense I admit the fear of being seen as a repetitive type has always haunted me. Because, yes. I have witnessed these clubs of lip-twitchers, and they are creepy.

But more specifically, this is my silly way of saying that I’m spending too much time online lately, or in the wrong corners of the internet. All the blog commenters sound alike: they are a repetition of type. “We hate all ladies who aren’t Megan Fox!” they howl. Or, “Everyone hates me for this really stupid reason, and that’s why I must scream about personally being very awesome!” Or, “The Bible says if you-uns get cheaper health insurance from the government, I can’t feel awesome about having my own health insurance, and that’s why you should not have that!”

It is infuriating. Everywhere I look, there they are: threads of quasi-people with identical tics. Even when the tic displayed is exactly the same as the one I see in my own face—especially then, rather—it freaks me the fuck out.

Also, here is another thing that is freaking me out. This was posted on Craigslist, in the Strictly Platonic section. He is sane and he will not rape you. Call now, ladies. You can’t afford not to.

self esteem boost/will not rape you - m4w - 21

Date: 2009-09-25, 9:03PM PDT

looking for someone to hang out with and watch a movie tonight... im 21 and sane need i say more :) and like the title says wont rape you!!!

nick

Why do I get the feeling that Nick is going to rape me? Paranoid!

Aunty Christ mans up

2009-09-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

I found this blog the other day, and laughed and laughed and laughed. It appears to be abandoned now (the most recent post is from April), but by god it gives us wonderful insight into the inner thoughts of a complete fucking moron.

For a basic overview of the blog’s viewpoint, take a look at the “categories” the author of this mess (who calls himself John Bryan Stone and is also the author of a book titled Have a Great Midlife Crisis) has given the two most recent posts:

Abuse, abusive wife, being bossed around, bossy wife, business startup, divorce, domestic violence, man bashing, marital abuse, marriage, married sex, men’s issues, midlife crisis, money, recession, sex life, spousal abuse, why men cheat, wimp, wives dominating husbands, women hating men

Affair, financial recovery plan, revenge, abusive wife, beautiful girls, being bossed around, business startup, divorce, extra income, finance, girls, husband abuse, man bashing, marital abuse, maritial abuse, marriage, married sex, men’s issues, midlife crisis, money, older men with younger women, relationships, secret lovers, sex, sex life, why men cheat, wives dominating husbands, young women

So, apparently, women come in two flavors: Old Bitch and Young Girlfriend. Neither one has a purpose outside of either beating down JBS’s fragile psyche or building it back up again through the use of her fresh pussy. This title of a post from January is similarly revealing: “The New You Must Get Rid of the Old Her.” At first I had hopes that what JBS was actually saying was something like, “Hey guys. I know not every marriage is completely rotten. Some women are nice to the men they marry. Some relationships provide a nurturing place where both partners can find what they need. This blog is not addressed to men in those kinds of relationships, but to men in relationships that make them completely unhappy, which sap them of the will to live, where they feel awful about themselves all the time, and presumably their wives aren’t feeling so hot about themselves either. These men need help (from me, JBS, or perhaps a paid professional).”

But no. JBS also promotes non-monogamy for men who love their wives. Why? Oh, I dunno. Why not? He actually doesn’t give a reason, but only says: “Some men find it perfectly acceptable to love their mates and have extra women on the side. Still others do some experimenting, only to discover it was not what they expected, and they go back to their previous arrangement.” I mean, why not, eh guys?

The thing I find repellent here isn’t the promotion of non-monogamous behavior (although his strict avoidance of the words “use a condom” is a bit odd), but the assumption that all men are the same. I guess if monogamous marriage is a construct created by women to control men, it necessarily must be selfish. But I don’t know. Is it always? Don’t some men get something out of it? I can only speak for myself (a woman—and I realize that I can hardly disprove JBS’s point this way), but I feel like having secret affairs with several women in order to boost one’s self-esteem because society has decided it has no use for 40-year-old men, would be (1) stressful and (2) pathetic in a way that is unlikely to lead to healthy long-term self-esteem boosting. As to (1)—(2) being so obvious as to not need explanation, I think—I was, in my younger years, a cheat, and I have to say that it led to no end of guilt (which, not everyone is wired like me, so I concede that not every cheat will have that result) and confusion. Like: “What the fuck is this one’s name?” “Did I tell this story already to this one?” Plus: Double the games, double the mind-fucking, double the personal neuroses. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just saying that multiple partners at the same time is not for me—and I’m sure the male population thanks god for this daily—and I imagine that some guy out there somewhere has thought this through and come to the same conclusion.

In other words, JBS’s assertion that everyone must do that which makes him smile has flaws.

But let’s look at some of his other words, shall we? There’s no doubt lots of other great advice he’s giving middle-aged men. I mean, he wrote a book, didn’t he?

Quote 1:

Even if you can’t stand the repulsive old thing, you have to fuck your wife according to the law. Many states will classify lack of sex as "abandonment."

Yikes! So there she is bitching at you with her saggy tits flopping while she slogs around the house in her old ratty robe, and if you don’t fuck her, the judge will punish you in divorce court!

Isn’t that state-sponsored rape? The state is raping you–forcing you to have sex with the skank your wife has become.

I wonder if you could use the Worn Out Pussy plea?

That, to be fair, was JBS at his most rage-filled. The Worn-out Pussy Plea (how charming!) has really only been tested in 14 states, so it may not work for everyone. But really—state-sponsored rape? He’s joking, right? Let’s see—you could either divorce your wife (who may or may not be sick of pleasuring your also-aging body) or have sex with her. Or come up with some other solution that you both find suitable. Yes: That is the exact definition of “rape” and it doesn’t cheapen the term at all to use it in this way.

Quote 2:

It is time to be a man.

Stop embarrassing yourself by obeying your mate. Stop asking for permission and approval. Stop being a boy.

Announce today to your mate that you’ll be a partner but not a servant. Tell her you will expect her to be responsible for the emotional atmosphere around you–she no longer has permission to whine and bitch without regard for how it affects you.

Announce to your boss that you are going to be making him some money, and you want him to keep his eye on you.

Go to the Small Business Administration and learn how to start that business you’ve been putting off.

Get the girl, make the money, achieve the dreams. Be bad. Be good. Roar.

If the last quote was JBS at his angriest, this quote is pretty representative of the general tone of his blog. Some of it is fine: “You’ll be a partner but not a servant.” Some of it is less fine: “Stop … obeying your mate.” Some of it makes me laugh: “Announce to your boss that you are going to be making him some money, and you want him to keep his eye on you.” (Because you’re a character from Mad Men, I guess?)

Oh, I don’t know. I mean, it’s fine that he’s telling guys to go out there and do something cool with their lives (that is what he’s telling them, right?), but there’s just this undercurrent of awfulness to everything he writes. “Be bad. Be good. Roar.” And this: You, dear sir, will not be “obeying” your mate, but she needs your permission to whine and bitch—or, you know, express herself? Nice.

Quote 3:

It’s time to be a bad boy. It’s time to pick out that one person who did not deserve your forgiveness and go after them. Make a plan to bring them down.

Here are some nasty things you can do that will make them sorry they messed with you:

1. Turn them in to the IRS for tax cheating;

2. Send a letter to their boss thanking the company for all the free stuff/services you’ve been getting through this person;

3. If they own a business, go to their waiting room and leave porn magazines in the reading bins;

4. Start emailing them anonymously as a member of the opposite sex and lure them into embarrassing/incriminating email conversations. Forward those emails to their coworkers, boss and friends. (Careful, your internet provider may give you up. Find out how to hide your identity–it’s in my book.)

5. Key their car.

6. Confront them at a party, at their office or in some other place that would embarrass and hurt them. Name their deeds. Most people will believe “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” and lend some credence to what you are saying.

7. Accuse them of having child porn on their computer.

8. Tell their friends you got a sexually transmitted disease from this person.

9. Go to their church and ask THEM if THEY have asked for forgiveness! Do this in front of the congregation.

10. Announce that you are no longer a doormat, and they had better make it up to you now or else.

Don’t endanger yourself physically or legally. Take time to exact your revenge. Make a good plan and think it through.

When you are done with this person, move on to the next one.

This is my fucking favorite thing ever. I love this. Key a car. Spread slander about other people and ruin a life. Whatever you do, though, don’t be anything but passive-aggressive. Don’t tell people what this person actually did to you—and for god’s sake do not actually confront this person. And—I cannot stress this enough—do not allow yourself to get over what this person did to you. Let it ruin your life, just like you’re gonna ruin his Chevy’s paint job. Goddammit. You deserve that.

Oh, there’s more. Lots more.

“Our society gets nervous when men show their testosterone. Especially men over thirty. Somehow, people get the idea you’re going to lose control, go crazy.”

Really? Really? I kind of thought society loves it when men show their testosterone. Oh—well I guess his explanation makes more sense. It explains why professional football players aren’t paid a living wage, and why liberal Hollywood never, ever makes movies about Big, Tough Guys. (Especially when they’re over 30! Sly Stallone basically dropped off the map after he turned 29, etc.) So, you got me there, JBS. I will admit defeat on that one.

On the rest of it, though? He’s a big colostomy bag. In a post titled “People Are Getting Mad About This!” he writes, “All I said was men need to stand up and live the lives they deserve. I had no idea how many people would be against that! Apparently, there are a lot of women, and some men who are well-trained, who think men should be ruled, controlled and kept down.” In fact, whenever someone disagrees with him he seems to trot that one out: “Alls I ever said was that women shouldn’t abuse their husbands! Why are you attacking me?” Which, if that was all he was saying, I doubt anyone would have a problem with it. (Although, having met people, I will say there’s always a couple fringers on any position. It’s not impossible that someone would comment, “Hey! I NEED to beat my husband, and believe me, he ENJOYS it!”) But that’s not all he’s saying, and he knows it. He’s also saying (my words), “I don’t feel like a big, strong man, and I need to blame someone for that. I resent my wife for getting old, so she seems like a good place to start with this blaming. I also never really have been on board with the idea that women are actual people, so I am going to try to date as many young women with low self-esteem as will accept me, in the hopes that that will somehow prop up my manhood. In addition, I am a whiny little baby who still harbors a deep rage towards anyone who has failed to recognize me as the wonderful man I want to become, and I will key their cars in revenge, just like a jilted lover in some teen stalker movie.”

Forget the great midlife crisis, dude. I’ve got a plan for a pretty good life.

1. Don’t be a rotten person.

2. Don’t become involved with rotten people.

3. If you find that you are involved in a relationship with a rotten person, get out of it.

4. Repeat as necessary.

See? That wasn’t that hard. Now, pay me $19.48 and shape up, ya’ rotten, rotten piece of shit.

Aunty Christ surprisingly finds that ad executives may be less than completely honest

2009-09-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

I know what this is, but I don’t like it. This is some advertising executive’s version of when I was 16 years old, hanging out in my basement with my friends, and my dad would come downstairs and tell that joke about the pirate’s zipper, and instead of glowering at him and directing him not to embarrass me in front of my friends, please, I would say, “Ha ha ha, that’s super funny, Dad.” And then, as if it had only just then occurred to me, “Hey, can I borrow the car tonight? We’re thinking of catching a show in Chicago.”

Untruth #1:

Americans are always finding ways to be more responsible.

Untruth #2:

People are smart.

First of all, let me apologize. These commercials have been on the air forever, and it’s only now that I’m getting around to making fun of them. But honestly? There are so many things to make fun of. Who has the time?

I’m going to say that if there is one belief that all the people of the world are united in, no matter what country they live in, what religion they subscribe to, their basic philosophy, class, gender, educational background, race, political leanings, fashion sense, age, taste in music, marital status, or general mien, the one thing that everyone can agree upon is that people are not smart. And Americans are provably not always finding ways to be more responsible. I mean, I’m only one person—I know!—but I spent my day:

Sitting on the couch.
Eating.
Looking at things on the internet.
Worrying about stuff.
Yelling at the thug dogs, who bark at everything.
Worrying about some other stuff.
Eating again.
Kind of watching TV while looking at things on the internet.

I can’t even remember the last time I, personally, found way(s) to be more responsible. I guess it might have been that time I realized that watching TV while looking at things on the internet and turning on all the water taps in the house is maybe a little much. But I, of course, am not “Americans.” Perhaps Americans as a whole have been a little more responsible than Aunty? Perhaps we can think of a few examples?

Um, no. I think we can say for a fact that Americans are always finding ways to be more vindictive. Americans are always finding ways to cut corners. Americans are always finding ways to justify their stupidity. Americans are always finding ways to celebrate their stupidity. And people—whoever they are—are generally not smart.

Frankly, I might buy a car from the company that told me that.

“Hey, American. Guess what? We’ve done some research, and we find that generally, people are pretty worthless. A person may be smart. A person may be resourceful. But people? Forget about it. Anyway, we’ve made these cars, and we plan on selling them. If you want one, stop by and ask us about them. If not, that’s all right too.”

I think I’d buy that car. I’d think about it, anyway.

On a completely different issue: Everyone in the world reads boing boing and thus already knows this, but they recently posted this horrifying video of a lady removing a botfly larva from her scalp, which, man! That totally takes me back. When I was living in Remote Mountain Village, I house sat for a lady who owned four small dogs and two cats for what seems like several hundred weeks but was probably, like, 10 days or so. During that time, I noticed a boil on the neck of one of the wiener dogs. When it started to bleed and ooze pus, I took the dog to the vet, who extracted—that’s right—a botfly, about the size of a quarter. Which was the second-most-disgusting thing I remember about that week.

A few days later, planes flew into two towers in the World Trade Center, and they collapsed, and everything changed, but we weren’t sure how yet.

The next day, to get ourselves away from CNN, my friend and I hiked to a meadow outside of town, and sat under the aspen, in silence, broken now and then by the fighter jets flying out of Colorado Springs. And as we talked about what had happened and what would happen next, we came to the conclusion that the only rational reaction the U.S.could have was to systematically cut financial ties to the Middle East by decreasing its dependence on oil.

And then we realized who was in charge of crafting the U.S. reaction. And man. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

As much as I want to be able to just drop the whole Bush anger thing, on the eighth anniversary of that day I remembered that sinking feeling and felt I needed to honor it.

And say to DiTech and BMW: You say smart? You say resourceful? You don’t fool me. I remember George W. Bush.

Truth #1:

Botflies are repulsive.

Aunty Christ thinks you're a whiner

2009-09-11T01:02:00.000-07:00

Here at the Aunty Christ blog, PRIORITY IS JOB ONE!

You like that, huh? How about:

TRYING HARD. IT’S WHAT WE DO.

Crap. I don’t know. I’m thinking I should incorporate this shit, right? Rich Bachelor is always going on about how he wants someone to just go ahead and publish his writing. I’m not so artistic-minded; I just want a business card and some lousy tax cuts. What will Aunty Christ, Inc., do? I dunno. Same thing the others do, I guess. Read into that what you will. The complaint line is down for the moment. There was a typhoon in Karnataka or something.

So what were we talking about anyway? That’s right: Whining. I watched the first hour last night of the new season of “America’s Next Top Model” and learned that women 5 feet 7 inches tall and shorter have lived under the harsh yoke of oppression in this country long enough, due to their not being able to become models. Thank the good lord Tyra Banks has taken it upon herself to free said shorties from such oppression. I say hallelujah! I mean, I require a lot of identity-pain viewing, and there’s only so much fat pain the contestants on “More to Love” can vomit all over the confessional booth: They never went to prom, or had a date, or their dates were always embarrassed of them, or they feel uncomfortable in a bathing suit. They would like the viewing audience to know that unlike every other person on the planet, they’ve felt pain, goddammit.

And now, we learn, so has this group of women who are both really, really gorgeous and fairly average in stature, at about five and a half feet. They’ve always wanted to be models and they’ve never been able to be models! Unlike everyone else on the planet, who get to be models all the time! It’s so unfair!

It seems to me that as the tent of oppressed peoples becomes ever more expansive, the easier it gets to (a) overlook the fact that some oppression is actually more damaging than others, and (b) confuse the issue. As to point (a), it’s kind of unfashionable to say, but I’ll say it: Some oppression really is worse than others. (Ergo, some girls’ mothers’ oppression is worse than other girls’ mothers’ oppression.) It’s clearly nothing but awful that petite women’s dreams of modeling can never be fulfilled, but when weighed even against the pain of the “More to Love” girls, it seems pretty weak.

So we move on to the really bewildering question: Why? Why do we feel the need to identify—and compete—with the oppressed and the beaten-down? If there’s a prize for who’s been hurt the most, it comes only in the form of having the conversation stop being about those other guys and their pain and start being about us and our pain. I get it. Somewhat. Someone’s going on and on about how difficult it is to be a Muslim in America after 9-11, and sooner or later you’re going to have to say something about how it’s equally hard to be a Christian in this day and age, what with the war on Christmas and the legalized abortions and whatnot. Just to shut that Muslim up, right?

Of course the other thing we get by complaining, besides a voice in the complaint soup that is our national dialog, is pity. And who doesn’t want pity? Crap, I want pity. Until I get it, I mean. Then I’m all, “Why don’t you keep your pity to yourself, Mister Man. I don’t need your pity! I’m just complaining about how awful everything is.” My theory? With pity comes embarrassment. All you wanted is to be heard and to be counted, and you were counted all right. You were counted as a loser. An oppressed. An other. But you never wanted to be one of those. You just wanted to say something and have other people care for a minute.

But it’s hardly a new thing, all Americans trying to prove that they’re the poorest little baby, so why bring it up now, Aunty? First of all, let me just say that I’m so sick of whining. Me! Everywhere I look, I see another reason to feel sorry for myself. And pointing my finger at everyone else for how badly they’re acting is my way of deflecting my own guilt. But I’ve also been chewing over this blog post and comment thread over at Shapely Prose, and let me say first of all that I totally get it that a fat lady (such as myself) has enough in life to deal with, and doesn’t necessarily need the added stress of having to convince people that she is, indeed, fat.

We’re talking about the “Oh no, you’re not fat” syndrome. Which the Shapely Prose contingent seems to blame exclusively on society’s inability to parse the fat = disgusting/sloppy/smelly equation that the media constantly feed us.

Having been one of those naysayers several million times in my life, however, I can say that there are a lot of things going on here. Such as:

1. I’ve been an American woman all the years of my long, long life, and as such I have had many opportunities to comment or not comment on many women’s weights. It’s not like I haven’t thought about this. Women—stick-thin and not—have been sidling up to me since I could speak, almost, saying, “God, I’m so fat!” And most of the time the correct-est answer to this plaint is, “Oh, no you’re not!”

Because no answer is actually correct.

2. But the question remains, why am I even being given the opportunity to say “You’re not fat”? Sure, every once in a while a person is going to say something like, “I don’t feel like going to the Gap with you, because they don’t carry my size,” and then the other person will say, “What are you talking about? You’re not fat!”

But probably 98% of the conversations that contain the words “You’re not fat” stem from someone saying, “I’m fat.” Which is—although it needn’t be—a complaint 98% of the time. And when you complain, the listener generally feels compelled to offer a suggestion or make the problem go away somehow. Which is why we end up with would-be well-wishers saying things like, “Oh, I’m sure your car wasn’t towed,” which is what I actually said to Rich tonight, even though I had no idea where he had parked, or what the parking rules were in the area where he had parked, or, you know, anything. I wished that he wouldn’t worry about getting towed, since his worry wouldn’t solve the problem. And I was hoping that he hadn’t been towed.

This isn’t an exact comparison, but when I’ve said “You’re not fat” to people who have expressed to me that they are so fat, what I’ve meant is more, “I hope you’re not beating yourself up about your weight, because I care about you.” Or something like that.

3. Other things that I might mean are:

“You’re not fat.” As previously alluded to, even the tiniest birdlike creature will occasionally call herself fat within the earshot of a larger person such as myself. Clearly, the desired response is “You’re not fat,” but what else can you say? (Glaring meanly works too, depending on your goals.)

“You don’t look fat to me.” I don’t know how much my friends weigh, and I can’t do a BMI calculation in my head.

“I don’t know you well enough to discuss this with you, or to know what you want from me.” Going back to point one, denial is the tried and true response.

“You may actually be technically overweight, but using a rough estimate of the average fatness of people I see everyday, I would guess that you’re no fatter than most people.”

You know, it’s possible I’m setting myself up as one of a special class of oppressed people whose oppression consists of being annoyed by the complaints of other oppressed people. But damn, if I had it my way? People might actually listen when other people’s complaints are valid, instead of only opening their own yaps to complain how they too have kind of been mistreated. Or maybe they’d try to understand, even in a limited way, other people’s responses to their complaints, which may be valid or not, welcome or not, endlessly repeated or not, instead of leaping to the conclusion that the world is set up in a way that justifies their insecurities.

Not that that will cure all that’s wrong with society, of course. Oh, not by a long shot.

Aunty Christ wants her blunch now

2009-09-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

Above the side door is a majestic sign that reads (in part) “NONE OF.” Whether the hidden word was “YOU” or “THAT,” I never learned, but equally tantalizing was the front-entrance signage, which promised all who entered “BRUNCH + LUNCH = BLUNCH.”

(I like the first two definitions here, but we’re talking about something different.)

There was a discussion later in the weekend about what, exactly, brunch is in this day and age. Brunch circa 1980, of course, consisted of a pastel color scheme and several long tables upon which one might find such attractions as Fruit Mountain, Dry Eclair Plate of Doom, and Ham, Hand-Carved to Suit Your Needs! You could have, if you so desired, a slice of pink roast meat and a cantaloupe wedge completely devoid of flavor and a crystalline parfait cup of chocolate mousse. All before noon!

These days, we think it means boozy breakfast, but I digress. We are here to discuss icon, Seattle’s foremost purveyor of blunch.

The restaurant, icon—with its maddening lowercase i—was not far from where capital-i I, Aunty Christ, hotelled for my birthday weekend celebration of turning Old. Having never had blunch, even at my advanced age, it became a destination.

Never mind that the restaurant seats 168, according to the sign on the wall; Rich and I were the only ones in there. (Aside from the 15 or so staff, who sounded like they were having a wonderful time sorting silverware.)

So, the silverware was impeccably sorted (I guess), and the walls were a pinky-mauve, festooned with oh so much crap: glass baubles huge as pumpkins at a county fair hanging heavily in wrought-iron chandeliers the size of tractors; dusty, supposedly whimsical tchotchkes littering every surface.

