My issues with Tumblr:

You can’t like it or share it unless you’re on Tumblr.

I find this totally frustrating. I see something interesting on Tumblr and there is no “Share to Facebook” or “Tweet this” or any other built-in feature like this. If I want to share it with someone else, I seem to be only able to share it with other Tumblr users via my own Tumblr account. I can’t even “like” it.  The only default way to share it is to copy the link and share it that way, which I’ve done, but it seems silly to not have that built-in.

I have seen a few Tumblrs customized to include these features, but few… very few.

Micro-Blogging vagueness

Microblogging makes me crazy. I realize that Twitter is technically microblogging, but at least there’s usually context and the links go to the original source. When I go to someone’s primary website and all I see are vague images with unspecific or no titles, an occasional quote or some out-of-context screenshot, I go away. I click off. I find a happy place somewhere else where people use their words.

Link It, Bitches

No one seems to know how to link to anything on Tumblr. When I go to Pinterest, I see a zillion cool posts, but when I click the photo and can’t find what I’m looking for 99.9% of the time it’s because they found it on Tumblr. Now, I realize some onus is on the Pinterest pinner to link appropriately, but if it’s not obvious how to get a permalink or permalinks aren’t a regular part of the user interface, I can’t blame the pinner entirely.

Hey, That’s My Post!

I know a few quality posters on Tumblr. My friend Will posts really thoughtful full-text posts on Tumblr in A Year of Billy Joel, which is awesome if you’re not reading it.  This I can abide.

However, if it were me, I wouldn’t want someone to be able to simply click “tumble it” or whatever and have my entire, well-thought-out, well-written post suddenly appearing on someone else’s Tumblr account. People don’t always link to the original source, so it’s too easy to claim the work as your own. AND, if anyone is looking for your post or do any Google searches, it’s possible that they’ll end up at Joe Schmo’s Tumblr where once upon a time they tumbled one of your blog posts and now they’re there instead of at your post, where they should be. It just seems to dilute your content and spread it a little thin, in my opinion.

I’ve heard arguments that you can do the same thing with Facebook, with Twitter and you can, to an extent. But when I share a post on Twitter, it goes to the original link. When I share a post on Facebook, the links go to the original article. They don’t go to Joe Bob’s Tumblr where I see that he shared it from Tim Bob who shared it from Bob Bob and maybe someday, I’ll find the original article.

Spreading Yourself Too Thin

If you use Tumblr as your primary blog, your domain, your one-stop shop to find all things you, fine. Go to town. But most people don’t. They have a website which may or may not have a blog (but usually does), they’ll have Twitter and Facebook and then also a Tumblr.  I have good friends who do this, so I’m not bashing them, I just don’t get it.   Why do I want to read your Tumblr when I could just read your blog? Why not just pull your Tumblr into your blog? Or just skip the Tumblr entirely and post it on your blog. Isn’t that what it’s for?

But hey, maybe I’m just an old school blogger fart who doesn’t get it. Maybe I’m unaware of Tumblr features that allow/prevent the things I’m bitching about. I’ll be happy to claim ignorance and am totally open to being educated otherwise. But for now, I just don’t get it.

Hit me with your best shot. Convert me, Tumblrites.

First, the original article: Pet Parents are NOT Moms by (apparent soulless twat) Susan Maushart. The title alone is enough to give you an indication of why I’m incensed.

In late April, Ms. Maushart posted this article on HuffPo filled with blanket statements on pet stupidity and how “real parents” don’t live in a fantasy world. She claims pets “eat their own vomit” and “run into traffic” and in no way equate to human children and the work involved in raising them.

I’m not suggesting that raising pets is the same as raising children. I’m sure raising children is very hard work and I admire the women, like my best friend Kathy, who do it every day and do it well, even when it’s hard.

But has Maushart ever been to Wal-mart?  There are plenty of human children that run into the street, eat gum off the sidewalk and shove things in their nose/ass/ears. Kids grab their own junk, pee on the floor and tell strangers about how daddy likes to read magazines in the bathroom (let’s see a dog do that!)  They’ll eat their own vomit and crap, too, if we — as parents — don’t tell them not to. Lulu would eat the carpet/run out into the street/dig at the wall if I didn’t I tell her not to. It’s called parenting.

Maushart (I want to make immature “shart” jokes, but I fear it would weaken my argument) also turned her nose up at things like veterinary insurance. So, if her pet was hit by a car… what? She’d just let it die because oh well, it’s just a stupid animal? Veterinary insurance, while I don’t have it, seems like a reasonable investment, considering the high cost of medical bills, both human and animal. My rabbit Lulu is a valued member of my family. If she got sick or injured, I’d want to do whatever I  could to save her. But I don’t have the scratch for cancer treatments or surgery bills, so that’s where insurance comes in. Maushart’s implication is that you just let the animal go, because hey, it’s just a pet.