Completely different than either 1980s or modern-day brunch, blunch is its own animal, consisting of a menu with lots of breakfasty-sounding items on it, and a separate, larger lunch menu. This restaurant we were at, which is called icon (see the lengths I must go to to avoid using your insipidly styled name at the front of a sentence, icon? Now change your name!), is one of those restaurants that specifically does not want its patrons ever to be able to decide what they want to eat, seeing as how its menu is so very vast and all-inclusive. Frito pie or sashimi? Korean ribs or Yankee pot roast? Veal schnitzel or moo goo gai pan? Eggs benedict or seafood gumbo?

Our waiter (who by all appearances was at least partially blind, but nonetheless also at least partially an asshole) started listing all the wonders of the blunch drinks menu, including seven (7) flavors of mimosa! Strangely, we were uninterested. Bring us coffee, Rich told the man.

Rich, upon getting coffee: Also, can we have some water?

“We’re a green restaurant,” the waiter says. “We don’t bring water unless you ask for it. Why, I’d let you die of thirst before I’d bring a table water. Ha ha!” Growing serious: “You know, every glass of water you take out of the earth is one less glass of water that’s in the earth.”

I do know that, actually, having slogged part of the way through this very interesting book. But now I can’t stop saying things like, “Every ramekin of butter you take out of the earth is one less ramekin of butter that’s in the earth.” And “Every order of pad thai you take out of the earth is one less pad thai that’s in the earth.” It really makes you think! Do we really need all these extras? These frills and whistles and doodads and geegaws? Can’t we just live simply and not always need and acquire and waste?

Well, maybe you can. It’s still my birthday season, and I want more.

While you were off having triplets, Aunty Christ had an idea

2009-08-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

I am thinking that I will call off the job search and instead ask that employers line up to spit in my face. The effect would be, roughly speaking, the same thing.

Cancer? That’s hilarious! But Aunty Christ’s sad.

2009-08-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

Rape victims? That’s so last week. I’m totally over rape victims now.

You’ll be psyched to hear that Aunty Christ does not have cancer. At least not that anyone’s detected yet. Whoopie! Take that public health option and stick it in your ear, Dems. Until the next time I think I might be ill. At which point I will promptly ask you to retrieve it from your ear and wipe it off with a moist towel and hand it to me. Oh, American Public. When will you ever learn?

Yesterday I took a test, and now the unemployment office is clear on my abilities to add two fractions together, given the assistance of a calculator, and do simple algebra and at least guess at what the volume of a sphere might be. I was lauded for being a very bright un(der)employed person, and that is all.

It seems like I should be able to tie these two themes together and make a blog post out of them. Something about how I currently find myself in a position where I would like the government to give me stuff, but it keeps not quite happening—either at all, or in the way that I would like.

Or about how easy it is to relax into the idea that the government owes you stuff. Just six months ago I was pretty unhappy with the concept of not receiving my very own paycheck that I had earned with the sweat and hard labor of my own two red-blooded American hands! Now I’m okay with it, as long as I don’t have to make any sacrifices or anything. The moment my cable TV gets cut off, I will have a big problem, but as long as the govmint’s paying my bills, I’m kind of uncomfortably okay with it.

I’m turning Old in two weeks. Old! I never thought I’d reach this age! It is half wonderful. On the one hand, I am no longer obsessed with looking exactly like [whichever teen starlet who, everyone agrees, anyone who isn’t her is repulsive]. Which is nice. I remember in high school thinking that I had it made because all of these popular girls were going to go crazy at some point because they had lost their looks, whereas I was never particularly good-looking, and thus wouldn’t suddenly become not-good-looking upon turning elderly or 30 or whatever. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop me from always wanting to be hot.

Not like that wish is entirely gone now. But I’ve come to terms with who I am, a little bit. I’m at least more all right with it than I used to be, and that makes me a little bit less unhappy all the fucking time.

On the other hand, there is in age this diminishment in choices that’s strangely unexpected to me. Not that long ago, I felt pretty okay with the idea that I could always do that later—“that” being whatever it was that I wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted to do right now. Popular culture loves these stories. Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was in her 70s! Giuseppi Tomasi di Lampedusa didn’t finish writing The Leopard until he was 60! There was this lady, right? And she graduated from college when she was, like, 80 or something! So all sorts of possibilities are open to the old, leaving the young with the freedom to piss away any number of years shacked up in the mountains working in careers that they don’t particularly enjoy, talking to people they don’t really know about topics that they find uninteresting.

At one time, it struck me that I was too old to start a modeling career, become a ballerina or a gymnast, or date someone who wasn’t old enough to go to bars. And none of that bothered me because, fuck. I wasn’t going to do that anyway.

But now I come to the realization that I’m too old to go to law school, and that one kind of hurts. Mind you, I never wanted to go to law school when I was 25. It’s only now that the opportunity’s gone that I kind of miss it.

All this to one side, however, what I’m thinking about lately is that trying to find a new job while on the brink of turning Old kind of sucks. I commented this earlier on another blog, but I think it may require further discussion: Women are always too young to be taken seriously, until they are too old to be taken seriously. I don’t think I was ever discriminated against, per se, for being too young, but I also don’t think I was ever seen as anyone who was ever actually going to do anything important, wield any sort of power, hold even the tiniest mote of authority over any of my officemates. If I’ve ever achieved any sort of supervisory role in a job, it’s been an accident: No one else wanted it, or I was the only one who had any idea what was going on.

Now, of course, I worry that potential employers look at me and see, along with the few grays and crap skin and weird thighs, someone who doesn’t have a lot more to give, and who expects a lot in return. It’s like when 40-year-old dudes only want to date 20-year-olds: They want someone who can still make a baby, someday (not right now, though), and won’t ask too many questions when they’re treated kind of shabbily. And also, I’m not exactly the eye candy some muckety muck wants at his front desk.

All of the above, however, kind of sounds like an excuse to me. Even though I also think it’s true. It’s like that guy who complains that he can’t get a girlfriend because girls don’t like nice guys. His problem is that he’s too nice! Not that he’s kind of creepy and doesn’t know how to talk to women without being kind of insulting and staring at their boobs all the time! (I love this subject of conversation, but it’s apparently been nigh on exhausted by this point.) Anyway, yes. Saying I’m too old for anyone to want to hire me is maybe keeping me from addressing my real faults. Like how I’m too smart for anyone to want to hire me.

Kidding! Oh say, this all reminds me of my favorite comic square.

Always having someone to blame your misery on.

OMG. Babies!

Aunty Christ and the unhealed present

2009-08-08T00:17:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering, I am painfully aware that this blog has suddenly turned into the electronic equivalent of an Applebee’s appetizer: the quality is bad, but at least there’s a lot of it. I apologize for that. I’m sure that very soon I’ll be feeling less traumatized about my new volunteer position, and I can shut up about it and retreat into golden, blissful silence again.

Aunty is feeling better about her second call, though, given the space of a day. The thing is—and I’m sorry that I’ll have to be vague here—that my volunteer job is kind of like Dinner: Impossible meets Law and Order: SVU. I’m trying to make Christmas dinner here, and my producer chopped off my fucking hands, and all I’ve got’s a whisk, a bag of rubber bands, and a turnip. I know part of the problem is that I’m now not only part of a system, with all the problems that entails—I’m part of The System. And that’s not good. Ask anyone. The System sucks.

So, I go into the call expecting to make a turkey dinner for the entire family, and instead I only have time to microwave a hotdog. And the hotdog was made of cat poop. And also, I ate half of it.

Figuratively, I mean.

After each of my calls, I end up feeling awful, like I said in my last post, because I wanted to do a good job, and I’ve failed. Which is bad not only because I always want to do a good job, and I always feel awful when I fail, but because part of the reason I’m volunteering is as part of an admittedly futile effort to perfect my own rape experience.

I was a dumb 19-year-old when I was raped. The spring before, I had created a shame-based Ecstasy drama in my life, in which I dropped all my classes, ran away to the East Coast for the weekend, and checked myself into the mental ward of my school’s hospital. After that, I hid from all my old friends, and the guy who became my new best friend was someone I had recently met and who was a great deal older than I was. Over 21, in any case, and a full-fledged adult, with an apartment and a job. We talked endlessly on the phone over that summer, and I drove up to the city to see him when I could. I knew he liked me. He told me as much. But I didn’t feel the same way, and I told him as much, and it was cool.

One Friday not long after my second year of classes started, my friend invited me to his cousin’s hotel room for a party. It was a party to celebrate the last day of the CPA test, and the cousin had rented the hotel room in order to study for the CPA test. Lots of CPA-wannabes had rented rooms in this hotel, my friend explained, and they’d all be ready to party. When I got to the hotel room, my friend and his cousin were the only ones there. But it was early. We started drinking and quickly drained the bottle of vodka. Then we went to the hotel bar and bought another bottle to take back to the room. We switched from mixers to shots. “I’ll drink after you, Aunty,” my friend said, and at some point everything went blurry. Which was, coincidentally, around the same time that the porn channel was turned on. I tried to put myself down on the folding couch in the front room of the suite, but my friend started unfolding the couch, as his cousin held me upright. Which I mistook for kindness, until my friend started undressing me, as his cousin held me down, and I started crying. No, no, no.

So, there’s a good deal wrong with this story, if you’re looking for a sympathetic victim. I had drunk myself into a stupor. I had put myself, willingly, in a hotel room with two men—one of whom I didn’t even know very well. I didn’t leave immediately afterward. (I passed out until morning.) I didn’t fight back, beyond the crying and the saying no. (Too drunk.) I even called the guy one last time, afterwards, just to see if he would apologize.

That was naïve of me. He didn’t even acknowledge what had happened.

What I did have going for me was: (1) there were two of them, and (2) they were black*. Number one there was what made the crisis line employee decide that I had been raped adequately enough for her to listen to me. Number two caused me no end of racial guilt and complicated feelings about race and race relations. And it was, ultimately, what tipped the balance in favor of not filing a police report. Given all my failings as a victim, I decided (rightly or wrongly) that the only reason my assailants could be convicted was because of their race and mine. And then, once I started thinking about it, wouldn’t it be wrong of me to try to prosecute two successful black men? I mean, wouldn’t it? Kind of?

I don’t even really know what I was thinking, to be honest with you. Race shouldn’t have been a factor, should it? Of course, when I got angry, my anger was parceled out along racial lines as well. Again, it makes no sense now, and I’m sorry.

The day after, I took a cab to campus and showered. I called the crisis line and was told that what I had just experienced did not sound like rape. I called my former roommate, and she (I’ll always love her for this) walked with me to the emergency room. I saw the uniformed officer, a hard-looking woman stationed at the hospital just to deal with people like me. I left. I went back to the hospital a few weeks later, and asked to be tested for chlamydia and gonorrhea and get a prescription for Valium. When the Valium ran out, I smoked a lot of pot.

And … life went on like that. Life does that, I guess, when you keep not dying. But what I keep coming back to is that night, and the next day. I want to be the person I wished had been there for me.

But I’m not. I’m still me.

*Not that anyone will read this old post at this late date, but just for my own peace of mind, I should explain why I wrote (2) and why I wrote it the way I wrote it. What I was trying to say here was that I realized, or thought I realized, anyway, that some people would be inclined to look at the situation and see that here was a white girl accusing black men of rape, and immediately, without any other evidence, believe me. Now, whether that was actually the case, or whether I was relying merely on To Kill a Mockingbird and other popular literature to come to such conclusion, I do not know. I would like to believe that people (juries, in particular) wouldn't be any more inclined to believe a white victim than a black one, or to suspect that a black perp is guilty any more than a white perp tried with the same evidence. And maybe they wouldn't.

At the time, however, I thought that race could be an issue that would weigh in my favor, without merit, and that bothered me.

Aunty Christ has miles to go

2009-08-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

Two calls, five patients. And I’m exhausted.

It’s funny—so far a pattern has emerged. I get the call. I am in action. I will go! I will help!

I drive to the hospital. I tear up. How can I help? What will be asked of me? What if I can’t handle it?

I think of me, at the hospital, waiting for my kit, and then seeing the lady-cop sitting in her chair by the rape table, and changing my mind and leaving. I think of me, calling the crisis line and being told dismissively that what I was describing was not rape.

At a certain point in my story, though, the evidence was gauged to have piled up to the correct height, and the crisis-line lady allowed that perhaps I had been raped. I didn’t know which reaction was worse, frankly: her disbelief, or her reluctant admission that I had finally met her standard of what rape is.

Once I’m at the hospital, all of that fades away. I am no longer important. I have a patient (or many patients) to help. That’s the important thing.

And then, driving home: Guilt that I didn’t do more. Anger that I didn’t do more. Confusion, because I wanted to do more, but—what happened? I am sad about the rapes I heard about. I am sad that the patients went home alone. I am even sad, sometimes, that I don’t 100% believe these patients. I am sad that these cases will not go to trial. I am sad that there isn’t a better process for these patients—one with someone who is here who actually knows what she’s doing, who doesn’t offend the doctor, or become shy (still!) when saying “pelvic exam.”

I’ve been reading blogs about rape lately. I think it helps. Helps what, I don’t know. Maybe it helps me think of things to say to my patients. That everyone gets through their experience differently, but they will get through it. That they are brave. That it may feel that no one understands or cares, but people do. Some people, anyway.

I have to write about this later, once I’ve had a few minutes to process. And sleep. I’m exhausted.

Aunty Christ went on her first call

2009-07-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

It’s a true statement, that headline there. (They seldom are.) Aunty did indeed get a call last night, very late—possibly more descriptively termed very early this morning—from dispatch, telling me to get on up to the hospital where there was, waiting for me, one bona fide rape victim. I can’t tell you about the experience, sadly. Sadly! I mean, who doesn’t want to hear a story about a rape victim? To go in the entirely opposite direction, I do know who does want to hear a story about a rape victim, and that is: All you fucking assholes who find this blog by googling “Aunty rape fukking boys” and “aunty rape piss stories”.

To all of you who did find this blog in such a manner? Shame. Shame on you. Go eat a bag of dicks and die, you vile, disgusting meatsack.

(To the two or three of my readers who didn’t come here looking for aunty rape porn: Not you. I’m sorry you had to hear that.)

Now, you ask, what the fuck were you doing, Aunty? Ah, good question. I have signed myself up to be a volunteer advocate for the D.A.’s office. Whenever a person is raped, and goes to the hospital, and has made the very tough decision to press charges against his or her attacker, a volunteer—maybe me—is called to meet that person at the hospital, provide information about what’s going to happen, and so forth.

Anyway, I wish I could write something about the experience that wouldn’t be depressing as hell, but I can’t. And I wish I could write something about the experience that would help me process it, but I can’t. At least not here—for reasons of confidentiality. And, realistically, probably not at all. It’s just not possible. How does one process something like that? Something that shows people to be subhuman—forcefully taking from those who have the very least (the homeless, the mentally disabled, the poor, the very old, the very young), or shrugging their shoulders and refusing to offer help where they might. I feel like both these inclinations suggest very scary things about humanity, and yet they’re hardly new.

But mostly I just wanted to get that off my chest. The thing about eating that bag of dicks. Please do it, rape googlers. I mean it.

I hope you feel bad now about being a disgusting rape googler. You've made me, and this puppy, very sad.

Aunty Christ does a meme

2009-07-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

On a Sunday morning, I usually like to warm up the old brain cells with a crossword. Today, however, I have been given the opportunity by Mssr. Georges Skookumchuck to talk about myself. And although Aunty Christ is usually both reticent and modest, she can be prodded into sharing under the right circumstances.

And the circumstances are right, right now. Picture, if you will, Aunty sitting down with her laptop next to a soft thug dog who is worn out from swimming and eating pork ribs. In the distance (hark!) there is the soft thrum of work and homework that needs to be done, and closer in, if you listen very carefully, a tiny voice saying, “Procrastinate for as long as you can, Aunty.”

Georges’ list of 25 Relevant Questions:

1. Greatest peak experience/s? (That is to say a positive or ecstatic experience/s that fundamentally influenced your life.)

I can’t think of one wonderful experience that totally eclipses everything else. Instead, there are several. Literally climbing peaks in Colorado. Ditching everything in Chicago and moving to Colorado. Ditching everything in Colorado and moving out to Saskatoon.

The act of ditching and moving really is quite ecstatic, if you’ve never tried it. It frees up your damn brain, for a moment or two at least.

2. Nadir experience/s? (That is, a negative experience/s that fundamentally influenced your life.)

In junior high, the group of three girls that I had been friends with previously turned on me viciously, and, I think, without reason, although it’s quite possible that the reason was that I was a big dork. I’d like to be able to say that the experience made me more flexible, more open to new friendships in unexpected places, or less dorky. Unfortunately, the outcome was that I realized that most people suck, and that the less they suck all over me, the better.

3. Had any paranormal experiences?

Never.

4. Biggest irrational fear?

That people think poorly of me. Which of course isn’t irrational in the sense that, “What? How could people ever think poorly of me!” but more in the sense that worrying about what people think of me has never made people think better of me. Except perhaps when it comes to not farting in public.

5. Biggest completely reasonable fear?

Death.

6. Biggest irrational aversion? (This is not the same as your biggest irrational fear.)

I have a hard time forcing myself to eat things that I’ve tried and don’t dislike, but also don’t like enough to overcome being afraid of them for most of my life. Things that fall into this category include eggplant, mushrooms, and avocado.

7. What are your core metaphysical belief/s? (N.B. By metaphysical belief I mean any principle that you think is true and live your life by but cannot be empirically or scientifically proven to others who don't believe it.)

That doing good will result in good things coming into my life. That dogs have feelings. That logic rules.

8. What do you think is the ultimate fate of humanity?

Have you seen Idiocracy? That, except without the happy ending.

9. What do you believe will happen to you after you die?

I hope my body is cremated.

I hope whatever is left does not: (a) live on for eternity, (b) get its own planet, (c) come down to Earth on Xmas Eve to help some poor sap better appreciate his life.

I kind of assume that whatever happens to us after death is a less literal interpretation of reincarnation or afterlife. Elements are recycled into new growth. Energy bounces around the universe. That kind of thing. It sounds pretty dippy to say it, though.

10. Which do you trust more, science or religion?

Science. Hands down.

11. Favorite book (fiction or non-fiction) written between 2500 BCE and 1 BCE?

I like Euripides’ Medea, but really, I like all those Greek plays about women going crazy with grief. Oh, women. Can’t live with them, can’t cheat on them without them running off and killing your kids, eh?

Also, I should mention that I like the idea of Medea, but have only read a really poor, probably very truncated version of it.

12. Favorite book (fiction or non-fiction) written between 1 BCE and 1000 AD?

Oh, Georges, you’re killing me.

Off the top of my head, I will say that I remember enjoying some of the apocryphal texts written about the boy Jesus, wherein he flies around and acts like a little scamp. But I think it had more to do with the shock value, and less to do with the actual writing.

Clearly, I need to read more old shit.

13. Favorite book (fiction or non-fiction) written between 1000 AD and 1800 AD? (There have been enough lists of favorite books that were composed mostly of things written between 1800 and the present so we'll skip that.)

Tristram Shandy sneaks in just before the cutoff, so I’ll say that. It’s one of the first modern novels, and the first, I think, post-modern novel. At the same time. It blows my freaking mind.

Plus, it’s about penises, and has a lot to say about obsessions, which is one of my own obsessions, oddly.

14. What is your philosophical grounding? (If this is the same as your metaphysical beliefs then give your core ethical principles.)

I think this is: Do no harm.

(Sounds pretty dippy to say it, though.)

15. What political opinion do you hold that is most inconsistent with your other political opinions?

My first reaction is that all of my opinions are consistent, since I find hypocrisy to be the worst personal failing a person can have.

I’m almost certainly wrong though. About my own beliefs being consistent, I mean. I’m probably just trying overly hard to justify them.

16. What makes a good person good?

Consistency. Sincerity. Kindness. Intelligence.

Intelligence seems kind of controversial, given the modern predilection to equate dumbness with baby-ness with pure-heartedness. I assume everyone reading this is smart, however, and won’t fall into that lazy-minded trap.

17. Aesthetically speaking which is more important, audience reception or creator satisfaction?

When I am the viewer, the former. When I am the creator, the latter.

Which is to say that everyone who participates in creation may gain something by the experience. But just because I enjoyed creating something hardly means that you, as the viewer, must or can learn something of equal value from it. This blog being a great example of something that gives me great pleasure but seems to have limited value to any audience.

18. Favorite painting/s? (If you can find pictures of them on line please post them on your pictures page. There is a website called artcyclopedia which has a huge amount of jpegs of great paintings.)

Well, there’s “The Sleeping Gypsy” by Henri Rousseau. There’s something about that lion, and the stiff, columnar form of the sleeping person. It’s dreamlike yet grounded.

Check the erect, turgid tail as the male lion attempts to wake the sleeping woman, who wants merely to lie with her woman-shaped lute!

As a kid, I loved this triptych of St. John the Baptist getting his head chopped off that used to hang in the Art Institute of Chicago. I think I liked the stream of blood that arced out of his neck-hole, and the round bone-and-nerve bundle in the center of said hole. I have no idea who created it, but I do know that it no longer lives in the Art Institute.

Less well-known artists I like include Brit ex-pats Robert Bissell and Ben Whitehouse.

Here's a lolling bunny with butterflies, from Bissell. He also paints a lot of bears and bees.

I lived down the hall from Ben in college, and let him jack off on my boobs once or twice. What we do for art, huh?

I do like his landscapes.

Here is one.

19. Favorite living hero/heroine?

There are people I like, and people I don’t like; people I’d be proud to know, and people I find repugnant. But to turn someone into a hero seems facile and thus wrong.

That said, I like Michelle Obama’s shoulders.

Michelle is my shoulder hero.

20. Favorite dead hero/heroine?

Keeping all of the above in mind, I will say Joe Orton. I’m working on a very important* project that uses his Edna Welthorpe letters as a guide and inspiration. And it’s an aim of mine to sex up many young Moroccan lads someday.

(*It’s not.)

21. Most important goal/s in life?

Growing old gracefully. Keeping all my teeth.

22. Details or big picture? (I know both are important. What I want to know is your overall leaning and if you consider that leaning a strength or a weakness.)

Details. I am a Virgo, after all.

It’s a strength, when marketing oneself in the paralegal field. It’s a weakness, when paired with my obsessive nature, and thrown into the mix of a relationship where details may not be as important as other things like affection, devotion, and trust.

23. Depressive or anxious?

Both.

24. Pick a super power, you only get one.

I’ve always thought that having the ability to give anyone in the world a debilitating charlie horse would be truly diabolical. No one would ever suspect.

25. What would your diet look like if there were no physical or nutritional consequences?

Bacon and beer, baby.

I’m basing my answer on the assumption that “no physical consequences” includes feeling generally okay as well as not weighing 650 pounds. If it doesn’t, I’ll throw a little broccoli into the mix too.

No one is tagged. All in Facebook-world or blogger-world are free to answer, however.

Aunty Christ is a Communist sympathizer

2009-07-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

For the past four nights I’ve been dreaming about people I knew earlier in my life, who I haven’t seen in years. One night it was my best friend, who now lives in Japan—though even in the dream we were communicating only by phone, planning my (imagined) trip to Tokyo to see her. In another dream, I had run into my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend/wife, who I recognized because she was walking his dog, and found myself holed up in their hotel room, waiting for hours to speak to him, which I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do. When he arrived, he wouldn’t look me in the eye, instead kind of lumbering around the room with his back hunched, while his girlfriend/wife talked about how much they enjoy fishing.

What started this nightly journey into my past, I think—or in any case what happened four days ago—was that I was unkindly reminded that I never did really get a satisfactory ending to that whole nightmare with my lady parts last year. And now, I guess, it’s about time to start revisiting it, and start the whole unpleasant process with the letter about the abnormal cells, and the colposcopy appointment, etc. And, not that I want to get into it now, but just in case anyone from Planned Parenthood comes across this, I should point out that:

No one ever wants to come to your clinics, but
People have to because they need medical treatment and either

don’t know where else to go or
can’t afford to see a private practitioner, and

I think everyone can agree that the last thing anyone needs heaped upon them in addition to having to do this thing that is essentially

embarrassing
stressful and
painful

Is having their appointment canceled on them without anyone mentioning that the appointment has been canceled, or
Having a man tell us how “uncomfortable” a colposcopy is, or frankly
Having to deal with a nurse who doesn’t know how to use the colposcopy equipment,
All of which adds to the general unpleasantness of the trip to Planned Parenthood.

To sum up, Planned Parenthood sucks purple monkey ass. How much I appreciate it being available to a person is equaled only by how little I actually ever want to use its services again.

Anyway, the highlight of the trip down there (by which I mean “Planned Parenthood” and not the other “down there,” since the actual appointment was—unbeknownst to me—canceled [see Item D]) was being told by a large man in purple pajamas (see Item E) that I can probably look forward to another colposcopy this year, and another biopsy, and another magical trip through the wonderland that is my cervix. I had hoped to avoid all that by quitting smoking last year. Although, as I told the ladies at the colposcopy last year, I do not smoke through my vagina, as the colposcopy ladies told me, regardless of which orifice you use as your smoke-hole, the cervix likes to sop up toxins and then create a giant cancer on itself. Or whatever. I’m not currently licensed to practice medicine in this state, so I shouldn’t try to explain it.

So, I quit smoking, and now, until my next appointment (rescheduled for next month), I am going to eat nothing but fruit and vegetables* in an effort to turn this little cervix thing around. This is gonna be great, guys. I will have the best-looking cancerous cervix in three states after this.

Even more attractive than this! Think about it!

And I’d better be all right with that as the end goal because frankly, if I do have cancer, or if there’s any expensive medical treatment that needs to happen to prevent what I have from turning into cancer, I’m kind of shit out of luck, you know? With the being unemployed and all? And the no health insurance thingy?

Which is why I’m watching the health-care battle in the Senate with particular interest. And also why I’m pretty upset with how it appears to be turning out. Look, I know that a large segment of the population is firmly against socialism. This is why most people refuse to use the U.S. Postal System or drive on our government-funded system of highways. I know that most Republicans, if they were laid off, would choose not to collect unemployment. I know this. I’ve also heard things about how it’s your money (yours! yours! yours!) and you’re not going to let my lazy, Welfare-queening ass have any of it. That’s fine, really. I just kind of want to say that, from my perspective, it makes me a little sad to think that I’ll die** because some MBA-carrying diaperbag or other decided to save the company I work for a couple dollars, and current (and probably future) public policy neither prevents that kind of thing from happening nor provides a safety net for those affected.

And yes, I know that kind of thing happens all the time, and that makes me even sadder. Though the fact that it’s happening to me makes it especially poignant, I think.

*And bacon. And beer, goddammit.

**Not to be overly dramatic about it.

This is Aunty Christ’s four leaf clover

2009-06-06T02:10:00.000-07:00

Now, I’m not saying that we live in a rough neighborhood, but last night, across the street from our house, I heard a nine-year-old accuse a seven-year-old of jacking his lighter. A few nights ago, Rich and I set out for a walk, only to see, about a block ahead of us, a car veer wildly off the road and onto a strip of grass bordering a school playground, where it ran over two small trees, crashed into a concrete wall, backed up, and continued driving. To our amazement, no cop cars followed in hot pursuit. About a month ago, a house down the street from us was firebombed (or so I heard). The night after we moved in, we were woken at 3 a.m. by a bang bang bang at the door.

I peeked out the peephole. It was a cop.

Of course it was a cop.

As the only member of the household who is fully clothed at all times, it fell on me to answer the door. When I did, the cop asked me if I am Jaleel Christ’s mother.

No, no. I am not.

Well, the cop said. He says that he lives here.

I start to feel anxious. We’ve only been here for a little more than 24 hours. It’s possible that he does live here. Maybe. Or used to. Or had some kind of deal worked out with the former tenants. Or will come back to the house after he gets out of jail and kill us if I don’t cover for him.

Anyway, I say to the cop, it’s funny because my last name is Christ.

Oh, he says. Do I have a nephew, cousin, or brother named Jaleel?

No, no. It’s just funny. The coincidence.

Thing is, even with the firebombs, out-of-control drivers, lighter-jacking youths and all, I like the new place so much better than our old house. It feels comfortable. It has a garden in the front, with a couple of tiny variegated willows, some rose bushes, and what must be (I’ve by now forgotten) white asters. The side garden is all tigridia and sunflowers, or will be, someday, once it gets over its peaked, awkward green stage. In the back yard is a lovely planter box that Rich built, housing several soft heads of lettuce, already ready to be plucked and made into salad, cilantro, corn, onion, squash, bell pepper, lavender, thyme, Thai basil, rosemary, and at least a few other herbs that I’m forgetting. The herbs are doing fine, but the cilantro, corn, and onions are experiencing magic-bean-style growth. Last year we practiced gardening in a 2’ by 5’ hole in the deck, but this year’s efforts feel much more gratifying.

Oh, and the new fothergilla in the back yard. And the clumping bamboo to screen off the neighbor’s abused, barking dog-in-a-cage. (Who I feel sorry for, but do not want available for the thug dogs to mock every day.)

Here is a tigridia. Just in case you hadn’t heard of tigridia. Ours look more like a series of green sticks in the ground. Hey, is anyone else bored? I don’t have that much to say about tigridia, as it turns out.

I know I’m overstating when I say that, in my mind, our patch of rented ground is like a verdant study in abundance. But it kind of is. I tuck a seed into the ground, and days later a hearty stalk emerges from the soil, topped with four waxy, perfect leaves. It’s a symbol for self-sufficiency, a stand-in for motherhood and fertility and all that shit. I create. I destroy.

Summer is great for that kind of thing, in fact. Unlike spring, which is all growth, and winter, which is all slow death, summer—this summer, anyway—is a fervid mulchbin of change and expectation.

And the house is a part of that. The neighborhood, too. The neighbors across the street throw parties nearly every weekend, playing banda music past dark. Kids gather on the corner after school, taking turns riding a tiny motorized bicycle around the block. People yell at me as I’m walking the thugs. Twice, accusingly: “I hope you have a bag!” (I considered following said yellers around to scream at appropriate times, “Better not run anyone over!” and “Hope you don’t beat your kids tonight!”) Once, after watching Goofus brazenly pee on a bush near the sidewalk that cuts through his lawn: “Unfuckingbelievable.” And once—this week, in fact: “How are those thugs doing?”

It’s starting to feel more like home, anyway. And I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next, what’s on the horizon. As long as it’s not a car careening through the bushes, toward me. Or my long-lost son, Jaleel. Oh, he’ll be so pissed.

Other items of note follow.

Summer Jamz 2009!

My new favorite song for this evening is Samamidon’s fine cover of Tears for Fears’ Janovian expression “Head Over Heels.” Yes, this song was released in 2007. Aunty Christ is hopelessly behind the times. Yes, Samamidon appears to be in the same vein as LCD Soundsystem, which Aunty Christ is a little embarrassed to admit she also likes. It appears that Aunty Christ kind of misses hearing Kermit the Frog sing. Yes, although Tears for Fears songs are all really fucking wonderful, it seems that as covered by a whisper-folk singer, they are even better.

Summer Readz 2009!

Oh, not that Aunty Christ loves all her children isn’t the best blog available to a person in this current age of wonder. No, that is not what I’m saying. But I did want to point out that Hobolawstudent has a pretty fine blog of her own. It is as if I met this blog at a bar and slipped it my number and now I can’t wait to see it again. I hope the blog calls me. I think I actually might love the blog.

It is: wonderful writing mixed with a fair smattering of layperson-friendly law analysis. I haven’t read that far back, but tonight my favorite post is this one. For anyone who wonders why we can’t just leave the detainees in Guantanamo forever, anyone who thinks we were right to put them there in the first place, anyone who makes fun of waterboarding or supports torture in any form or for any reason, or anyone who thinks all of the preceding is ignorant bullshit, it’s well worth the read. The rest of you should read it too. Damn, it’s a nice, very sad post.

Summer Stampz 2009!

Aunty Christ is now a notary public. Travel fees apply.

Aunty Christ had some time on her hands

2009-05-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

For some unknown reason, the auntychrist at gmail dot com spam box fills up with the most interesting shit, while the less celebrated yahoo spam box mostly contains emails like, “Get a better home loan”—from—“Your personal banker.” Yawn. Why do deposed Nigerian royals prefer the gmail? You got me. But good lord, look at these names:

Philmon Hillesheim
Morvey Egerton
Mrs. Kate Hood
Omland Camps
Squines Cuccaro
Rattray Sheline
Magaddino Winkenwerden
Chisolm Rainwater
Ladell Hilz
Shock Buehler
Gronosky Gonzaga
Schwartzbach
Rau Ranni

It’s like things that had only recently heard of the concept of human language decided to take names to fit in with the rest of us. Shock Buehler is a morning drivetime deejay, of course. Morvey Egerton insists on appearing in his own television ads for his family’s jewelry store, while Rattray Sheline spends her Sunday mornings cutting out coupons that she never uses. Chisolm Rainwater has never been more than 30 miles from the Oklahoma farmhouse where he was born. Omland Camps is a fixture at Valois cafeteria. Rau Ranni likes to tell people she makes her own clothes, but she just sews rickrack on the hems of the skirts she buys at Goodwill.

Like a lot of people, I spent most of the '70s and ‘80s watching television. Like so:

I only sorta remember this commercial, actually, but I like it so damn much.

Whereas this one actually has haunted me my entire adult life. Thanks, television.

I remember this commercial, and I remember these damn dolls. My best friend had one. They were all right, I guess, but I don’t know, ad guys. What the fuck?

Oh, and a classic. I was trying to explain this one to Rich while we were in Chicago last year. These used to be on all the time.

Here we have the Battle of the Carpet Companies. I guess Empire won out, since their ads are on TV even now, even in Saskatoon. You used to get a free tee-shirt with your carpeting, I guess, which makes perfect sense when you think about it.

But Lincoln was always my favorite. Try to get that jingle out of your damn head, if you dare.

Trip down memory lane completed. Oh, television, thanks for everything.

Edited to add:

I don't know how I forgot about this one. It's truly the most awful commercial ever. But oh my god. Totally awesome.

Aunty Christ missed some of you (but not you)

2009-05-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

Rich Bachelor and I are back from our long, long journey, upon which I learned a lot about water, and Rich learned something too. I mean, he certainly might have. I don’t want to imply that he didn’t learn anything, and yet who knows. It seems likely that he did, anyway. He probably did. Let’s just say he did. Or perhaps didn’t, depending.

Out of a six-hour class on water rights my small brain and I have retained the following information:

Ranchers are very concerned about water rights. (And rightly so, I add, before anyone gets offended.)

Ranchers don’t like environmentalists.

Ranchers don’t like fish.

A few other things, such as how, if you don’t know a lot about water law, you should probably shut the fuck up about it. The “you” in this case being me. Hello! After the class, Rich and I found ourselves in a bar where I was forced to argue about water rights with a man who also forced me to drink what he was drinking, a Peggy Sue float. (Baileys, French Kiss vanilla liqueur, cola and cream.) To paraphrase Mr. Samuel Clemens, Peggy Sue floats are for drinking, water’s for fighting. To paraphrase the man I was talking with at the bar, Peggy Sue floats are for drinking, beer’s for making girls’ titties fat. Whatever, dude. This was not an argument I could win, obviously. I was totally outclassed.

Another thing I learned from the seminar can be summed up in this story, told by the seminar-giver, after a few of the attendants said they were ranchers from the nearby community of Ranchington:

Oh, Ranchington. I have a funny story about Ranchington. I grew up in Townsburg, which is about 40 miles north of Ranchington for those of you who don’t know, the oldest of six kids. My younger brother put himself through college by working for the BLM during summer vacation, so he came back to Townsburg every year and lived at home and worked. One year, he went to a dance at Ranchington [meaningful pause] wearing sandals. [The room erupts in laughter.]

Yeah, he came home that night looking pretty beat up. [More laughter.]

Ha ha ha. Ranchers hate mandals!

Being out of Saskatoon and in the mountains/desert made me a bit homesick for Remote Mountain Village. For comparison’s sake, here is a photo of the land around where I lived for six years, before moving to Saskatoon:

And here is a photo of the land nearbouts to where we were driving last week:

“Nearbouts to where we were” sounds odd to me. I think it should be “nearbouts to where we was driving.” But I’m no grammarian. Anyway, to me they seem damned similar, and it kind of made me happy to see something in the same vein as what I used to see every day, as recently as three years ago. It also made me homesick and sad and a bit emotional. Oh, the beauty! Why did I leave? I spent most of our third day on the road trying to convince Rich that we should move to the eastern part of the state and open a bar, where he would deejay and perhaps play with his band (which he would also have to form), while I stay home and work on the thug dog ranch.

I must mention also, in public-service-announcement fashion, that the Geiser Grand Hotel in Baker City is ridiculously nice, with good food and friendly service, in a lovely setting, all for not a lot of money. I always love it when some far-seeing person decides to restore a landmark building (set to be demolished) to its glorious past, and that’s what the owners of the Geiser Grand have apparently done. It’s an amazing piece of history, and it’s a beautiful hotel. No complaints at all. It was a lovely end to a gorgeous trip.

More soon. I promise.

Aunty Christ and the shit of humanity

2009-04-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

Roland Barthes wrote that photographs signify death—a creepy way to look at things, for sure, but also possibly true. I think he was talking only about portraiture, but, as we all know, corporations are people too.

My former office wife is one of maybe (he says) ten people left there, and, in the manner of momento mori, he’s taken these lovely pics of our dead processing center. May we all remember it as the awful, creepy, evil place it was. Fuckers.

(I know I should credit the photographer for use of his work here, but for reasons of anonymity, I will not. Suck it.)

Aunty Christ's gotta wear shades

2009-03-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

So. It finally happened. Aunty Christ was let go.

And then immediately was rehired by the same company, but as a temp, without benefits, and at a lower rate of pay.

Oh, how I wish I had something insightful and witty to say on the subject, but I kind of feel drained by the experience. My new master makes 5000 times my former salary. I typed that, thinking it would lead me to a witty, insightful conclusion, but I instead find myself slackjawed in amazement. Well, obviously they couldn’t afford to keep me on at that wage [insert joke about needing to buy many more gold-plated bathroom items/black-market organs].

I keep repeating that this is hardly the worst possible outcome, and might be one of the best. And I would like to emphasize that just because I may seem to be protesting too much, does not specifically make it un-so.*

*Or, if it does, please don’t tell me. Thank you.

Sometimes Aunty Christ likes to pretend people are French

2009-03-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

In a few weeks, I’ve gone from incredibly insecure and feeling like I can’t do anything right to feeling like I’m on top of the world. Am I awesome now suddenly? Well, maybe. Aunty Christ is not counting out that possibility. Was I worthless and horrible two weeks ago just because I felt that way? Unfortunately, this question leads to all sorts of mental acrobatics, in which I try to figure out a rational way for me to accept that I am currently awesome while maintaining that I was something better than rotten a few weeks ago. I think I can do it. I’m pretty good at self-delusion.

I’ve been remiss in my blogging duties, and now I find myself with all sorts of things to talk about. For one thing, school. I feel as though I should be embarrassed for saying so, but I love being a community college paralegal course student. And I’m really good at it. I know, I know, it’s like bragging about medaling in the Special Olympics, but I brag. I received the highest grade on the midterm in all three of my classes. I’ve started giving the correct answers, occasionally, in class, and (it is very hard to admit that I am proud of this) my classmates—some of them, at least—seem to assume that I’m smart. It could be the glasses, of course. I wear glasses because I’m smart, not because I’m myopic.

It’s tempting, given my newfound amore with the law, to turn this into a law blog, but since this is only my first semester, I feel it might be premature. I could only cover topics such as: “How to interview: Rectangular table or round?” And: “So you want to file an appeal? Be ready to answer a lot of questions about tangentially related topics, apparently.”

More on that later. My other favorite topic lately is the economy, and more importantly, why the national economy is sucking for me. To sum up briefly, my former company (which sucked) got bought out by a larger company, which also sucks, and which apparently bought us simply to (1) drive itself into debt, and (2) fuck with us. This week, I was asked to leave my comfy basement, where I have been working for the past seven months, and come to the office. The stated reason was so that I could help on a filing project, although I think we all can guess that the actual reason was so that my bosses can tell me in person that I’m canned, rather than doing it by phone or email. So impersonal.

So, I spent a day this week doing light clerical work in anticipation of our office’s move to the cheaper suburbs of Saskatoon. This light clerical work involved constructing 300 cardboard boxes and lids while someone else filled them with folders, and then running upstairs with them and putting them in neat rows. As one of my coworkers said, “They are making us dig our own graves before they shoot us.” The shooting began yesterday. About 15-20 of my coworkers were laid off, with more hot laying-off action to come next week, we are promised. As Rich noted earlier, working for the Dread Pirate Roberts sucks big ass.

“Good night, Aunty. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

In today’s economy, I am pretty much guaranteed six months of looking for a job, followed by another several years of underemployment, temping (if I’m lucky), and part-time work. If I were a younger, more flexible woman, I’d strip or sell my eggs. Perhaps both. As an old, I’ll be stuck offering carts to Wal-Mart shoppers. And I promise you I’ll be muttering under my breath to each patron who passes by, “For this I went to a top-ten school?” Because if I am nothing else, I am a bitter, petty woman who unreasonably thinks she deserves society’s esteem despite doing very little to earn it.

So, I was depressed about the whole impending unemployment/destitution/ignominy thing, but as if to balance that out, fate (in the guise of MySpace) has decided to unearth for me three of the best friends I’ve ever had, none of whom I’ve spoken to for over a decade. One is L, my good friend from high school, and the woman who introduced me to The Smiths and Dylan Thomas and Monty Python. We saw the Moody Blues every summer, because that’s where she was conceived, according to family legend, and we more or less lived at the Cabaret Metro and the Vic every weekend, catching Inspiral Carpets, Mojo Nixon, Joy Division, Texas, Peter Murphy, the Meat Puppets, and, oh god, everyone. We dissected a fetal pig together (we named her Fifi Trixibelle), we tried to dred our hair together, we pierced each other’s ears for the 11th or 13th times. Oh god. I mean, we were girls. We were really stupid. And then, for some reason, while I was at college and she was working in a custard stand in our hometown, she decided not to be friends with me anymore, and so we weren’t.

Now—in a twist that I never would have seen coming, she’s living in a house two blocks away from the high school we hated, and raising a kid, and she’s still hilarious and bitingly cruel. She told me about her Christer neighbor who puts a cross in the middle of his lawn every Christmas, and her idea to put a W in hers, and get her friend on the other side to put an F on her lawn. That’s L. That’s the way she’s always been.

And we were both friends with B, my first gay male love. Now, thanks to L, I have his email address. I hear he’s designing at Ikea stores, and rescuing pitbulls.

The internet is a deeply stupid thing, I'll admit. But every once in a while it comes in handy.

Oh no Aunty Christ didn't

2009-02-13T23:30:00.000-08:00

For some reason, my brain has latched onto the term/TV show title “Tool Academy” as its new favorite thing to talk to itself about. You know, maybe I’m at the store, or driving down the street, or sitting in my interview class listening to some diapersack spouting forth about how awesome he is, and all I can think is: “What is this? Tool Academy?”

Anyway, Rich is gone, leaving me once again to stare helplessly at the stove. It makes food, when Rich is here. But now it sits cold and empty and unproductive. Where’s my dinner, stove? Oh, it’s at Arby’s? Okay, then.

North Saskatoon is filled with fast food drive-thrus, but the closest is Arby’s. Oh, what’s wrong with Arby’s?, I asked myself. I mean, of course it’s disgusting, but a chicken sammy is a chicken sammy, right? I was ready to flip on the turn signal when I looked up at Arby’s giant red penis and said: Oh god. I cannot do this.

Any kitchen that prepares shaved penis on bun is not for Aunty Christ.

Good thing, anyway. Two weeks ago I went to the office for the first time in seven months and ended up talking with a little flibbertigibbet of my acquaintance, who turned the conversation, eventually, toward her dislike of people who don’t take care of themselves. And then she kind of very meaningfully stopped herself and looked at me. “Oh, not you,” she said. “I mean someone like _____,” and proceeded to name two or three really obese people in our office. Finally! Someone who doesn’t consider me morbidly obese—that’s awesome. I guess I can stop wearing my “THIS IS WHAT 400 POUNDS LOOKS LIKE” t-shirt (size medium, but it’s a little snug).

That awesome guy from my interview class? Turns out that when he’s not talking, Pregnant Black Teen is. Pregnant Black Teen kind of stole my instructor’s heart the first couple classes, her being preggers and my instructor being a mother. To introduce one of the film clips we watched (it’s a community college course: we watch a lot of movies), my instructor informed us that in this scene Denzel Washington’s film wife had just had a baby, and the mother next to me looked at the mother behind me and they both said: Aw! A baby! But Pregnant Black Teen killed off any good will her fertility had bought with the unfortunate habit of yelling at the movies we’re watching, and then yelling at our instructor as if she were a movie. The instructor, for example, put on Erin Brockovich and instructed us that although Erin’s interview skills were good, we perhaps should think twice about wearing a short leather vest to talk to clients. “She look good!” shouted Pregnant Black Teen at Julia Roberts’ sassy little figure. “I’d wear that! What’s wrong with the way she look?” Later, when the instructor said that she didn’t really like Julia Roberts but she—“Oh yes you do!” Pregnant Black Teen yelled. Instructor: “Well, no, I just don’t really like—” Pregnant: “Yes you like Julia Roberts!” It went on for perhaps a minute, and the instructor (a seasoned litigator) won, but only barely.

It was a wonderful moment for law, and for community college, and for humanity in general, probably. But there are moments in everyone’s life when you just want to take someone by the shoulders and tell them to stop being a stereotype and, oh, I suppose I just feel like that’s happening more and more frequently lately. That and the Tool Academy thing.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. Now, stove, make me dinner.

Aunty Christ is the Weepy Grand Canyon of Emptyness

2009-02-01T17:21:00.001-08:00

Today is Super Bowl Sunday and, not coincidentally, my favorite day of the year. That’s right: Puppy Bowl V. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m retarded for dogs, right? I’m a pedophile for dogs. I’m Temple Grandin for dogs. I am not, however, coprophagiac for dogs or necrophiliac for dogs. I for one draw the line there. Some people are disgusting.

So, Rich and I looked at cats the other day, and we found one that’s as close to a thug dog as any cat is going to be. I introduce Rico.

Like my name say, I am Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. Bitch, I will cut you.

He looks almost exactly like a thug dog, and he is large enough to stand up to the thugs’ mindless antagonism, I think. And provide them an ample meal in his litter box, but that’s another—completely disgusting—issue. (Didn’t I just say I was against that?) Of course, we have not gotten him yet. Will we? Will we soon—or ever?—bring him home in a little cardboard suitcase and introduce him to the Brothers Thug? I don’t know. It seems kind of unlikely at this point. I would like to get a cat, if only because Rich loves cats so much, and to be a cat person in a house of thugs must be hard.

But oh my: another thing that needs to be cared for. For the past six months or so, a blog post that another blogger wrote (in fact, the last blog post she wrote) has been clattering around in my head. Wide Eyed Kid wrote:

“Somewhere in 2008 I ran out of whatever it is that you pull out when you need to 'dig deep' … I've been told by a whole bunch of people that I am 'strong'. My shrink has said it. My counsellor has said it. My father has said it. My partners have said it. And my friends have said it. I think people say 'you're strong' to reassure themselves. Someone else's strength is a comforting alibi. People say 'you're strong' like it's a personality trait... like it can't be used up or beaten out of you.

“I pretty much used up all my strength not committing suicide after the home invasion. And after the first 2 years of that, every tiny amount of regenerated strength was put toward the maintenance of my sanity. I haven't had enough spare to get on top of things since 2003. And now I've been comprehensively drained once more. Strength is a resource that needs to be replenished. What I once had in abundance now needs complete and total regeneration. But I don't know how.”

When I first read that, I thought, “I know exactly what you mean, sister.” Not that anyone’s ever accused me of being overly strong, I don’t think. And not that I am strong. But there are other things, other traits, that after a year of neglect have been worn away by worry. Stress has hollowed my damn self out. I write about myself in cover letters: I am organized, detail-oriented, and meticulous, a good speller, a good writer. But I am none of these things. I may have been at one point, but they have been chiseled away, at first with a tooth scaler, but lately, a jackhammer. Worse yet, I think of myself as a nice person—a nice-ish person, anyway. “You have so much love to give,” an ex once accused me of, stating his case that I should rethink the whole having kids thing. I thought, no, children are not for me, but this love I have—he’s right. I have love, but I will give it to those I meet who deserve it. And I’m living with someone who deserves all my love and more, and I am empty inside, and I have nothing to offer him.

What I do have, in abundance, is anger and criticism and a need to be left alone—or, even more sadly, mindlessly encouraged, like the final Special Olympics sprinter lumbering toward the finish line. I feel specifically wounded by the economic crisis, and by my unstable job, and by the people who don’t realize that everything’s turned to shit, and by the people who know that it’s just going to get worse and insist that you be terrified by their vision of the future. Ah, but there’s nothing more annoying than bloggers endlessly whining about shit, right? So, I don’t blog anymore. Just to open my mouth is to whine unattractively, and no one wants that. Even me. Whoever that is these days.

So this is more just apology, really, for being a bad blogger. I think maybe that going back to school is going to somehow provide the fertilizer I need to regrow some good part of myself. Not in the “school is bullshit” kind of way, either. After every class I feel a little bit more myself, but only a little bit. Then, eight hours of work and I am empty again. But it’s a start. It’s a glimpse of who I would rather be, which is better than this. This shell. This thing.

So there’s my plan of attack, I guess. Feel a little better tomorrow. And build on it. And build on it. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. I need to say also that I hope Wide Eyed Kid re-found her strength.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. I came back.

2009-01-05T23:11:00.000-08:00

I suppose I should say something one of these days, to squelch the very reasonable conclusion that a reader might have had, until now, that I never returned from my Maui vacation.

Oh, I wish.

There is a lot to say about Maui, most of which, due to time and my poor memory and my aversion to sitting in a hotel room typing while there are so many waves outside to bounce around in, I have forgotten or at least cannot relate now with the gusto with which I should have related them last month, when I returned to Saskatoon.

Here is a photo* of a Lahaina store I found endlessly amusing, for obvious reasons.

I am panties!

Here is a photo of one of Maui’s famous sunsets.

It used to be best friends with Rachel Bilson, but it’s been out of the media in recent months, in preparation for its Vegas show.

The weird thing about Maui is that lots of things that you’ve never heard of before, and that don’t seem all that compelling on their own, are apparently famous. A grocery store, for example, was said to be famous. And a tree that looks like several trees.

Oh, you don’t recognize famous tree? Perhaps you been asleep in back of famous grocery store.

A really fun thing to do, if you have the time, is sit up late at night in your hotel room that you’re sharing with your parents, and watch VH1 when they’re actually playing videos, with closed captioning on. I fully realize that not everyone has the stomach for it, but if you can, Gavin Rossdale’s “Love Remains the Same” comes across as a modern revision of Prufrock, I think:

“Don’t you trick me out
We shall overcome
‘Cause our love stays ablaze

“But we should have had the sun
Could have been inside
Instead we’re over here”

A less seasoned poet would have shied away from such trite phrases as “trick me out” and “we shall overcome” and might have felt compelled to spell out where “over here” is in order to fully differentiate it from “inside.” Mr. Rossdale, however, is confident in his genius, and rightly so, sir. Of course, to fully partake of the sun, usually one would want to be outside, not inside. Perhaps Gavin and his pimpin' firebug actually could have been inside a rocket pointed toward the sun? And if so, how can we get them to leave over here and go back into that rocket like they had planned?

So that was Hawaii. Back in Saskatoon here, the thugs and the Rich Bachelor and I had a pretty nice holiday season, filled with meat and booze and lovely guests, as I kind of thought he had said on his blog, but upon further investigation, find he did not.

And now, after minutes of preparation and hours of anxiety, I am a schoolgirl again. A paralegal-certificate-course schoolgirl, which doesn’t sound very sexy, unfortunately. So far I can’t say very much about it, given that I’ve been to only one class, and that that one class was chosen as a class that I might want to sleep (or drink!) through and still receive an A plus plus plus plus plus plus. It is a very silly class. Additional classes that I have signed up for might want to step the fuck up if they believe paralegaling should hold any interest for me.

So, I guess that’s all I had to say. Gavin Rossdale, do you have anything to add?

“I find a place where we escape
Take me with you for a space
A city bus that sounds just like a fridge”

You guys, I think Gavin’s given us all a lot to think about**. Thanks a lot, man. That was awesome.

*I should point out that my father took the photo of the sunset. The other photos I found on the flickr pages of complete strangers, due to my not bringing along a camera, due to my lack of interest in having pictures taken of myself, or making my parents pose for photos, combined with my very deep interest in not having pictures taken of myself and not wasting time on photo-taking in general. It is comforting to note, however, that in this modern age, even without a camera of your own, and without having wasted any money in the airport on coffee-table books or postcards, you can pretty much re-create your vacation using photos stolen from assholes who took the exact same vacation as you, and found the exact same things kind of interesting.

**Things that Gavin Rossdale was thinking about when he wrote that verse include: "Space" and "escape" are kind of the same word, when you think about it. But "escape" has an extra e. And: If a bus sounds like a fridge, does that mean we're all meat? Think about it. And: I'm so high.

Aunty Christ will be back soon

2008-11-28T08:46:00.000-08:00

This morning, I ordered a medium americano from the round-faced barista who was unlucky enough to be working at the airport coffee stand the day after Thanksgiving.

“I know you probably get this all the time,” I said, “but ‘wiener mélange’ is a really bad name for your espresso.”

“I know!” he said. “It’s really bad, right?”

“It kind of sounds like you’re serving hot dog-flavored coffee.”

“I can’t help it!”

“Oh, no, I know it’s …”

“It’s actually pronounced ‘vee-ner’.”

“Oh, well that’s …”

“I guess it’s German.”

“Well, that makes …”

“I can’t help it!”

Aunty Christ is dealing with airport coffee-industry employees this morning, rather than at home in bed where she belongs, because she is waiting for the plane that’s going to take her to San Francisco, where she will wait for a plane that will take her to Maui.

Where she spend six days dealing with her parents, walking on the beach, and missing the thugs and Rich Bachelor like mad.

Although if you’re going to spend six days missing your thug dogs and your Rich Bachelor, there are worse places to do that, I suppose. I love you guys. Take care of each other. I can’t wait to see you again.

Aunty Christ and the American nightmare

2008-11-25T00:17:00.000-08:00

Every now and then—more frequently lately, for obvious reasons—when I hear about large, national corporations declaring bankruptcy or otherwise going tits up, as those people on BBC America say, I can’t help but wonder what it’s like to actually work for said moribund company. I think we can say with some degree of certainty that the CEOs and VPs of those poorly managed entities—the ones who’ve actually run their wards into the ground—do not feel guilty about whatever incredible waste of time, money, energy and talent they engineered. Or, if they do feel a twinge of conscience, their multimillion-dollar severance packages do much to assuage their nasty, pitch-black souls.

But what of the foot soldiers? What must it be like, I’ve wondered, to play a bit part in some other man’s poorly conceived plan of battle on the field of capitalism? Is it hard, driving to the office listening to stories of your company’s demise on your favorite news station? Would you, as a low-level employee, feel you had contributed to your company’s non-success with your accumulated hours of answering Craigslist ads? Would you have known about the behemoth’s failure before the rest of us did? Did you have an inkling? Or was it just as much of a shock to you as it was to Jim Cramer? Does walking into the office of your failed company, its name now on every newscaster’s lips as The Example of Failure, of Corporate Greed, of The Very Worst That Can Happen When Reality and Facts and Prior Lessons of History Are Ignored, eat away at your dignity and your humanity as much as one would expect it would?

And lucky, lucky me, now I get to find out.

The company I’ve worked for over the past 15 months or so, formerly one of the largest in its industry, in a day has become a penny stock, junk-bond-rated debt, a joke. In a single day, its shares lost almost 90 percent of their worth, although the stock’s about 99 percent off its high for the year. I think I saw it coming. I saw something coming, anyway. In my industry, as a manager you can decide to pay someone like me an extra $5 to do a good job on a file and save yourself a potential $100,000 in claims, or you can beat it into your employees’ heads that they need to get files out in a hurry and risk the $100,000—or more. From where I sat, it seemed like my company was making an obvious mistake in choosing the latter option. Not just sometimes, not just when it makes sense, or when someone has assessed the risk and determined that it’s worthwhile. All the fucking time. Given the choice of losing a million or giving a client a few minutes’ extra work, we were encouraged—strongly encouraged—to get the file out and not worry about the future expense.

Tolstoy wrote that happy families are all alike, but unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. From my experience, unhappy companies all make the same unhappy mistakes. They start expensive projects with the idea that This Revolutionary Advancement will be just the thing to drive future sales. Of course, these projects are never completed and are in fact soon abandoned due to lack of money, lack of interest, or lack of earth-changing significance. Employees are poorly trained and frequently reminded of how easily they could be replaced by a temp or an Indian, who wouldn’t require a 401K and health insurance, overtime pay or a heated office. At the same time that devoted, competent employees are let go, money is poured into establishing new worker pools, which are then replaced once those new workers gain any competence.

All of the above is true of my current employer, but it doesn’t even come close to describing how fucking stupid my company is.

Last summer, my coworkers and I were made to celebrate Failing Corporation Day, in honor of the anniversary of my employer’s conglomeration. The celebratory events included a Power Point presentation of the history of the industry, capped off by the illustrious history of the company, and a second Power Point show, on the glorious future of both industry and company. Our office was missing either the technical expertise or the actual technology (or both, most likely) needed to effectuate a complete Power Point presentation that would make any kind of sense in the large cafeteria we were sitting in. The sound came tinnily over the speakers of a laptop and reached maybe the first of 20 rows. Instead of a soundtrack, we were treated to a monotone reading by our uncharismatic boss.

The basic theme of the presentation was that we at the Failing Corporation help people achieve the American dream. Ah yes, I thought: Helping people reach that age-old dream of home foreclosure. Which of us didn’t grow up with the dream of receiving a notice of default by certified mail? Knowing that I can help someone, maybe you, reach that goal gives me a little bit of a tingle. Really.

I kept looking around the room at my coworkers, trying to gauge from their faces who was in my tribe. I found the presentation amusing as hell. We are helping people achieve their dreams, I wanted to scream, and for this we are paid a salary that will never allow us to achieve ours, no matter how base or insignificant our dreams may be. It’s fucking hilarious. Why wasn’t anyone getting it?

A picture of a run-down house came up on screen, captioned with the words, “We help turn real property”—and then the picture morphed. Instead of the run-down house, we were now presented with an image of the same house, similarly decrepit, but now with a dirty couch installed in the front yard, and the text: “into real people’s homes.” I again looked around the room, not even sorta trying to hide my amusement, and found myself looking into the dull, heavy-lidded eyes of my coworkers.

You did this, America. But I helped. No, no thanks necessary. It was my pleasure.

As each piece of our unhappy story has fallen into place over the past few weeks, I find myself similarly giddy over new inanities unearthed. It’s like one of those “dumb criminals” columns: They did what? What were they thinking! Ha, ha, now I feel superior. There are a few other components to it, too. There’s the satisfaction of witnessing the punishment of those who deserve to be punished, either because of how they’ve treated you or because of all the mistakes they’ve made. Mostly, though, I guess I feel like every day at my company is like a day in an absurdist novel. I am Gogo and Didi, waiting for hope or change in some guise.

I am the audience too. I don’t know how this will end, but I’m in on the joke, at least.

The end

2008-11-18T09:45:00.000-08:00

I was going to write something that would tie what happened to me all those years ago into my life these days, and examine why what happened happened, and what I learned from it, if anything, and how I've changed, and how I haven't. However, I have caught the kind of cold where you sneeze and fart at the same time, and cough and cough and cough and then burp very loudly. Bless Rich Bachelor for putting up with my disgusting body and enfeebled mind.

So all that will have to wait until another day, a day when my brain is functioning a little better. Until then, here is the end of the story.

June 4, 1992, 5:52 p.m., home

Today I had my first meeting with my new therapist. It went okay, I guess. I mean, I felt comfortable talking to him, so that’s better than how it was at the hospital.

I also went shopping with L. [my sister], who came home yesterday. I bought candles and CDs, the primary CDs being [embarrassing crappy techno shit]. I couldn’t help myself. I want X all the time, and everything I do or see or hear or feel, I can’t help thinking how much better it would be on X.

I kind of worked out this explanation for why I got hooked on X. Everything has to be perfect for me. Totally perfect. I get angry at people who aren’t perfect. I get mad at myself for making mistakes. But nothing in life is perfect, and subsequently, life annoys and angers me.

On X, everything’s perfect, or seems to be. Everything you think is perfect, everything that happens is perfect, everything is perfect. And that’s also why I have a hard time coming down—because when I think about it when I’m straight I realize that the experience wasn’t perfect, that the evening wasn’t perfect, that I’m not perfect. Far from it. It only seemed that way.

So that’s my little diagnosis. I don’t know how accurate it is, but right now it seems true.

I’ll try to tie up the loose ends.

I never hooked up with A., and in fact we stopped being friends before the next year was up, although we exchanged letters that summer and my crush on him grew even bigger. I don’t think I even told him that I liked him, although he probably knew. He’s married now and relatively successful at what he does, though he’ll never truly be happy. I remember him as a great friend, and someone who was far nicer to me than I deserved.

I brought P. to my sister’s wedding that summer, and we had a great time. He was such a nice guy, but, like A., we grew apart, and I eventually lost track of him altogether.

My parents and I have a pretty good relationship now; I think they’ve forgiven me for putting them through everything I put them through. I don’t blame them for screwing up my life anymore. They were pretty good parents, I think, and still are.

I reapplied for admission to U of C that fall, having completed the mandatory therapy that summer. My therapist ended up sucking. I remember a lot of sessions where neither of us said a word for the entire hour. But I ended up feeling relatively refreshed, mentally healthy and ready for work by September, and luckily the admissions board felt I had improved enough to approve my reinstatement.

I started off the next school year strongly. I loved my classes, didn’t skip any of them, and saw my grades return to A and B levels. Toward the end of the first quarter, second year, my philosopher friend I., who had become a close confidant when I was in the hospital, invited me to a hotel where his cousin was having a party to celebrate the last day of testing for the CPA exam. I., his cousin and I were the only ones at the party, at which I drank far too much and ended up getting raped by both men. I finished my classes that quarter on a high note, but after that went back to my old ways of skipping class to sleep in, drinking alone in my dorm room, and, eventually, going back to drugs—though I was afraid to use X again.

I ended up graduating, though it took an extra year. I have reached an uneasy treaty with my past, whereby I don’t use it as an excuse to feel sorry for myself, and it promises to remain quiet and still in the distance, as a gentle reminder of what can go wrong, but never again to make me as sad as I was during that whole period of my life.

I don’t want to kill myself anymore.

Aunty Christ is almost done

2008-11-14T15:31:00.000-08:00

More journal. No hedgehogs today.

June 1, 1992, 11:25 a.m.

I got a new roommate today. Her name is Marissa, and she’s not from this plane. She’s from the Seventh Galaxy! Her soul originated there. Her apartment is filled with evil demons. And she was locked up for centuries because of heresy! The inquisitors wore black robes and hoods!

She has these really freaky drawings on her desk, along with several sheets of yellow paper, on which is written what I wrote above.

Same day, 8:48 p.m.

Chris got her diagnosis today. I was wrong about the disease—it’s Huntington’s Chorea, not Parkinson’s. They’re keeping her here and letting her go on pass to Rush Presbyterian to get a second opinion. She seems okay—smiling and talking animatedly—but she has talked about suicide before, so the staff is keeping a close eye on her. I feel bad, but what can I do? Be a shoulder to lean on, I guess, and an ear to bend. I’m so wrapped up in my own problems right now, though, that I’m afraid I’m not very sympathetic. This is the same disease she saw eat away at her father and his mother, so she knows the effects. She said that when they gave her the diagnosis she went into shock a little: her ears were ringing. She might, she said, live off unemployment for a while. Travel maybe, while she can.

James, the self-proclaimed murderer and Green Beret, has turned out to be a fake. It appears that he likes to say that he’s killed people—in fact, he might even believe it. He was a heroin addict, though. He has track marks up and down his arms.

Smokey has started throwing tantrums whenever he’s on the phone with his mom, because he misses her so much.

Jeanette called yesterday. Gary talked to her, I guess, and Marla was upset this morning because she didn’t get to.

It’s amazing how much Vernel has improved since she’s come here. She’s an amazing woman, although I don’t think she knows it. She keeps writing her baby’s father, spraying the envelopes with perfume. She writes letters like I do—writing them first on scrap paper and then rewriting them. She likes to think that she’s a person striving for spiritual and mental order and depth, but it’s her innocence that gets me. She likes everyone, and speaks her mind, and is always trying to improve.

I wrote to P. yesterday, trying to put down on paper what I couldn’t say to him. I did my best, but I get the feeling it’s not enough for what I’ve put him through. P. is very delicate, very sheltered. He’s understanding but doesn’t understand; he doesn’t have the equipment to, really. I hope we can always be friends, if nothing else. Or, well … I’m not even sure it’s necessary we be friends. I just don’t want him to look back on our time together as a mistake.

We had a lasagna dinner tonight, Ward W-3 did. We were supposed to invite family and friends, which I didn’t of course. I helped make the salad. Afterward there was a lecture on bipolar disorder, none of which was pertinent to me.

Marla has really made a lot of improvement since she started hanging out with Vernell. Vernell and Marion and Marla and Benette hang out a lot, playing cards and talking. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Benette before. She’s about 50, and her schooling stopped in sixth grade. She can’t read. When she leaves here, she’s going back to school, she said.

But back to Marla. She still talks to herself out loud sometimes. If you say, “I’m really pleased that I got a pass today,” she’ll say, “Pleased, pleased, pleased to meet you.” But she smiles more. And when she gets too loud with her self-talk, Vernell will say something to her and she’ll stop and smile like it’s a joke.

Chris is writing a mystery in which George is killed. It’s really wretched as far as the description is concerned. And the plot too, for that matter.

Last night, Marla and Vernell and Marion and Eric were playing rummy, and Marla was singing gospel songs. Eric got a kick out of that, saying that he’d gladly come to whichever church Marla went to, just to hear her sing. Later the priest stopped by to give Communion, even though it wasn’t midnight yet. Eric got a kick out of that too. He said it must have been Marla’s singing that brought him.

Alex, by the way, is very religious. He’s very screwed up too, apparently. At the last community meeting he said (out of the blue) that he had a hard time keeping track of time. Sometimes he thinks it’s two years ago, or a different season. Dr. Roy (cool lady, hair in braids) said that it’s easy to lose track of time in the hospital and that maybe we should hang a calendar in the unit. I may have misunderstood, but I have a feeling Alex’s problem is bigger than that.

There have been a lot of new patients coming onto the ward lately, too many to keep track of, and very indistinguishable. One’s young, another’s middle aged, another’s old. They’re all shy. All black. All women. I wonder if they’ll take on personalities after I’m gone.

One new patient of note: Mr. Roosevelt is around 60, plays the piano extremely well, and talks nonsense endlessly. He wears a brown corduroy jacket like E.’s and is missing his two front teeth. During the lecture tonight he kept interrupting—once when Dr. White was talking about grandiose ideas manic people might have. He said, “You’re up there standing there talking and I know more than you about the subject at hand. Like if I said that, that’d be grandiose?” The doctor flushed and said that it might be, but he was sure there were some things Mr. Roosevelt knew more about than he did, like the piano for instance. From there, Mr. Roosevelt went off on a severe tangent, one that I couldn’t understand at all, since he talks fast and mumbles, though I probably couldn’t have followed even if he had enunciated. I think he started talking about the Baptist church and their rites and ceremonies, and he even mentioned the cavalry once. Dr. White said that Mr. Roosevelt had illustrated a point he had made earlier, about flight of thought, but Mr. Roosevelt protested. He made several like comments throughout the lecture.

Also, Aunty Christ is pleased to announce that Simon was adopted

2008-11-13T13:22:00.000-08:00

I know I promised that it was either publishing my old journal materials or wading through my feelings about applying to law school. Further, I know that by publishing my old journal I’ve entered an implicit agreement to not talk about applying to law school. And yet, I can’t help but wonder why I’ve dredged up this particular part of my past right now. The last time I went to school, I ended up in the nuthouse. I’m contemplating going back to school. It’s likely that my brain is trying to tell me something by forcing me to obsess over what went wrong the last time I attempted higher education, but it’s also likely that I do not have the ability to explain what I think that is without sounding a bit hysterical. And while I don’t mind sharing that I was more than a bit hysterical years and years ago, I feel my propensity toward working myself in knots over such a—let’s face it—non-problem as whether or not law school is a good choice is better left in my head for now.

More story next. First, a video of a hedgehog eating a bit of cat food.

Wednesday, May 27, 1992, 9:10 p.m.

Much has happened since my last entry. I’ll try to catch up.

Chris’ fear has abated since last week, though she still constantly has a wary eye on George. Right now she’s more concerned about her future than anything. They’ve given her a battery of tests during the last few days—each is promised to be the last. What the doctors think she has (Parkinson’s disease?) can’t be tested for, so they have to rule out every other possibility. She’ll find out tomorrow in a meeting with her mother and sister, both of whom she hates, evidently. We had a great conversation a few days ago. About drugs, mostly. She dropped acid all through high school and college. She told me about her high school’s graduation party where someone dosed the punch with several hits of acid. And about this camping trip she took with a group of friends in college where they all dropped and hallucinated wolves’ eyes in the trees. I told her about J. and my hallucinations—the paper on the ceiling and the bat and the blonde (me) sitting on the guy’s (P.’s) lap. It was a trip down chemical lane for both of us. By the end, all I wanted were two or three hits of X and a pack of Camel straights. Chris asked me if there were a capsule on the table, would I take it? This was after I said I had definitely quit for good. I couldn’t decide. She said she would, but for her it would only be an experiment and she wouldn’t do any more.

Right now I’m sitting in the room by the patio and listening to WXRT. Nirvana’s on, and I’m trying not to sing along.

Eric was put into solitary yesterday. He was let out this afternoon, sheepish in his hospital gown. His original release date was this Friday, but apparently his boss called and told him that if he wasn’t back at his job today, he would be fired. He packed, put on his jacket and hat, and, wielding his walker, threatened to break the glass door if they didn’t let him out. I think they pushed his release date back because of it, too.

Mr. Matthews’ parents come in every day and bring him food. He’s been feeding himself lately. His father is a really cute old man—probably in his 80s—grey beard, glasses, withered face, knit cap. Ivory likes to kiss him. Smokey has developed an unaccountable fascination with Mr. Matthews. He likes to pat him on the head. For a while he kept saying that he had a crush on him. “He’s nice!” he insists. “He’s cute!” Any conversation he has (usually centered on hospitals) now also touches on Mr. Matthews. “Do you know St. Joseph’s?” I shake my head. “ I was born there.” Oh. “Was he born there?” Shrug. “Has he ever been there? I never saw him there.” Sandra (the night nurse, whose hair imitates mine) suggested to him that the attraction lay in the fact that they both had IVs. But Smokey’s came out yesterday, and he seems relentless in his pursuit of Mr. Matthews. Although a few nights ago, he did ask his mother to marry him, over and over.

Helen was released yesterday. She seemed happy to go, promising to smoke cigarettes for all her friends.

Jori leaves Friday, as does Audry. I think Chris does too, but last time I asked she wasn’t positive. Audry had to put off her plans to go to Paris next week because the university has caught wind of her plans (it was supposed to be a secret between her and her professors) and because she’s missed so much school. Jori is going into a drug clinic when she leaves here. She got to see her son today when the boy’s father brought him. Children under 13 aren’t allowed as visitors, so Jori had to get a staff person to take her off ward to see him. The other day in art psychotherapy, she drew a picture of herself, sad, alone, and her, smiling, with her two sons beside her.

I re-signed my five-day yesterday, which means that (1) I can’t go to Boston to see my sister graduate, and (2) I can go off the ward accompanied by a staff member. I went into the courtyard today with Alice, a med student, and talked for a long time, very freely. Later, after I met with Angie [a psychologist, maybe?] and my mom in a family meeting, Angie came by my room and offered to take me out again. We walked around (but not in) the quads, and by the Reynold’s Club I saw D. [my RA]. I waved, feeling kind of awkward, and ignored his “Hey, s’up?” It was a gorgeous day out, maybe a little chilly for the end of May, but gorgeous enough for someone who’s been locked up for nine days without any fresh air.

After lunch today, Vernel was the center of attention when, after a conversation with her baby’s father’s lawyer, she found out that he had been sentenced to two years in prison (concealed weapon, I think). She has been worried about her financial situation for days—she’s apparently more in debt than she can handle. Now she’s worrying about how she can afford to send this man pocket money for the next two years. Everyone told her to forget about him, that he’s no good, he’s using her, but she denies it. She seems much better, calmer than when she first came in. Soft-spoken at times.

Family therapy was suggested by the team.

Both E. [my college roommate] and A. stopped by tonight. In shifts, instead of like last time. A. came first, around 7. He left at 8. E. stayed until almost 9, since they didn’t check my room again. I almost kissed A. tonight.

I started telling E. about everything—how Marla stole Helen’s water and Helen hit her and got solitary, and how Ivory kisses Mr. Matthews’ father, and how Jeannette’s mother didn’t like her because she was the darkest child, and how Heiko used to be a grad student, and Mr. Matthews a professor, and how George had fondled Chris and the cleaning lady, and how Chris said she’d kill herself if she has Parkinson’s, and how Eric got solitary and threatened to break the glass door with his walker, and how Judy cried out “Help me, help me,” in the morning, waking Audry up, and how Chris calls people “fellahs” and used to run a nursing home in California until her sister called her back to take care of their father who was dying of Parkinson’s, and, well, everything that’s happened since I got here, and I think she was impressed.

I miss Smokey’s IV rolling beside him like a pet.

Dad wrote a letter, which he gave to Mom to give to me: just a little reminder that he’s on my side.

Saturday, May 30, 1992 12:15 a.m.

Since I wrote out my list of patients there have been a few additions.

Alex: A tall, slim, handsome young man who was checked in today. His wife/girlfriend, a hovering, Doc Martens-wearing woman, escorted him. Chris likes him, but Marla refused to sit next to him while watching the Bulls game on TV.

James: Chris says that he went to jail for 15 years when he was 21, and he only recently got out. That would put him at 36 or so, although he looks a lot older. His face is really wrinkled, and he’s basically just a bag of bones. Ivory was talking to him tonight, which I found both heartwarming and disturbing.

Marissa: Quiet, mousy, staring, uncomfortable-looking. She’s only been here a few days, though, so maybe she’ll loosen up. But I doubt it. They took her blood at breakfast this morning—right there at the table and everything.

Today’s my pass. I asked to get out so I could pack, but I think the first thing I’ll do is shave my legs. Then I’d like to go shopping, copy A.’s computer games, and get my hair cut. I can get a pass Sunday, too, so maybe I’ll pack then.

A. and I have not been lucky with phone calls lately. I hope I can see him Sunday—maybe he’ll help me pack, etc. Or maybe I can visit him over finals. Or maybe I’ll see him over the summer, in Boston.

Which, by the way, is where Mom and Dad are going tomorrow. They stopped by tonight and we had a nice(?) long(!) talk about how they’ve screwed up my life. They said it’s a parent’s job to screw up their child’s life. Typical.

These are some of the results of my psych test:

I’m angry, but I don’t show it, and may not even be aware of it at times.

I don’t see things the same way other people do.

I’m wrapped up in my own problems right now—too wrapped up to see other people’s points of view.

I dislike other people having a say over my life, but at the same time I rely on others, making me hate those I depend on and myself.

I am indirect with my feelings.

I feel anger and other emotions physically; I’m more likely to feel tired than depressed, tense than angry.

I have a desire to be rescued.

I have low self-esteem.

A brief commercial break, and then back to Aunty Christ’s crazy story

2008-11-11T11:05:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I volunteer at my local animal shelter. The dogs in their cages make me sad, with their howling and shrinking into corners, and their eyes denoting only fear and loneliness and an abysmal loss of hope. The cats, in their even smaller cages, with their sad little stuffed mouses and bits of yarn, are similarly pathetic. Adding to the tragedy of both, the staff sometimes bestows upon their favorites, or the ones least likely to find a new home, a colorful bandanna tied around the neck of some elderly Lab or tabby, and a poster made with markers and glitter, announcing that here is a Good Boy who Knows How to Sit and Fetch.

I work with the small animals. They typically live in small cages, anyway, and being in the presence of so many other kicking, squawking creatures, and so many index fingers poked abruptly through bars is disturbing, yes, but they seem to handle it better than the dogs and cats. Better than I would, too, come to think of it.

Usually, the stories from the small-animal room are brief and kind of stinky. They find homes quickly, most of them, and while at the shelter they live in relative peace. Not Simon, though.

Simon is a handsome man who enjoys ice fishing, Thai food, and long walks on the beach. He’s looking for his partner in crime, who enjoys late-night chats and salsa dancing, for friendship and possibly more.

The shelter material on Simon reads:

"Meet Simon! This poor boy came to the shelter with one of his best friends to which he was bonded with. His friend passed away and now Simon is sad! He has made new friends with his favorite stuffed animal - and until he finds a new rabbit or guinea pig, he will need to live with his Gorilla friend."

Which is absolutely heart-breaking. His best friend in the world died, and now he’s friends with a stuffed gorilla. I saw Simon and said gorilla pal this weekend. The gorilla is tiny, about the size of an apple, perched in Simon’s litter tray. Simon cannot be happy.

It’s as if, when you were in fifth grade, your very best friend in the world, your only friend, the girl you passed notes with and talked to every day on the phone, and slept over at each other’s houses every weekend, and the only person you could talk with about your latest crush or why your big brother was a poophead, that girl has moved away to the other side of the country and you will never see her again, but at least your parents bought you a garbage can.

The Simon situation makes me incredibly sad.

So, here is more journal from the nuthouse. I think it’s getting interesting right about now, but let me know if it’s not and I'll steal a couple scenes from “Girl, Interrupted.”

Sunday, May 24 (?), 1992, 12:25 p.m.

A few notes:

P.’s coming today to visit. Probably already on his way.

George is a sex offender. That’s why he’s in here. Last night he rubbed against/touched/fondled (depending on who you talk to) Chris. Everyone was very cautious in bed last night.

I’m still having X memories. Strong. Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I lay in bed remembering. I could cry, I want some so bad!

Helen has been raped by four men—her father, her husband, and two others (will have to get story later). She works in a coroner’s office, weighing organs and such.

Jeanette was the darkest of her siblings, and therefore the least loved. Her mother liked her sister the best—she had an Indian complexion and straight hair.

Jeannette (on the phone) turned to me this morning and said, “You know what I sense about you?” I shook my head no. “Someday, you’ll see God, because you’re a good person.” I smiled and was silent for a minute. “Thank you, Jeanette.” What else could I say to that? She had her hair up today, in a style reminiscent of the ’70s.

Same day, 7:06 p.m.

Chris was quite adamant about letting the administration know how she feels about George. She got a group of us “gals” together, and we chatted with a nurse—mostly about how to protect ourselves, until I asked whether anything would be done about him. The nurse said that his behavior would be taken into account by the team in their analysis. BFD. I hinted that some of us felt unsafe, and she said to scream if anything happened and a nurse would hear us. Chris kept looking to me for support, and seemed to want me to voice her opinions for her.

Jeanette was talking about her mother today. Ninety-four years old and straight black hair down to her shoulders, with only three white strands.

May 24, 1992, about 12:20 a.m.

Today was kind of strange, even for a day in W-3. P. came at 1, and A. came at 7:30 or so. They almost let him stay—never checked the room—but finally someone came and booted him. I really like A. He’s a fantastic slob. Every time I see him he falls asleep, or threatens to. He’s worse than P., though, self-esteem wise. He’d never make a move, so I think I’ll have to. Although I have a pretty bad self-esteem too. Teenage angst!

P. was cool. Uncomfortable but cool. I hadn’t talked all day, so I was a bit rusty at first. I think he thinks I’m insane. He brought me two coloring books, crayons, an MC Escher book, and “The Wind in the Willows.”

Jori is restless tonight. I’m not sure if she’s asleep or not.

I had the most luscious X flashbacks today. I can’t start thinking about X or I’ll never stop. Every time I do think about X, I want some. Or some something, X being the primary something and everything else being secondary somethings. I should have never let it get this bad. That’s why I can’t continue smoking. I’d be just as bad, if not worse, when I tried to quit that. Actually, I want a cigarette really bad right now. I keep thinking that maybe I’ll keep smoking when I get out of here, though. I mean, I deserve some vice.

Jori is still restless.

Aunty Christ is getting this the hell over with

2008-11-10T11:44:00.000-08:00

As the title suggests, here is Part Two before I change my mind. Enjoy. Or don't. Whichever works for you.

Saturday, May 23(?), 1992, 9:24 p.m.

I want to cover two issues today: the other patients here, and my parents’ visit. To discuss the patients, I will simply list them and jot down a few notes of relevance, or complete irrelevance, perhaps. [I’m going to use actual names, rather than initials, for the patients, since the initial thing is going to get too confusing with this many people.]

Helen: Tall, slim, a real lady. She tries to help the other patients whenever she can. She talks frankly, she’s friendly. She likes to do other patients’ hair and has taken under her wing Ivory.

Ivory: 15, has apparently grabbed a few male workers here. Subject to bouts of depression and maniacal good moods—shuffles, head down during the low times, giggles insanely during the up.

Jeanette: An older lady (middle aged), maybe in her late 40s. Has a smooshed-down face and wears wide glasses with black frames. Has the sweetest, strangest voice, which I could listen to for hours. A very nice, grandmotherly lady who seems to like everything.

Joe: Grossly overweight, recipient of a new haircut that might be forgivable on a 10-year-old, has strange facial tics. Apparently is a guinea pig for a new drug, the effects of which are unknown (makes him make strange faces?).

Smokey: Must be 30 or so, even though, as Jeanette observed, he seems like a little boy. His body is deformed, almost, and he seems to have a variety of things wrong with him. His parents come to visit every night—and really, they seem nice enough folk—but all Smokey can talk about is the different hospitals he’s been in, and their exact locations around Chicago.

Vernel: Overweight, with a round afro, which accentuates her round face. Talks to herself (loudly!). Snores just as loudly. Obtrusive at times, but always well-meaninged. Has asked to buy one of my books (Jung, no less) from me. Carries a dictionary with her and, noticing that I keep a journal, decided to work out her own thoughts on paper,

Chris: Taught me how to play backgammon, which she learned herself and played often in college. Is friendly to everyone. She has a slight speech impediment and also seems not to be able to hear very well.

Heiko: A former grad student at U of C, now a shuffling, foot-tapping, silent mess. Never changes clothes.

Eric: A friendly, smiling man with a walker. Appears to have no problems, other than, perhaps, being a little dense.

Audry: The other undergrad here. An English major (third-year transfer student), she mostly keeps to herself. She seems kind of silly compared to everyone else—using her hospital stay and an R and R session to catch up on her studies.

Mr. Matthews: The oldest patient at W-3. I’ve never heard him talk, though I have seen him break into tears. Bearded, bespectacled, most of the time in a wheelchair and hospital robe. He frequently has visitors, who talk to him, but of course he can’t respond.

Judy: An older woman, probably in her 50s or so. Hardly ever talks, and when she does, she sounds like a three-year-old. Acts like a three-year-old too. Prays before and after each meal, and crosses herself too. Usually stays in her room, unless the nurses take her out to eat or watch TV.

Gary: An angry young man. He doesn’t talk much, nor do I see him very often. Most of the conversations he’s had that I’ve been present to hear have been about cigarettes and why he can’t smoke in the ward and why he can’t have his own cigarettes and—well—anything else that has to do with smoking.

George: A mountain of a man, with a wild head of hair and just as crazy beard. Never talks, or, at least, speaks infrequently. Oh yeah—wide, crazy eyes too. Very strange.

Jori: My roommate. Hardly ever speaks to me, but has been leaving the room a little more often, at least. Reads a lot—books of the top-seller-list variety. Has two kids. Former coke user. I’ve been tempted to have a drug chat with her, but I haven’t worked up the nerve. Seems friendly, pleasant face.

Marla: Overweight, high voice, bleached hair held back with a plastic yellow headband, wears fluorescent pink lipstick. Married. Always the same outfit or (upon occasion) a variation on said outfit. Likes to sing, and has a very good voice.

Cynthia: Meek, middle-aged. Not much to add to that.

Marion: An elderly woman who uses a walker to get around. Seems fairly nice, but every once in a while gets into that pushy, self-centered mode that old women are so fond of.

There are 21 of us altogether, so I must have missed a couple. If I think of them and think it’s important, I’ll add them later. But for now I want to write about my parents’ visit.

Everyone here was very concerned about how I would react to seeing my parents. It was no big deal, actually. My father is acting kind of strange I guess. Different. Nice, but different. Nice is different, actually, for my dad.

When I’ve talked to my parents on the phone, all our conversations have been about neutral subjects: The pets, television programs. We actually discussed some real issues today, which was strange and uncomfortable and confusing. We talked about what was in store for me next year and this summer. My options, as they saw them, were either to go to [a community college] next quarter or back here. I hadn’t considered [community college], so that was a new possibility. And they were basically in agreement with me about finding a job this summer and going to a therapist. So I have plans, and I have support for those plans, which is what the doctors wanted. They were more into me taking it easy this summer, though, whereas I’m looking forward to pushing myself.

I did confess my drug use last quarter, which they knew about, of course, so their reaction wasn’t too bad. I brought up the idea of an AA-type support group (XA?) They thought it was a good idea.

I’ve been having—not flashbacks, really, but thinkbacks, maybe. Or wishbacks. Setbacks, definitely. I’m fine now. I’m fairly happy. Right now I’d characterize my mood as content—sitting here listening to Joe and Jeanette talking about their grandmothers, watching Ivory walk back and forth in the hallway across the dayroom. When I get a visitor I’m happy. I was happy to see Mom and Dad. I was happy to see I. I was happy to see A. Little things make me happy. Not HAPPY. Just happy.

So when I think about X, or how I felt when I was on X, it’s like I’m already getting nostalgic for it. Wasn’t that great when I went for walks with J. around the quads at night, or when I played solitaire by candlelight, or when we went to Medusa’s or when we were listening to [embarrassing techno-emo crap]? Oh god, it’s making me sick right now, thinking about that. And what’s bad is that I know that as happy as I think I was, I was a billion times happier. My sober brain can’t even process it. Maybe it is a kind of flashback, because right now I can almost summon up the feeling. It’s great and scary at the same time, feeling how I used to feel. Diluted, of course, but the same basic feeling nevertheless.

This has been a long entry for tonight, but I’m still not tired, and there’s more I want to say.

Something else that needs my attention, although not my immediate attention, is A. I’ll only be here a few more days, and he’ll be leaving campus soon too. So there’s not a chance for anything between us right now. But maybe sometime before I leave for home I’ll tell him how I feel about him. I do like him. He should know that, I guess. Maybe that would give him some much-needed confidence. I think he likes me too, although I’m probably wrong, or at least not as right as I think I am. But I’ll tell him that I like him—jokingly—maybe ask him when we’re going to start our family. And we’ll write over the summer. And he’ll refer to me as that dysfunctional girl who used to like him, even though I’ll always have a little crush on him, but we’ll remain close friends even though I’ll go to school across the country and date other guys, and he’ll date other girls and we’ll remember the “Net” [The “Net”? That's adorable.] fondly and nostalgically. Ahh. I’m looking forward to it already.

Audry is sitting at the table next to me, writing furiously. I’m sure that she, too, views this as An Experience. I dislike her immensely, maybe because I see parts of her in myself. Those are the parts I want to rip out and feed to wild animals.

I’d prefer a million Helens and Chrises talking about nothing than one Audry, pouring out her wretched little heart onto paper with furious strokes of her gold-embossed pen.

But what a hypocrite I am. Here I am, doing exactly the same thing.

Aunty Christ is insane

2008-11-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

One of the weirdest experiences in my life was going to college, becoming hooked on Ecstasy, and then having myself committed to the university’s mental institution. It’s not difficult to imagine that a mental ward is an odd, crazy-making space for anyone to be in. It makes a good story, anyway.

The basic premise is: I try X with a friend who has dropped out of school and is living off campus. I try it again. I like doing it. I have trouble getting out of bed in the mornings—or even in the afternoon—to go to class. I have not attended class in weeks. I worry about what my parents will do when they find out I haven’t been going to class. I worry that I have made a singularly unalterable mistake by taking drugs. I worry that I have been immoral. I see a therapist a few times. One of my sister’s friends calls to check in on me, and I confide my worries. The friend tells my mother, and suddenly I have no idea what to do. I pack up and leave for New Jersey to visit a friend for the weekend. Maybe forever. Maybe I will go from there to New York, and no one will ever find me. I buy a bus ticket back. I go directly to my therapist’s office, where the following conversation takes place:

Therapist: What are your plans now?

Me: I don’t know.

Therapist: Do you ever think about hurting yourself?

Me: Yeah.

Therapist: Do you ever think about committing suicide?

Me: Yes.

Therapist: Do you have a plan about how you’d do it?

Me: Yes.

Therapist: I am going to recommend that we go over to the hospital’s facilities where we can have someone keep an eye on you. Would you like that?

Me: I guess so.

Had he asked me if I was actually going to kill myself, the answer would have been no. I think. It may have depended on how he asked it. At this point, I was trying to maintain some sort of control over at least the smallest details of my life. Giving my therapist the answers he seemed to want helped me feel as though I was able to do something right, despite all my other missteps.

So I ended up in the mental ward, and I kept a journal, which is slightly embarrassing to read now. I tried to post it on another blog I had, which had more than four readers, and subsequently scared away all the readers I had. I can understand. Blogging is a fully self-indulgent activity, and the thoughts of an 18-year-old in a mental ward are perhaps even more so. Ah, so there we are. I was thinking, though, of writing a post about my concerns about going to law school, and that seems even more boring and self-indulgent. When it comes down to it, it’s almost like, Would you rather burn at the stake or be chopped into a million pieces, toes first? How, dear readers, would you most like me to bore you to tears today?

I am going to post this in delicious bite-size nuggets of boredom and self-indulgence—the better to choke it all down. We start now. We’ll be done in about a week, if you want to check back then.

Monday, May 18, 1992, 10:30 a.m., Ward W-3

Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?
Why the hell am I here?

On the bus from Cleveland to Chicago, I sat with a man named R. He was dirty and smelly and I found him attractive only in the vaguest of terms. Yet, when he offered to give me a backrub, I didn’t stop him. I mean, I was stuck with him for seven hours, so it made sense that I be nice to him, right? It was repulsive, though, the things that he wanted to do to me. I mean, the things themselves weren’t repulsive, but rather that they would be done on a bus with a stranger who kept farting and made stupid jokes and had incredibly small feet.

My mind is a blank. Why am I here? I should be home. I should be in my room right now. I shouldn’t be here. How can they help? What can this do—keeping me away from my friends? How can this help in the least?

These are the signs on the wall (all cut from a newspaper):

Have to have it? Get it here! Nobody compares.
Experience counts!
Do You Blame Us?
Three-Time Winner.

On one wall, they have posted the lyrics to “I Am a Rock.”

I hope I don’t go insane here.

Wednesday, May 21, 1992, approximately 11:20 p.m.

One thing I’ve noticed, which hasn’t been made an issue yet, really, with my doctors, is an extremely short attention span, along with great memory loss. This is most apparent in my vocabulary and speech patterns. I’m using “like” and “um” and “you know” and “I mean” a lot more than I used to. A lot more. I’m not sure what that means.

And if I don’t pay strict attention to what I’m saying, I completely lose my train of thought. A lot of times I’ll be talking to someone and—even though I may not lose my train of thought exactly—I’ll start thinking, “Is what I’m saying making sense? Am I babbling? Did I go off onto a completely different subject just now?” It’s quite infuriating, especially to someone who’d hoped to earn her living by communicating with other people. Is it the drugs? Is it this place? Is it my state of mind?

I think (this is one possibility, anyway), that right now I just have so many thoughts and so many new ideas that my brain is having a hard time processing everything all at once. That’s the least scary option, at any rate. But at least I feel more like myself lately, which means that at least I’m talking.

Whether it makes sense or not is secondary, I suppose.

May 21(?), 1992, 1:02 p.m.

Boredom sets in. I feel extremely restless. I can envision myself walking on a gravel road somewhere in the country, with fields stretching into the distance to the right and to the left of me, and ahead of me the clear sky of dusk. I want to walk. If nothing else, I’d like to do that.

I’m listening to Bryan Ferry on the radio, and it’s soothing. Comforting. Familiar.

I’m not sure why I’m in here anymore. I guess it’s okay, in that I don’t have to do anything or think about anything or see anyone. But it’s also annoying for the same reason. I like to push myself in everything I do, I guess, and maybe right now it would be pushing myself to go out into the real world. But maybe not. I think it would be to my benefit. I hate remaining stagnant. I’m bored, bored, bored. Maybe if they did continuous psychological testing I would feel better about being here—like they were actually doing something. No, that would annoy me too. It seems like everything’s annoying right now. Nothing seems to make me happy. Which, I guess, is a fairly dangerous situation for me to be in. Because I’m starting to lose hope.

Another way to look at it: My life is not a “quality” life. Anything less than a quality life is not worth living. That doesn’t mean that I’m feeling suicidal, but it does make me feel restless. So it’s a cycle: restlessness creates restlessness.

I. [an acquaintance] gave me a lot of hope when he came in a few days ago. I really like I. I’d like to become his pupil—learn everything that he knows, every thought he’s ever had.

I. has his own philosophy, which goes like this: Life is bad. We are all born under “evil stars.” And when something goes wrong, it’s not your fault, and it’s not anyone else’s fault. That’s just life. And something else will go right, if you wait long enough. (I know this sounds tired, but I forget a lot of what he said—I just remember the basic points.) Plus, you have to believe in something. And instead of putting all your faith in God, it’s better to believe in yourself.

My dad kind of said the same thing: Life is a moving sidewalk, and the sidewalk will take you past different people and through different situations, but it will always keep moving, and it will always bring new people and new situations.

Those are kind of nice ideologies, but I’m not sure if I agree with them, or rather, with the way they make you think. Life is … Life. It’s not a sidewalk, and it’s not a book or a movie or something that happens around you or something that you simply experience with other people and places reacting to your stimulus. It all works together—you, other people, places, situations. I’m not exactly sure what my philosophy of life is. I’ll have to think about that. Maybe I’ll major in philosophy, even!

What a terrible place to end this. But the next entry is very very long. Anyone else want to kick the 18-year-old Aunty Christ in the face for being such an awful person? I feel like I must have been joking with that last line, and perhaps with that entire entry. But what if I wasn't?

Also: Will I look back at what I'm writing now some years hence and determine that the person I am now is an awful person and the Aunty Christ of the future is really where it's at?

Good questions all. Or maybe really bad, depressing questions. Time will tell. Next up: My fellow inmates.

Aunty Christ is going to hell

2008-11-02T12:59:00.000-08:00

I feel like there’s something intrinsically creepy about late October, even though I know that this feeling is probably informed by my familiarity with the modern Western calendar. As I walked home the other night from a coworker’s house, for example, everything looked like a distraction from the psychokiller crouching behind the bush. Leaves were rustling overhead and crunching beneath my shoes. I passed a house with pressed-wood furniture scattered across the lawn. A man yelled to an offending person in his yard, “You better find a pay phone and call the cops, ‘cause there’s gonna be some shit going down tonight.”

Jesus fuck, man. A pay phone? Scaaaary.

A few weeks ago, said coworker had sent me and a few other girls at work an email inviting us to a party. Now, Aunty Christ does not love a party. But isolation and loneliness are powerful forces, more powerful, in fact, than a general dislike of meeting a coworker’s friends from church and eating onion dip. It should be mentioned that already at this point I had a basic understanding that the party—whatever else it was—would not be fun. The coworker (she needs a name at this point; I shall christen her Denise) had told me in previous conversations that she doesn’t like to drink, so it wasn’t going to be one of those parties, for better or for worse. And she had mentioned on several occasions that her husband’s father is pastor at a local church, and that that church is so so nice and I would probably really enjoy it. And also that the people in the church don’t really like new people and would probably act icily toward me, at best, and perhaps shun me outright. The conversation actually went exactly like that. “I don’t know if you’re looking for a church, but you should really check it out. It’s really great. I mean, it’s small, so the people there are kind of suspicious of people they haven’t seen before. I think after about a year, people started coming up to talk to me.” No, that sounds wonderful, Denise. I find that I’m lacking something in my life, and that hole can almost certainly be filled by making myself available for icy strangers to deliberately snub.

So, the party sounded like lots of fun already. But apparently this was not just any party. No, Denise had planned this party as kind of a coming out/training session for her new, second career in direct sales of scented candles.

As I suspected, the crowd was largely comprised of Denise’s church friends—though at least one of them, despite all that had been promised, was quite nice, actually. Or maybe she saw me as an easy mark. I sat next to her on Denise’s couch, so she had easy access to me as she leafed through the catalog and orgasmed over the ugliest of the tacky candleholders and holiday tchotchkes on each page. “I love the Classy Collection,” she said, pointing to a pair of mirrored gold vases. “Oh, beautiful,” I agreed.

"Oh my God, I’m going to buy one of these. Maybe two. Aren’t you? Wouldn’t these make nice gifts? I’m going to make a list of all the people in my life who deserve these. Aren’t you?"

Since it was Denise’s first party, she had as her mentor-hostess a more seasoned candleslinger, who as a fun party ice-breaker suggested that we all introduce ourselves and think of an adjective to describe Denise starting with the first letter of our first name. How … kicky. “I’m looking at you,” she told me, “because you’re going first.” Which gave me 10 seconds’ warning, maybe, to come up with my word. And the words that my mind was coming up with—abominable, abysmal, ancient, atrocious, absorbent, alienating—were mostly cruel and fully inapplicable to Denise. “Animated,” someone suggested, and although it wasn’t great, I leapt on it, gratefully, the first hurdle of the night over.

Next, the senior hostess gave an unconvincing speech about how we wouldn’t be conned or cajoled into throwing a party of our own or becoming a part of the direct-sales-of-scented-candles family, followed by several minutes of talking about how wonderful it is to throw a candle party and/or join the scented-candle team. Then the sales pitch began: Candles! Do you like them? In all fairness, my answer to that question is kind of … eh. I mean, is the power out?

They had all kinds of candles, from pillars to tealights, scented in every flavor imaginable, from candy cane to gym sock (or: cedar-caraway?). But the real selling point, I guess, was that these are much better candles, which brings to mind one of my favorite infomercial images: The exhausted housewife driven to frustration over having to do things the old-fashioned way. Are you tired of candles leaving a sooty mess on your walls? Oh—you would not believe the nasty, libelous attributes this lady was pinning on the commonplace candle. “Do any of you use tea candles?” she asked, not wanting an answer. “How long do they last typically?” “Only maybe half an hour,” one guest ventured. “No! No!” Senior Hostess said. “No, they last maybe 15 minutes. Probably, like, 10 minutes. Our tealights last half an hour,” she said. She was so mad. Her thunder had been stolen. She was not about to let that happen again.

“And the problem with pillar candles is that you burn them and then what happens? Yes, they look ugly. But our candles burn soft, so you can shape—or hug—the outsides and keep them looking pretty! Or, I don’t know if this has happened to any of you—I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve done this—where you buy a nice, big pillar candle, and you think it’s going to burn for probably 100 hours, right? And then you go to light it for the second time, and the wick’s disappeared!” She recounted probably ten absolutely alarmist concerns about regular, non-Direct Sale brand candles that have never, ever occurred to me. Like, not one had to do with burning the house down, or looking like a crazy old single woman lives in your house because you have so many scented candles scattered about its surfaces.

With a lot of the stories Senior Hostess shared during the course of making candle-buying seem a lot more important than it actually is, you didn’t have to scratch too far below the surface to see that things weren’t going so well for her. Why should we consider hosting our own party? Well, for one thing, as women—she would like us to consider—how often do we have the time to just get away from our husbands and our kids and hang out with other women? Or, isn’t it nice to get away from those infernal pests and visit with someone who is willing to listen to you complain about them? And, in discussing the innovative candle holder that consisted of one curved pane of glass next to another curved pane of glass, between which could be placed any number of flimsy-looking items purchased at your local hobby store, she brought up: “Another thing I’ve done with this is, I don’t know if any of your kids have gone through this phase, where they just keep drawing pictures, and they want you to keep or display all of them? Well, I would take one drawing every day and put it in this candle holder and light a candle, and you just can’t imagine how special this made my daughter feel, and finally she shut up about her stupid drawings and let me have one moment’s peace.” (She didn’t say the last part out loud. She let her sad, slightly crazed eyes speak it for her.)

In a seemingly unrelated side note, I just finished watching “Hell House,” a documentary about Trinity Church’s Halloween pageant, which displays such God-affirming scenes as the tragedy of homosexuality and how people, um, die and go to hell after taking RU-486. I took that once. Condom broke, I didn’t want to risk getting pregnant. And then of course immediately I died and went to hell. So yeah, Hell House is probably filling a vital role by letting girls know what to expect after taking the morning-after pill. You won’t hear that from the liberal media, that’s for sure.

And then there’s the time I went to a rave and then died and went to hell, but … ha ha ha. That’s a crazy story for another day.

The weird thing about the movie—or, I should say, one weird thing about the movie—was that the movie seems to be making fun of the people it’s depicting, even though it also seems to be totally endorsed by the church. I guess one more example of the recent American trend toward being proud and dumb and proud to be dumb. You’ve got people on camera saying things like, “It’s a date-rape drug. I know it has a name. I guess we’ll put it in later. It’s the … it’s like the Official Date-Rape Drug.” Of the Olympics, dude? Of the NFL? Finally, in a script meeting, they settle on “mickey,” which isn’t quite right, but one can’t expect evangelicals to do any research on the social pitfalls they’re writing about. The internet is evil, of course, so it’s probably best to just sit back and wait for the breath of God to enter your hands, like in the old days. And (to a lady reading back the script she’s typed): “No, it’s not Magic; it’s called Magic: the Gathering.” “Okay, ‘Magic and the Gathering.’ ” “No, I think the name is Magic: the Gathering.” “I’ve got: ‘I fell in with a group of kids who played with the magic gathering…’ ” “Well, the name is…” “The magic cards game?” “Just say ‘Magic.’ ”

The purpose of Hell House is to scare its patrons into accepting Jesus by showing them how any behavior, habit or personality trait that deviates from the lifestyle endorsed by evangelicals will probably land you, the sinner, in hell, where you will be tortured for eternity by demons wearing 1990s club-kid makeup.

A secondary purpose though—or at least I have my suspicions—is to provide Christian teens with an outlet for their curiosity about the more titillating aspects of secular society. You can’t listen to the high schoolers reading the audition list without feeling this to some extent. “I really want to be the abortion girl.” “Cool, I’m the rapist!”

She voted for Obama. Oh Bah Mah. That’s not a Christian American name. She deserves to die and burn in hell. You may applaud now.

I guess I started off thinking about how there is the Trinity Church idea of what hell is and how one gets there, and then there is my idea of what hell is (a direct-sale scented candle party) and how one gets there (by responding to an email; or, on foot, a few blocks thataway). But really, the more I consider the actual evil that went into the creation of Hell House, the more I think that’s a wildly unfair comparison, given that no one involved in the candle party actually intended to inflict harm on my fragile psyche. That was just an unintended consequence. In contrast: The scene where a guy at a rave gives a girl a roofie and rapes her ends with her killing herself and going to hell. The scene where the wife of a drunken, belligerent lout is found to be having an online relationship and is killed by said lout in front of their already emotionally scarred daughter ends with the wife being taken away to hell by demons. Anyone noticing a pattern? If not, let me spell it out for you: Trinity Church wants you to believe that women who place their purity or their faithful devotion to their husbands in jeopardy, either by carelessness or by design, will die (probably immediately) and go to hell. But the rapist? The abusive drunk husband? Oh, they’re fine. Whatever.

One of the men running Hell House ended up, through the caprices of documentary-style confrontation, talking to a group of straw men who had just exited the house. “But you’re saying that just because he’s gay he’s going to hell, and that’s not right,” one young man said. “Well, no, the point of the scene is that he rejects Christ before he dies,” Church guy explains, and that kind of shuts them up for a while. Even I am more okay with using that as your litmus test for who gets to go to heaven than, say, sexual orientation or mental stability. But then why doesn’t Trinity also present a scene with the old woman who went to church every Sunday of her life but also subtly has been abusing her family for years, and grudgingly did charitable work around the community, always feeling like her special brand of generosity was being taken advantage of by her lessers?

The easy answer is that they’re striving for shock value. The even easier answer is that they’re judgmental, self-aggrandizing, brain-dead idiots who find meaning and value in their willingness to take things for granted, to not analyze, to not examine. I think both of these are true, and yet. I still feel sad that these are people who choose not to appreciate the brains they’ve been given. Who choose to categorize differences as either acceptable or unacceptable rather than trying to learn something about the people and ideas found outside their own small communities and let that understanding speak to a broader view of the world.

Most of all, I feel sad because these are the people who, to a greater and greater extent, are populating this nation, and in order to not be hypocritical, I have to try to not pre-judge, not dismiss them as “bad,” even though they and their political and philosophical beliefs are undermining the country, and preaching hate against people I love, and advancing policy that looks to hold nothing but bad for the country’s future.

Sorry for the rant. I really need Obama to win.

Aunty Christ is neither pretty nor is she a girl

2008-10-27T23:41:00.000-07:00

You wake up in the morning, and the knot in your stomach is still there. The clock reads 4:14 A.M., and the first cogent thought of the day is just this: Fear. Your company will fire you. You will run out of money. You will get thrown out of your home. You will not be able to find another job. You will not be able to find another house to rent. You will not be able to pay your bills.

It is impossible to get back to sleep. But it’s dark, and if you get up now you’ll be tired as well as worried. You flip onto your stomach and push your hand through your hair twice, to move it away from your face. Everything is all right for now. There are a few people in your department who are sure to be fired before you. Maybe you can find another job.

At 5:08 you wake again, and this time the fear in your stomach is insistent. This has been the start of every day for the past six months. Or more. Maybe forever.

When you started working from home, you told yourself that things would improve. You would have more time to yourself. No more packing a lunch. No more driving. More time to walk the dogs. Maybe you could take a class in conversational Italian—who knows? And no more afternoons spent listening to your deskmate’s dire warnings about the company’s future. The company wants to send its employees home as a money-saving measure. First you got the email asking employees to please turn off any lights they weren’t using in the office, and then managers actually started turning off overhead lights as people were still working. Now that the office is down to a manageable size, it will move to a cheaper site, packing its files for storage in a cheaper state and its remaining staff into even smaller, even draftier cubicles. But working for a dying industry from home has its own pitfalls.

While it’s true that the first week you were still showering in the morning and managing to put yourself every day into some semblance of an outfit that could be worn on the street, the second and third weeks of working from home were marked by lunchtime showers, every other day sometimes. By now, you shower in the evenings, and change from pajamas into clean pajamas, from slippers to socks. You can’t even think why conversational Italian sounded interesting. Now you think, maybe you can start taking walks in the evening. Maybe cleaning the house would be interesting. The time saved by not packing lunch, not driving, never materializes. Where does it go? It slips unnoticed through the crack of your office door, into the pockets of your fleece pants, into the deepening crease between your eyes.

Two weeks ago, your work load was unmanageable, and your boss told your department that if everyone continued to fall behind the company would take the work away and give it to another office that could manage getting files out in time. Today, there are eight available files, then ten, then six, then none. You email your former deskmate: “What are you doing?” He’s alone. The boys left about an hour an a half ago, just after your boss did. Your boss went to his friend’s house to help him fix his water heater. “At least the economy is strong,” your friend writes. “All the companies are begging for examiners. We can probably just walk in anywhere and they’d let us work there.” Your boss’ friend’s pilot light was out. He was out of the office for two hours fixing it.

The elder statesman of the office, a man from California, who moved to your city for his job, is hung over again, your friend emails. He’s in his 60s, probably close to retirement age. You imagine he’s sick of watching his 401(k) shrink day after day. He’s sick of taking jobs with no security. He’s sick of four decades of expertise being unappreciated and overlooked in favor of cheaper, dumber labor. You are too. He cushions his fear with alcohol, apparently. You do too.

A few nights ago, over a couple of beers, you watched a show called “Office Tigers,” a documentary about a company in India that provides office support for American businesses. In a scene where some of the workers are being groomed for management positions, they are asked what makes them better than the American workers they replace. In America, one says, everyone has insurance from the government so they don’t need to work. Another says that American workers listen to headphones and eat popcorn at their desks, and this apparently makes them bad workers. You enjoy popcorn, occasionally.

You’re a hard worker. But you find it difficult to work these days. If you work overtime, when you get fired you’ll regret losing your nights and weekends, your health and your sanity, to your job. If you don’t work overtime, when you get fired you’ll wonder if you could have saved your job by working more overtime.

You have thought of your savings at least 20 times today. You have made a list of things you can sell. You check Craigslist, but the only jobs you’re qualified for were listed by the staffing agency that’s already rejected your resume twice. You need a beer.

When you take a break from the computer and stand on the deck, enjoying a smoke, the streets in your neighborhood are quiet. Two months ago, you would have assumed that everyone was busy working. Now, the quiet seems ominous, as though all of society has come to a halt. The buzz of industry is replaced by actual insects, as far as you can tell. Flies have made a landing strip of your deck. People stay home.

You will think of all this later, tomorrow morning as you lie awake in the dark. Your stomach will hurt. Everything is hurting.

Aunty Christ’s lady secret is ruining her life

2008-10-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

Four words: Lady Secret Fashion Clothing. It is awesome! Tremble at the mighty power of Lady Secret Fashion Clothing!

I don’t actually have much to say about Lady Secret Fashion Clothing, except that it is a store that I pass frequently, and that its name is far more amusing than it is accurate. My thought is, the lady who shops at Lady Secret Fashion Clothing has few secrets. The secret is out, for example, about your terrible predilection for peach-colored asymmetrical gowns. To be honest, I think I saw a bit of your lady secret peeking out from the hem of your very small gold lamé shorts. I did not want to mention it, but I did.

Hello! I guess something should be said about Aunty Christ’s long absence. And now something has. Let’s move on, shall we?

For me, 2008 has been The Year of My Own Body’s Demise. Most recently, my back has decided to go out on me. My sacrum, in particular. Oh, I know! The sacrum: It is disgusting! Had I known such a horrifying creature was living inside me, I would have insisted it be removed long ago. If I wanted my body to play host to a horny, holey, sea-creaturey looking thingamabob, I suppose I would just have sex with Tommy Lee Jones.

Absolutely disgusting. Why any of us put up with this sort of thing is a mystery.

So, the chiropractor advises, among other things, frequent walks. I have been walking a little bit. Hobbling, shuffling, the thug dawgs at my side. We stopped yesterday afternoon in the park to play Stick, which is an exciting new game of the thugs’ invention. The way to play Stick is, I pick up a stick and shriek, “Stick! You want fetch stick? Go fetch stick!”, working the boys into a lather of anticipation. Then, I toss the stick, and the thugs merrily commence humping each other. Oh, it’s good fun, for adults and children alike. Yesterday, in fact, this game was being watched by a guy on a bench, with a woman lying next to him, her head in his lap. He nudged his girlfriend, so that she could look at tha thugs humping. What fun! Except also: Kind of sick. What two consenting thug dawgs do in the privacy of a public park is none of your business, mister. Go look at porn on the internet or something. Absolutely perverted, some people.

Leading up to this latest trauma, a few months ago I received in the mail an envelope from Planned Parenthood, containing therein an alarming letter with results from my latest pap. Men, you may wish to avert your eyes for the next few moments, because the story I am about to relate is disgusting. But I do it for science.

The letter said that my results were abnormal, and that I should make an appointment as soon as possible for a colposcopy. Which, if you are not familiar with the term, as I wasn’t, can be loosely defined as a form of torture imposed upon women as punishment for … whatever. What I’ve done in my life to deserve such treatment, I can only guess. I feel I’ve lived a good life. I try not to inflict harm on others. Perhaps I drive too erratically for the liking of some, or perhaps I’ve broken a few too many hearts along the way. Oh, I know. I don’t look like a heartbreaker, but I will tell you: I waved at a tiny dog in a sweater driving past my car last night, and the tiny dog waved back, and I was like, I can’t. I’m sorry, but I’m in a relationship. The tiny dog cried and stuff. It was very sad for both of us.

In addition to the crushing news that I am somehow abnormal (i.e., stuffed full of cancer), the letter offered a bit of comfort. The colposcopy is a bit uncomfortable, it said, leaving my imagination to believe that the colposcopy is not such things as “incredibly painful,” “earth-shatteringly painful,” “painful beyond all belief,” and “absolutely unbearable.” God, what a relief to me.

Not Aunty Christ, but a close facsimile. Aunty Christ is a bit less transparent, and her paper gown was much shorter.

The basic premise of the colposcopy is this: They would wash my Lady Secret Fashion Area with vinegar, take photos—which will almost certainly end up on the internet, I am thinking—and then biopsy various, suspicious-looking areas. Oh—biopsy! That sounds … not very fun, I guess, but better than hearing that tissue will be snipped from your cervix in a brutish manner. The vinegar is applied at various points throughout the procedure, to make sure that the stinging is more or less constant.

All of this, perhaps, adds up to a little more than discomfort, but wait! Aunty Christ is only beginning. Because some of the abnormal cells were glandular, the lady administering the procedure needed to get all up in my uterus so that she could forcefully rip off bits of tissue there too. And then, perhaps, pour salt. I don’t know.

So, I am lying on that table, feet in stirrups, wearing that piece of paper they give you, already kind of in pain from everything this lady has done to me. And the lady takes a device and gives it a good shove into the cervix. I fly halfway up the table, screaming. I scream, “No,” hoping that, at Planned Parenthood, if nowhere else in America, “no” will be seen to mean “no.” The lady considered, and “No” was not felt to have any particular meaning in this scenario, and so she gave the device another good shove.

It’s kind of hard to describe exactly how painful a particular pain is. There’s a numerical system, I suppose, and using that, this pain would be exactly 10 on a scale of 10. Not more than 10. That I reserve for things like being burned alive or hung by my feet and sawed in half.

I must advise my uterus that I will stop at nothing to end its painful tyranny of my body. Nothing! I have methods, you know. And hands. And saws. I will win!

Having a device shoved into your uterus is pretty bad, all the same. I suddenly realized that my uterus—another disgusting thing I’ve allowed to live inside me all this time out of, let’s face it, pity—is a boiling cauldron of hate and pain, and that it has been awakened, and now we are sworn enemies. I jumped up the table again, my bare ass perched on the headrest. I, like Jesus, wept.

The procedure was deemed a failure after the device inflicted a third punch, and the ensuing leap backwards, even further up the table, and the crying. And, after that, more vinegar, more snipping, more crying. A second woman came in for the uterus poking and told me to relax my uterus. Which one can no more do than flex her spleen, I’m sure. But I have been trying, since that dreadful day, to calm my uterus by assuring it that we will never seek uterus-poking-related medical help again.

Apparently, however, my uterus is not only hateful, but unforgiving and vengeful as well. According to my chiropractor, the uterus is in league with the misaligned vertebrae in my back, making me suspect that this thing isn’t over between us. It’s not enough to leak glandular cells all over the place. No! My uterus must insist that I live in severe back distress as well. Also according to my chiropractor, one leg is longer than the other, which is singularly repulsive. Here I’ve been walking around all this time in the company of perfectly normal people, thinking that I’m one of them, and I’m a malformed freak. With an angry uterus, hell-bent on destroying me.

The good news is that the colposcopy results came back inconclusive. So, do I have cancer? Well, it’s not certain that I do have cancer, and that’s a good enough answer for me.

I’m sorry. This has been a very silly post, after a long absence. Please forgive me for both.

Aunty Christ knows what she likes on a bagel

2007-08-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

In this month’s Marie Claire was a short article (very short) about Grandpa Crushes. Everyone has them! They’re the new miniature-Chihuahua-in-a-purse. (Which, speaking of purses, and for those of you hoping to quickly familiarize yourselves with Marie Claire’s editorial position, another of their “articles” featured a candy-colored array of alligator-skin Gucci clutches that ended, “Get this fall’s hottest accessory, and you’ll find yourself swamped with invitations!” Other possible puns I am thinking of include: “Buy this bag, or everyone will think you’re a real stick in the mud!” “You might have to leech money from your boyfriend to afford it, but you won’t want to be without this season’s cutest new accessory!” “These lovely handbags will make you squeal like a pig!”)

Grandpa Crushes are, and I can’t imagine why I have to explain this to you, crushes that younger women (in their 20s, possibly 30s) get on older dudes. You know … Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Brian Dennehy. I love Brian Dennehy! And someday I will meet him, and then I will slice open his belly and use his rich, creamy center as a delicious, salty breakfast spread.

I cannot wait.

Like all fine journalism, the piece sparked a conversation in our household, namely: Does Rich Bachelor have a Grandma Crush? After a few moments of consideration, actress/predatory insect Joan Allen was mentioned. I have a good 80 pounds on her, and am nearly 20 years her junior. I feel confident that Brian Dennehy and I will be able to administer a grandfatherly ass-whoopin’ to Rich and his new lover, if we ever run into them at a nightclub or in the nursing center.

Anyway, it’s nearly Labor Day, which means … well, a bunch of things, really. A day off work, the summer ending. My birthday (which is, of course, the reason I’m thinking about grandma crushes—hoping that someday very soon I can take the lovely Miss Allen’s place in the retirement home of Rich’s heart). Ahh, I know: reflections about work. As someone who’s only recently rejoined the work force, I have a few thoughts on the daily grind, the salt mills, the shit plants that occupy such a monolithic place in the popular imagination. Oh, working was fun the first few weeks, and now it’s gotten to be kind of a routine, something that keeps me from the drink until, at least, 4:30 or so, but it’s hardly a way to live.

My first thoughts on adult working life (and many other facts of adultishhood) were formed by Lloyd Dobler, of course. Who can forget:

“I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.”

You hear that as a 16-year-old, and it’s like, Yeah! Because buying and selling and processing are lame, man. That’s what The Man wants you to do. And it’s boring. It’s like, why buy and sell and process things when you could, you know, dance and sing and create and think? And saying that you don’t want to do any of these things, above all else, is tantamount to saying that you don’t want to work—that you are above work—because what could you even do as work if you didn’t buy or sell or process anything?

Well, quite a bit, actually. Lots of crap work, like, perhaps, computer programming, caring for squalling babes in a daycare center, doing pedicures for rich bitches, title examining, cleaning hotel rooms—whereas one can think of loads of perfectly adequate jobs (photographer, for example, where part of one’s labor literally is processing) in which one buys, sells or processes (or repairs, which Lloyd is, for no reason that I can remember, also against), and which don’t destroy one’s soul—at least not any more than any other form of labor.

The thing that struck me the most, though, in hearing that out-of-context piece of dialogue, was the needless repetition of it: “I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed.” Well, if you don’t want to buy anything as a career, I suppose one might assume that you don’t want to buy anything that’s been bought or sold or processed, yes. The larger includes the smaller, and it always has, Lloyd. I imagine a much longer monologue, in which Lloyd patiently explains to us that not only does her not want to sell anything at all, but he doesn’t want to sell anything bought, sold, processed, unprocessed, grown out of the soil (either organic or not), made of iron or copper or bacon fat, with a grainy consistency, pickled, covered in fireants, produced by sweatshop labor, shaped like a doughnut, licked by a puppy, filled with cheese, purple, or cold to the touch.

What I take away from this quick peek into Lloyd Dobler’s soul, is that Lloyd Dobler sucked, and that we (by which I mean, I think, mostly women in their 30s, but probably anyone who thought Lloyd Dobler was pretty cool at the time, and definitely anyone who, for example, lists on their MySpace page Lloyd Dobler as the person they want to meet) were very, very stupid for paying any attention to him. At the most generous reading, we’re left with this: What’s that? You don’t want to work a conventionally acceptable job? Well, sir, perhaps you might like to be introduced to the whole goddamn human race, who, despite their myriad differences and disagreements, have all come together to admit that you are right on this one.

I forget if I’ve mentioned this, but my job? Kinda sucks. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It’s also kind of okay. It’s interesting in all sorts of ways that no one—none of you civilians, anyway—really gets. Examining title, if nothing else, offers a skeletal history, of a region, a neighborhood, a family. You see who divorced who, who married who, who died and owning what. You see the Johnsons and the Browns move out and the Nguyens and the Trans move in. Right now, what you see a lot of are foreclosures. Things falling apart. People who bought property a year ago already having defaulted on their property taxes and their mortgages. It doesn’t take that much imagination to create a human story behind the records—the nervousness and hope in the beginning, seeing everything tumble out of control only a few months in. You see things like a $600 tax bill gone unpaid. My first thought: Why buy a house if you don’t have at least $600 in the bank? But what’s really happening, I suspect, is that if the mortgage is two months late and the car is being repossessed and there’s already one supplemental tax bill for $3,000 that you can’t pay, the $600 bill just goes in the drawer with the rest of ‘em.

Everyone knows this already, though. The news community is going nuts with talk about how everything’s going to shit, thanks to the sub-prime lenders. I assume that, like always, it’s not going to be as bad as it really should be, and somehow we’ll be saved from ourselves—someone’s bound to offer up a Band-Aid to put over this big, infected mess of a credit system, right? What I really wanted to talk about was Lloyd Dobler, who is, actually, a pretty good metaphor for all the stupid shit we Americans are always being asked to buy into and are subsequently begging for the chance to buy into, just a little bit, just once more, please. Which is why we get stuck with both foreclosures and Must Love Dogs, if that makes any sense.

Have a good long weekend anyway, before this all falls apart.

Aunty Christ is buying some new pants, because these aren’t smarty enough for her

2007-08-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Rich and I were out riding our bikes on one of the main thoroughfares between our new home and the rest of Eastern Saskatoon, our biking mini-unit broken by an interloping woman bicyclist, who was, I think, attempting to catch up with the boy she had been riding with before we turned onto the street, breaking up their biking mini-unit. “Lesbians!” yelled a passing motorist. And yes, as we all know, one hallmark of being a lesbian is indeed sexual attraction to other women. Another surely is the act of riding a bike in close proximity to a complete stranger. Now that the details of my sexual preference have been made clear by street-yellers, I shall be turning up my nose to further offers of dick, thank you.

Oh, anyway, can’t we just yell thoughts out of windows at the people who inspire them? “Lesbians” being one example. “Ugly!” being another. Or “Fat middle-management douchebag!” Or “Skinny tattooed hipster!” “You who are not better than I!” Whatever.

Yelling things out of car windows at strangers sure is fun. A few months ago—I think it was Mardi Gras or St. Paddy’s Day or something—Rich told me to yell at a group of dressed-up chachis milling about in front of a discotheque. “I hate you! I hate you so much!” I yelled, which, owing to the Doppler effect, surely ended up sounding like a walrus belching the alphabet into a down pillow. But it was sure fun for me, and that’s what matters, I think. Fun: Not as good as drinking™. To be fair, I did hate them. Soooooooooo much. So yeah, that was me, in case you didn’t recognize me. I hope you’ve taken the criticism to heart and have turned your life around or whatever. You’re welcome.

Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh right. My job. My jizzob, as the snot-nosed babies who work in teh office with me say. See how I roll? There are a couple of things wrong with these job things all the kids are getting these days, and one of them is, of course, the traffic that one encounters in the getting to and going home from the office. Oh fuck. Speaking of bicyclists, which I was not so very long ago (pay attention!), I will make a deal with you, Bicycling Community of Saskatoon: If you do not get in my way or pretend you are anything other than a vehicle, such as a balloon or a cow or a zombie, I will not mutter darkly about you beneath my breath. Furthermore, if you do not ride two or three abreast in the narrow bike lane, I will not muster whatever resources I have against you, or, you know, get kind of frustrated. Oh, I know, we all have to suck biker cock now, and I’m happy to share the road with bicyclists most days, as I will come out of an accident with one of those completely unscathed. What I really hate about driving during rush hour is that apparently—well, by now we’ve all heard of National Take Your Daughter to Work Day? Also, not on my calendar: National Drive Like Crap to Work Day. On certain, unannounced days, everyone on the streets of Saskatoon decides to do that thing, by which I mean, of course, toss regard for human life out the window, like a still-smoldering cigarette butt. Oh, me? I drive like shit every day, due to my long-term disregard of human life, and my ADD. But that only works if other drivers are paying attention.

Something else that sucks about the commute: The sun. If it could not always shine in my eyes, that would be less sucky. Thanks, Sun.

The thing that makes all this maddening hell worthwhile, though, is the sexual-harassment video that employees of large corporations are required to watch every now and again. As a new employee of a certain large corporation, I was recently required to watch a corporate-produced sexual-harassment video, which particular video chronologued the curious office relationships of a certain hapless computer repairman, named Frank. “Whaaaat?” he said, again and again. “I was only complimenting her body. Women like that, right? Alls I said was, ‘You look really nice in that sweater. You been working out? You’ve really lost the baby weight—except where a lady’s supposed to be big.’ ” Am I right, guys? Zing! Zow!

Much better was my former employer’s harassment video, which was wonderfully offensive on multiple levels. “I hate the premise of this video,” said the company rep who showed it to us. “It makes all us HR people look bad.” The offending premise was that a group of employees were supposed to have a meeting with an HR person about harassment and offending language, but the HR person failed to show up, so they sat around a table and looked at the pamphlets she presumably had left for the meeting and talked. And learned. By the end of the discussion, the astonished HR rep hurries into the conference room, just as the others are leaving. “No thanks,” they say to her offer to guide them through the materials. “I think we got the message” (jocular elbowing, winking). So, yes, if you are an HR person, you could get the feeling, in watching this video, that someone in your company, deep down, believes the entire HR department might be adequately replaced with a stack of meeting outlines. As a matter of fact, if you are an HR person and you feel that the rest of us disagree, I should point out that you are deeply delusional. But then, you probably have to be, given, you know, what you are.

The best part of the video came early, though, when one employee—a walking stereotype, no doubt, perhaps a woman of color and size but with a spunky (read: annoying) personality, wearing a brightly colored blazer—was rounding up her coworkers for the scheduled meeting. “Hey, I don’t know if you remember, Juan, but Linda from HR is meeting with us in five minutes in the General Custer Room.” Oh please, tell me you did not just say that you are holding your goddamn diversity workshop in the goddamn General Custer Room. But no, there it was, decorated with watercolors of headdresses and crying Injuns. Strangely, it was never brought up in the diversity discussion. Lots of “When you made fun of my accent, I felt bad, but I felt too uncomfortable to bring it up,” but no “The fact that our corporation has seemingly embraced the government’s systematic destruction of my people kind of makes my tummy ache.” Oh whatever. Whiners.

The man who’s training us—I think I said this before—is ex-president of two companies, in his early 70s, and—despite some problems between us early on—kind of hilarious, which is something every office needs, probably: An old man who uses “Balls!” as his expletive of choice (to the great amusement of my young coworkers), eats a hot dog every lunch hour, and says of the work load we are given, much more often than he says anything positive about anything, “This is crap. That county is crap. What a pile of garbage!” Even better, every now and again, he feels compelled to share his views on just who, exactly, is going to burn in hell. “Child-support liens last forever if they’re not released,” he reminds us. “I don’t know who these guys are, who have these kids and don’t pay for them. You know who ends up paying for these kids? The taxpayers—that’s you and me. These men—they’re garbage!” On the prevalence of tax sales and foreclosures: “Oh, these lenders are going to hell. Convincing buyers to sink every last penny into their house, irresponsibly advising them that the market’s just going to keep going up—when they know that it’s not!—giving them 100-percent loans at a variable rate. They’re rotten. They’re garbage.” It’s a pleasure to work with someone even more irascible than I am, and, goddamn it, at his age, he’s earned the right to hate. If I’m 70 and am forced to travel to the neighboring state for the privilege of living in an Econolodge and working 12-hour days, please shoot me. I believe, however, that I may have said a similar thing when I was in my twenties, about what should happen if I ever managed to mess up my life to such a degree that I was in my 30s and working a dead-end office job, only to come home each night to a pile of dishes and a mountain of laundry and dog hair.

Oh, it’s hardly ever worth it, this life of ours, but when it is, boy is it worth it. And that’s all I have to say on the subject.

Aunty Christ, Your Working Boy

2007-07-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

First impressions are so very important, as you know— as everyone knows—which is why I showed up for my first day of work five minutes late, bleary-eyed, with a stiff, swollen, purple leg (bike accident—pilot error). Can I start counting the days before my promotion? Oh, probably. If I didn’t win them over by almost falling asleep during the software demonstration, surely my constant comments about how we used to do it in the old country (hint: Not Like They Do It at My New Office!) helped make a few new friends.

My coworkers are all fresh-faced young-’uns who have never produced a title commitment in their lives, and yet were so much faster than I will be by this time next week. They are cute, too: A lanky boy fresh outta diaper school, his friend the adorable lesbian (or faux-lesbian? I can’t tell, and I don’t know that it matters), and my new best friend, a teenager who wore teal eye shadow and told me all about it. All about what, you wonder? Oh, wouldn’t you like to know. All about everything, of course, like: Her boyfriend, where she lives, what she thinks about bankruptcy, other jobs she’s had. She seems ridiculously bright. It leaves one wondering if the office life is meant for other, younger people.

But then there was the gentleman whose job it was, presumably, to chat with me. He’s at least 70, has been CEO of two companies, and is working 12-hour days in my department for no reason that I can think of, unless it truly is, honestly, to brighten my dark working hours. Reminds me of a gentleman who worked at the encyclopedia while I was there, and perhaps still does, who we called Mister (Mister Something, actually, though I don’t remember what the something was), and who would shuffle onto the third floor most afternoons and install himself at one of the long tables in the library, doing research or something, when he wasn’t regaling us with stories about Charles Van Doren and the influenza outbreak of 1918, which nearly claimed his life as a child. Or maybe he reminds me of some kind of terrier with a ball. Same same, really. It’s hard to say.

Oh, I don’t really have enough coherent thoughts in my brain at this point to write anything … coherent, or anything. So let’s dabble, shall we?

I was thinking of writing a list for McSweeney’s—I’ve been mulling it over for the last month or so, and it suddenly occurred to me, as I tried for the first time to transfer it from head to computer screen, that it’s not that funny. Not McSweeney’s-funny, anyway. Maybe Aunty Christ Loves All Her Children-funny, though…

The actual playlist from EMF’s spring 1991 concert in Chicago (as I remember it)

1. “Unbelievable”
2. The second song off their album
3. “Unbelievable” (dance remix)
4. Cover of Jesus Jones’ “Right Here, Right Now”
5. The first single from their forthcoming album
6. “Unbelievable” (unplugged)
7. “Unbelievable”
8. Encore (“Unbelievable”)

Other things that aren’t quite funny enough for publication include the fake news story that might have emerged from this headline that popped into my head during the commute home:

US Warns Chinese Infants Latest Toxic Export: Minister of babies to be executed at dawn

Lately I keep seeing people with Asian toddlers—that’s all there is to that story. Kinda makes a person want an Asian baby of her own, though. Or, not baby, really. How old does someone have to be to run an electric lawnmower? Four?

Next post ought to be something I’ve put some effort into—a lost book of the Bible, perhaps, a restaurant review, or an advertisement for a new brand of deodorant. I’ll work on it. When I’m not hard at work at my other job, I mean.

Like god, Aunty Christ hates you

2007-07-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

My horoscope from Tuesday: This is not the time to make sweeping changes, and any mistakes made now could be particularly difficult to undo. Keep a low profile and stick like glue to the status quo.

Soooooo yeah. On Tuesday, I unpacked my belongings from the move from my old apartment, assisted (read: watched) Rich Bachelor with his unpacking, finished cleaning said old apartment, and accepted a new job, which I begin Monday. To the stars, I say: phhhhhhhhhhhlllllllllllbbbbbbbbbbt, raspberries to you.

(To anyone who does not care to hear the intimate details of my life, I repeat: phhhhhhhhhhhlllllllllllbbbbbbbbbbt, raspberries to you. Come back next week or something.)

The new house, which for the time being lives up to the moniker Fix-Um Haus, is tiny, cramped, dirty, outlet- and closet-poor, hot, needy, needy, needy. The backyard is another story. The house sits on two lots, and since the house itself is tiny, the fenced-in yard is huge, encircled with grape vines and blackberry bushes. Which sounds like paradise, right? It’s actually kind of a white-trash paradise: yellow grass, crumbling concrete driveway, weeds, overgrown bushes. We have a hammock, backyard lights, a pool that tha thug dawgs are afraid of, and a lawnmower that no one wants to use. Oh, it’s magical, after so many years living in apartments and condos, to have a yard of my own to obsess about. So many dead leaves! So much cat poop!

I spent much of the day today at a laundromat across the street from a Chinese joint named Lung Fung, which sounds suspiciously like “lung fun” or “lung fungus.” In actuality the interior reminds one more of the latter than the former, as no fun is, can, or ever will be had in Lung Fung’s greasy, MSG-soaked bar. I’ve always been partial to shitty areas of town, and our new neighborhood is pretty darn shitty. In a good way! I mean, in a good way, totally! The heavy police presence is a really good thing, I think.

Three more days of un-paid labor, before the office job begins. Oh, I am so looking forward to/dreading this thing. When I left my previous position, last August, I was determined to find myself in a work situation that I actually, at least, might enjoy when next I found myself in a work situation. Instead I am finding myself in exactly the same work situation I was running away from last year. Aww shit. A moment of silence, please, for my unacknowledged dreams of a superior life.

Umm … what else? Well, lots of weird overheard conversations lately, for some reason. In Remote Mountain Village, while walking to the ATM machine, this one caught my attention: “I have this mnemonic device I use when I’m trying to remember things. Like, if I go to the grocery store, I’ll be like, ‘Milk, butter, eggs. Milk, butter, eggs.’ You know?” “Yeah,” his companion said. “I know.”

Ohhhhhh right ... repetition. I think I’ve heard of that.

There’s a whole shitstorm of writing to be done about our new neighborhood, and all the conversations we’ve had or overheard with people here. It’s an entire neighborhood of characters, frankly, and not in a good way, that I can see. Several weeks ago, we were ambushed at a bar by a miniature former nurse who wanted to talk about the head injury she had sustained at least a decade ago, including what she has done pretty much every day between said injury and now, including that day’s trip to the food pantry. A few days ago (Tuesday, perhaps—the day of the horoscope), we went to breaky at a pharmacy with a lunch counter, complete with weird, 1970s-style manikins dressed in sequined berets and Brownie uniforms, and were treated to a soliloquy about how wonderful she, the speaker, is—she’s 80, and she’s irrepressible! The couple who were her presumed targets could do nothing but laugh and laugh—uncomfortably, and without humor—before she made her excuses and traveled to the sidewalk café, where she found more unwilling conversation partners.

Any mistakes made now could be difficult to undo. Nonetheless, they are done. Oh fuck, these mistakes are done.

Your Aunty Christ loves you already, No-Toes

2007-07-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

The presumed point of our trip to Colorado, you might be surprised to learn, was baby-viewing, and we did as much of that as anything, I suppose, except driving, which we did too much of, and sleeping, which was sometimes done concurrently with the driving, at least on my (the driver’s) end.

Babies in Remote Mountain Village tend to be small—so small that when I was asked by the helpful shopkeep at the baby-gift store what size of baby I was buying for, I said, “Oh, he’s big. He’s seven pounds or so.” Oh, no—sez shopkeep—that’s very small. “Not for Remote Mountain Village,” sez I. “At that altitude (9,000 feet), all babies are born tiny.” I later heard shopkeep repeat this tidbit to another customer, who then denied that mountain babies are born small. Oh well. I stand by my assertion: Every baby I’ve ever heard of being conceived, carried, and born in Remote Mountain Village is a wee slip of a thing, hardly worth notice. Whether it’s the altitude or the molybdenum in the water, I have no clue. The molybdenum has been blamed for both the town’s high incidence pregnancy (I myself blame the residents’ reliance on “hippie birth control”—i.e., smoking pot in order to lower sperm count) and the town’s high incidence of miscarriages, so perhaps it also creates these bonsai babies.

The particular infant we were visiting lived in a vibrating chair. He was jowled and sleepy. He was the approximate shape of a dollop of jam. He also had only half a foot on one leg, topped with one tiny toe-ish nubbin, mismatched by a giant foot on the other, crowned with five fat toes.

In what seems like a completely separate story, an ex-boyfriend gave me a hedgehog for Valentine’s Day one year. I had been talking for ages about wanting a hedgehog, so it wasn’t as ridiculous as it seems now. I loved that hedgehog, until he met his end one day at the veterinarian’s office, having been overtreated for dehydration and handed back to me, a sopping-wet balloon of liquid flesh plopped upon a damp hand towel. The ultimate reason for his dehydration—and death—was the same as the reason my ex chose this particular hedgehog out of the mess of hedgehogs for sale at the pet market: He had a funny ear, shaped like a broccoli floret, turned in upon itself, and prone to infection. One had to be vigilant about cleaning it and treating it with ointment; and I certainly tried to be. Alas, I was not as vigilant as I should have been, it turns out.

What a weird Valentine’s Day gift, though: a hedgehog with an infected ear. “I thought you’d like him better if you had to nurse him to health,” the ex said. And he was kind of right. I never liked him much (the boy, not the hedgehog), but he knew me rather well.

It likewise occurs to me that perhaps I liked the baby a little better than I might have, if he had been one of those perfect gifts from god you hear so much about. I’ll like him even better once he’s out there gimping around with the rest of ’em, I suspect. Winners—bah! You can keep ’em.

Since I’ve returned, the gimp-mom sent me a batch of photos involving her half-footed babe. I’m featured in many of them, as well, and Rich Bachelor is in some too. I considered posting one here, or perhaps sending them to relatives and friends as a joke: “Sorry we didn’t tell you, but we had a baby!” Wouldn’t that be hilarious? Or stupid? Wait … is there a difference? I made some unfortunate clothing choices that day, however, which, along with my unfortunate diet and exercise choices and my parents’ unfortunate genetic choices, have resulted in my looking like a Mexican taxidermied frog holding a baby. I couldn’t find a photo of such a thing online, so here is a picture of kind of the same thing, except replace “baby” with “guitar.”

In fact, this is pretty much what I look like right now, except that I’m wearing a sombrero. I'm about to go see a Vanilla Ice concert, you know. Gotta look good.

For more information on our trip to Colorado, please see Rich Bachelor’s blog. There’s much to add to that, of course, but I’m hardly in the mood to do that sort of thing. Besides, it was new to him. To me, same old.

Going back to the hedgehog thing, though, would anyone think less of me if I admitted that I have a soft spot for losers, lost causes, the underdog, hopeless cases, etc.? I live my life exactly the opposite of those who make my heart melt, too, by which I don’t mean that I’m a huge winner, but only that I’m afraid to try. I keep thinking about this. If gimp-baby grows up to be that guy who’s ashamed of his gimp-foot, I’ll be so disappointed. If he ends up being that guy who always tries out—pathetically—for the track team only to get his hopes dashed again and again (of course … what do you think this is—a movie?) and never learns any valuable lesson from it or becomes a better person or anything, well, I’ll be quite touched. I love a story without a happy ending.

Aunty Christ gives as good as she gets

2007-06-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

The Yahoo! homepage typically offers no end of amusing links to American Idol video recaps, grilling recipes, and bad relationship advice, and yesterday’s link was no exception. Just in case you have a busy day planned and need to get on with it, I’ll do away with the suspense and just let you know that the 10 compliments that your man might like to hear are:

1. “Your arms are definitely looking bigger.”

2. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.”

3. “Wow.”

4. “You the man.”

5. “The kids just adore you.”

6. “What do you think?”

7. “Cute feet.”

8. “Meow.”

9. “Impressive.”

10. “I want you.”

Of course, coming out of my—or perhaps any sensible woman’s—mouth, these sound highly sarcastic. I tried them out on Rich Bachelor last night and he wasn’t having any of it. “What kids?” he said. “And since when do you care what I think?” “Cute feet?” I tried. He said, “Woman! What the devil’s gotten into you? I’m outta here,” and then stormed out, not to return until many hours later, smelling of liquor and hotcakes. “Impressive,” I whispered. “I want you!”

So, that didn’t work out as well as one might have hoped. Even better than the compliments themselves are the expanded reasons given behind the compliment:

“Guys spend all of high school, the better part of the work day, and at least 12 times a day via e-mail trying to make people laugh,” writes the editor-in-chief of Men’s Health. The editor-in-chief! What’s Men’s Health again? A magazine, or a special-needs project?

Oh, so anyway, it seems the editor-in-chief is trying to tell us that the funny is gender-specific, for some reason. Well, of course it is! I don’t have time to be funny, what with all the cooking and cleaning and pussy-waxing I have to do.

About “You the man,” he says, “Guys hear this all the time. From other guys.” Oh wait: I guess this late edit didn’t make it to press: “From other guys in beer commercials and cop-buddy films.”

The reasoning given for the “Cute feet” compliment is too good to edit down: “Typically, it doesn't matter much to men if women like a part of their body that they don't control, like their eyes, jawline, or body hair. And typically, guys care for the word ‘cute’ about as much as Paris cares for the penal system. One exception: The part of the body that is classified as being especially gross. Tell a guy he has good feet, and somehow he takes it as a double-bagger compliment -- that you not only like his genetics, but also that you appreciate he can keep himself better groomed than the rest of the gnarly-nailed heathens out there.”

First of all, having seen photos of Paris with a mouthful of penal system, I have to think she likes that particular phenomenon quite a substantial amount. Moreover: Really? “Good feet” is a “double-bagger” compliment? And since when is “double-bagger” a term that’s in any sense a good thing? Oh, it makes no sense at all. It makes the mind hurt.

Even better still than the reasons behind the compliments are the user comments on the post:

Ncnurfoust writes (edited for length; not at all edited for spelling, grammar):

oh my, I could not beleive what I was reading. All of these compliments have in one way or another had an effect on my marriage. About 2 years ago I was sleeping. My husband came to bed late and proceeded to talk to me. I was dreaming..not really sure about what. I told him i my sleep state, "you know your arms are not really big at all." Oh my was I awake after that. To this day he has not let me forget that. He has a great sense of humor and most everyone likes him. He is an ego driven, testosterone high "real man." He is MY HERO. … He never admits fear, always denies defeat, and is always right. However, his goal every day is to make someone if not everyone smile. He can find the most unappealing women and make her feel like a million. I love this about him. … I hear him lighten up when I belly laugh at his latest storfy. … I have a good idea that I know will rock his boat, I make it his idea and it fyies well. When I doubt is advise and find he was indeed right, I make a big deal out of it. " … It is true but no matter issue, men need and desire our praises and gradafications. they don't know how to ask for it like we do. Thank you David for more help getting into the psychology of "My Man." Val

Surely I’m not the only one who suspects that Val’s Man is a bit of an asshole, right? Never admits fear, always denies defeat, ego-driven, testosterone-high, more interested in the size of his arms than whether or not he wakes his sleeping wife up. Oh, whatever, Val. I’m sure you’re totally happy, what with your judgmental optimism and his dickishness.

Peter Shaughnessy writes:

Why is there no hint that men might like to be commented on their intellect, personality, or achievements in fantasy sports?

And some bright shining star gives him his answer:

here's your answer; because that's not for men, that's for geeks. Real men play real sports.

Zing! That’s right, Peter Shaughnessy. Your kind don’t deserve no complimentin‘, ya hear? This is Bush’s America now, professor smartypants!

I kind of have a little crush on deirdre.nakita now, after reading her words of wisdom on the gender wars:

One more something could have helped, The way you look at him. Keep on a little smile, because some guys can't navagate the mood with out some sort of feed back from your face. My guy for example has a tendency to react to my ever facal expression. This is hard ladies. I mean its like guys dont have their own way of thinking. All they want to do is please us. So ladies we hold the power while our compassionate hearts let our guys believe they hold it. Another, men like women who have great self confidience. So you could say something about your own body,(softly.). like “I love my sexy body, I could make love to myself all night long if you had to go out. Beleive me it works. Guys need just as much as girls but they have to hide it. Ladies we all should be confidient of our sexuality for we are all beautyful people and if your guy is with you all he wants is to be loved. We sometimes get caught up in worldly bull that we forget or dont know that men just need to feel good about themselves. If we take them to another world mentally I think they wouldn't cheat on us and they would treat us the same. So stop complaining or hasseling men ,try instead to show them love. You know the love that only us women can give threw our own wants and needs. The perfect relationship is possible threw all this lifes mess. We only live once so love, and let go of unnessacary hasseling. It can be true .

All men want to do is not think and please … me? This is awesome!!!! Us women should totally give that love threw our own wants and needs threw all this lifes mess, whatever that means. Thanks, diedre.nakita! Thanks for everything!

What’s that, diedre.nakita? You have something else to say?

Some guys need to have that hard to get type, but once they've got you you need a mixture of both You can playfully joke with them with a smile. But there are times when the hard to get role gets annoying and you should switch it up. Mess around alittle with his head, but always let him beleive what you say. If you know you love him you should give him complamantes even if he doesn't deserve them.

Yes, yes, that sounds like just the thing. I’m totally going to only date guys who are totally without worth, but then I’ll mess around alittle with his head with complamantes he doesn’t deserve. Wise advice, my friend. I’ve been doing this relationship thing all wrong! When Rich gets over his hungover anger about last night, I’m totally going to switch it up and playfully joke with him with a smile. Maybe I could even take him to another world mentally! That sounds great!

So that wraps up this edition of “Making Fun of Stupid Ideas with Aunty Christ.” Next up, for those who are keeping track of such things, our agenda for the next few weeks:

Visiting friends—and babies—in Remote Mountain Village, Colorado, through the Fourth of July. Rich Bachelor and I will enjoy such family-oriented activities as hiking, soaking in hot springs, hanging out, pretending to look at babies, and pancake-eating!

Second interview with a Big-Name Company, which for some reason, despite my many flaws (alcoholism, insanity, man face), seems to like me. Or perhaps they are simply messing around alittle with my head, letting me beleive what they say. I am so in love with this company, and not just because they want to pay me an unreasonable amount of money. Well, maybe it’s mostly that. But I must say that Big-Name Company’s arms sure look big, lately. Has it been working out?

Moving into the house, which henceforth on my blog shall be called the Dawg House. Or maybe that’s best left in my mind. It’s clearly not a clever name, but then, this is not a very clever blog. Would it be better in half-German? Der Dawg Haus? Anyway, the move is forthcoming, and then the settling in, and then the slow slide into boring communal-living hell. Or not. Oh, not to be all stupid and sentimental here, but I’m truly happy with Rich. Sometimes things feel wrong, and you don’t really have anything to compare them to because nothing’s ever felt right either, so you think, “Well, maybe this will work. This could work.” And of course it doesn’t, no matter how much you try to force it and overlook the fact that this isn’t the right person, this isn’t a good match. Well, Rich is a good person, anyway, and this living together project does not seem wrong.

I fell asleep last night in his lap, and woke up around midnight to him saying, “You’ve been sleeping in the most uncomfortable positions. Let’s go to bed.” You know what? It was the most comfortable sleep I’ve had in ages.

Aunty Christ is interviewed by Mr. Middlebrow

2007-06-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

1. Aunty Christ is a __________, wrapped in a ________, inside a ___________.

Aunty Christ is a delusional battleaxe, wrapped in a leopard-skin blanket, inside a thick candy coating of undisguised bitterness and tragic despair.

Oh, my goodness! My apologies. That photo is actually not of me, but my friend, who goes under the name Camilla-Jane, when she’s not working as a singer/songwriter/model/entertainer. Good luck to you in your new career, Camilla-Jane! Rock on.

2. What's your pitch for the next big reality show?

Argh—so many ideas, and, frankly, what hasn’t been aired as a reality show already?

Two thug dawgs, raised as brothers, learn to live—and love—in a South Boston law firm.

Or perhaps …

Baby makeovers!!!

Or …

Tube-topped grannies bouncing on trampolines!

In any case, isn’t reality TV pretty much over? I’m hoping for a new scripted show I can get behind, á là Deadwood or Heroes or Perfect Strangers, in the next season. Speaking of which, I keep meaning to write a blog post about the top 10 overrated shows ever, including Dharma and Greg, Wings, Becker, Sisters, and Picket Fences.

Of course, my favorite new reality series is online. Oh crap, I do not really want to enter into any kind of internet-based catfight, but I shall say that, if one has read the funny blog I just linked to and one has read the blog that that funny blog is parodying, perhaps one will find oneself with hours of entertainment on hand. However, if one has not read either blog, perhaps one will be confused and befuddled by this paragraph. Enough said.

3. Who should play you in the movie?

Talk about a no-brainer. The answer, of course, is Charlotte Rae. She would also sing the theme song.

Number two on the list: Tiny Tim Blake Nelson. I met him once. That makes me famous, right?

4. What is it about your navel that drives Indian men into a Google-mad frenzy?

Finally! A serious question.

It’s true that by Western standards my navel leaves something to be desired.

However, in India it is revered as the 431st incarnation of Apam Napat, who, insofar as I am able to understand, is a god of the Hindoo religion, whatever that is.

Anyway, far more troubling is India’s obsession with raping my blouse. Honestly, it’s a lovely blouse, and it’s very flattering to a lady of my size, but enough is enough.

5. If you could live in another time in history, what would it be? What would you do?

The problem of course with this question is that the people who say things like, “It would be so cool to live in the 1960s, with all the flower children and love-ins and bell bottoms!” and those who say, “I really feel that I should have been born in the Middle Ages, with the courtly love and chivalry and so forth,” are idiots, who forget things like the draft and Peter, Paul and Mary and the plague.

If I could live in another time in history, it would be the future, baby! And I would go up to people, cigarette in hand, and say, “Hey, I’ve got a message for you. I was sent here from the past.” And then I would tell them that by quitting smoking, they destroyed the planet, because when all the tobacco companies went under and all the tobacco plants were destroyed the planet suffered a shortage of O2-producing … stuff. So then, once I’ve convinced all the morons from the future that they should start smoking, I will go back to the past (now) and buy some Philip Morris stock, and never trouble myself about retirement again.

The rules of this meme compel me to ask if anyone reading it would like me to ask them five questions. However, keeping in mind that I am very lazy, let’s just say that perhaps no one should want me to ask them such questions, yes? And let’s also say that this meme has run its course.

RIP, fair meme. When we think back on all the joy you have given us, we shall be forced to wipe a tear from our giant-ass collective eye, and smile.

Aunty Christ feels so much

2007-06-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

God saw fit yesterday to present me with an image of what the next several years of my life will look like, as Rich and I ran across a man pushing a baby jogger containing a small thug dawg. The thug dawg did not appear to be impaired in any way—only, the man explained, quite bossy and pampered.

Gallant, on the other hand, has been poorly lately—sleeping even more than usual, limping, licking his paw. It’s only a matter of months, I imagine, before I am wandering the streets of Saskatoon wheeling a wagon fulla thug dawg behind me. Rich reminded me the other day of a moment this last winter, when we had gone to pick up Goofus and Gallant from the kennel after some trip or other, and we were carrying them back to the car (having forgotten their leashes, as per usual). A lady looked over Gallant’s corpulent body, into Rich’s eyes, and said, “Why bless your heart!” It’s true that we are not very giving or helpful people in general, or even very loving, or kind or friendly or sympathetic, but we carry halt and lame thug dawgs and keep them from running into traffic, and I suppose that makes the world a better place in some small way. Oh, we are blessed! I wanted to say to her. We are rich in thug dawg hair, and bad smells, and expensive dental treatments. Thank you.

Other blessings that one might choose to meditate on, if one were a disciple of that Sarah Ban Brethnach lady (fuck—I’m so unhappy that I was able to remember her name without the help of Good Lord Google), include a new house, with a double lot (and not much else to recommend it, but still: house! Double lot!) Which means that Rich and I can soon get down to the business of living together, with “together” meaning in this case “with all our crap around us and out of storage bins and boxes.” Oh, our poor books and tchotchkes! They must miss us so.

The double lot will allow us to leave the thugs outside most of the day, when it’s nice out, at least, and much has been made in my own mind of the opportunity to buy a small pool for them to sit in. Nothing better than a sopping-wet thug dawg on the deck! There’s a country hit right there, I tell ya.

The other nice thing about the house is that we have finally procured a fucking house, which means we can stop all further efforts to procure a fucking house. Whew. Now, onto the job search! Yes, in an effort to look as though I am “responsible” and “not a giant greasy mess of a human being,” shortly after starting the house hunt (which at first entailed me emailing prospective landlords from Craig’s List with a long list of my faults as a tenant, such as, “I have no job! Also, not a long rental history! Also, two thug dawgs!”, and then never hearing back from them), I began working on my resume and cover letters and sending them out into the dark darkness that is the Saskatoon job market, 2007 edition. Anyway, I figured, even if we can never find a rental house that accepts such people as ourselves, perhaps with a little scratch in the bank and a steady income, I can procure a mortgage loan and buy a house for the thugs and ourselves. But, as things have it, I have found myself mulling over, well, not a job offer (or anything like it), but the possibility of a job offer and the subsequent going back to work full-time that would lead from it. Like the house hunt, a lot of resume submissions resulted in silence. Chirp chirp!, as my stoner friend from Crestone would say. But I had two interviews yesterday, and another one set for Monday, and I won’t say for sure, but it sounds like the money might be enough to make me consider leaving my current position, here, on the couch, next to Gallant’s arthritic bones. Not that it’s good money or nuthin‘. But when I consider that other possibilities include working part-time stacking produce at the whole-foods grocers down the street, or what seems like a glamorous position at a fast-cash check-cashing establishment that I saw advertised last night, ummm … well, the grocery clerk position seems okay. That bunch were voted “sexiest staff” in by the Saskatoon alternative weekly, so there’s a chance I could, well, engage in some unwanted lecherous gawking, anyway.

So, everything appears to be going nicely, at least in so far as I feel remarkably effervescent right now about my chances in life. I recently read about a web site that publishes every time the words “I feel” occur on any blog, so I don’t want to say anything as pedestrian as “I feel good,” you see. “Effervescent” isn’t quite intellectually honest, but, it’s at least a little bit unusual. Incidentally, other ways I am recently include: I feel hotdoggy. I feel shockingly hatted. I feel raw and itchy below deck, if you know what I mean. I feel like starting a web site that records all online occurrences of the words “I feel” is a craptastical waste of time.

More about that strange, new feeling of improvement: After my last interview yesterday, I received an email from the interviewer, saying that I was to come in Monday to interview with some more freaks, and that he was sure they would be impressed with (among my many positive attributes) my “delightful personality.” Now, whether or not he was being sarcastic is hard to discern over email. (The quotation marks are mine. I would have been quite pleased to see a message filled with such forthright sarcasm as, “I’m sure they will be impressed with your ‘delightful’ personality, lol.”) But the point remains that I am easily won over by such cheap tactics, and as quick to believe wonderful lies told about myself as I am to dismiss those who would tell the truth as horribly mean meanies who should take a look at their own glass houses, thank you. For most of the early part of this week, I spent my time saying hello to the various animals and insects I encountered, and having them say hello back to me in a dopey voice, so pleased was I when Rich furnished the voice for a bird or some such thing I had greeted Sunday. “Hello, Pillbug,” I would say in my own voice, and then, in a deeper and thus inherently stupider (right?) voice, “Hello, Aunty.” Well, that’s all over now. My new thing is, “I am supremely delightful, personalitywise! Why, you must certainly be impressed by my remarkably delightful personality!” Luckily, this conversation is happening mostly in my head. Otherwise, Rich would certainly have moved out by now, or perhaps simply conked me over the head with one of those rusty sharp farm implements he’s always going on about.

Current mood? I feel … cautiously optimistic. Also: procrastinatey. Mr. Middlebrow will know to what I am referring, but I’ll have that done next week. For the rest of y’all, I leave you with Stella D’ora breakfast treats. I hope you choke on it. (I’m delightful, goddammit! Delightful!)