Dorian Wagner on Catster.com wrote an eloquent response to this in her rebuttal, “Hey, Susan Maushart: Pet Moms ARE Real Moms!” so I won’t rehash it — I’ll just encourage you to read her post.

But, what in Maushart’s original article really lights a fire in me is the high and mighty-ness, the condescension, the outright judgement… as I said on Facebook, the internet has us up to our collective ass in mom superiority and I am SO OVER IT.

Look, I had a mom, I have good, dear friends who are moms, many of you reading this are moms. I probably like you and have no issue with your life. I also don’t tell you how to raise your kids. I don’t tell you how you aren’t a REAL mom because your kid stuck crayons up his nose or carried dog shit around the yard. Why? Becuse you’re the mom and that’s your deal. I might stop your rogue child from running into the street — because as roadkill goes, I’m more accustomed to things like squirrels and armadillos, not people, but ultimately, the parenting is on you. You’re the mama.

So where the hell does this Maushart broad get off dictating and judging how I build my family? There are many women in this world who cannot have children — should they be denied the right to love and nurture another living creature, raising it as a part of her family, simply because she can’t have her own? Or can’t adopt? Or otherwise chooses not to have children?

I’m not carrying Lulu around in a baby bjorn or dressing her up like Little House on the Prairie and putting her in a crib. There are definitely folks who take the “baby” aspect of pet ownership a little far, in my opinion, but that’s between the pet owner and their therapist. It’s none of my business and as long as they are providing a stable and healthy home for their pet, it’s not my place to judge them.

But, I’ve had enough. ENOUGH of this “moms are better than other women” bullshit. I love women, I respect women. And I respect the right of all women to be mothers however they choose. Being a “real mom” doesn’t give you a perfect, magic fruit-producing vagina that lets you judge everyone else.  Chances are your kid just ate dog shit anyway. Go check.

Anyway, that particular Thanksgiving, we did the turkey thing and Leslie, Ali’s sister, made her usual dramatic commentary about the cranberries and then after some hanging out and pie, Stef, Allison and I decided to try to find a place that had karaoke.

Since it was Thanksgiving, not every bar was open, but we found one called The Purple Turtle that featured karaoke that night. Ali grew up in Phoenix, but wasn’t familiar with the place. We decided to give it a go anyway and ventured off into the crisp Arizona night.

The Purple Turtle turned out to be a Latino biker bar, or so we discovered after being frisked upon entrance, by a guy in leather pants, a mammoth belt buckle and a very, very long mustache. We must’ve looked like the three gringoest gringos from gringotown.

One very tall, very bikery, very intimidating guy stood up and gave Stef, who has hair we fondly call The Cluckle (think Corey Feldman with a short spiky gelled ‘do), the classic cross-armed stance and super stink-eye. We all looked at each other like, “Act natural.”

Then, moments later, Giant Bikery Dude broke into a huge smile and warmly invited us to sit down. The place was totally hopping, packed, with a couple of little chubby middle-aged women shaking their booties and singing Selena on the karaoke stage like it was their last night on earth.

We ordered beers, everyone was having a great time and then Stef got up to sing. In classic Stef fashion, he did Wham!’s “Careless Whisper”.  It got really awkward in there during that. Everyone looked uncomfortable, not because Stef is a bad singer — he’s quite good, but it wasn’t the right venue for that particular song, I guess.  I think Ali sang… I don’t know, something offensive, probably… and that was a big hit, as usual.  I think I did Donna Summer and c’mon, who doesn’t like a party song? But something about Wham! set the bar on edge.

When Stef finished, you could hear a pin drop. Ok, it wasn’t that quiet, but there was definitely… tension. So we paid for our drinks and hustled our happy asses out of there before he could put up Matchbox 20.

Upon arriving home, Leslie was up, so we all sat around, drinking beer and writing what we dubbed ‘nonsense poetry’.  We all just spouted words, whatever came into our head at that moment, rhyming or not, and Leslie would jot them down in a notebook in a freestyle poem.

This morning, I got an email from Allison that contained all our poems from that night — she’d found them somewhere. So, for posterity, I close with the fruits of our warped, turkey and Wham-laden minds from a night in the nineties.

It’s poetry. Dig it, man. *snaps*

Thanksgiving Nonsense

I like the turkey crab slab
with the bone shone
on my friend.
Lots of orange mange
home on the range
Fat cat armpit mustache
*squint squint*
Smirnoff blouses very orange
bird curd…HEY!
Bee be buzzing blob book
Scab Mahoney
Eggplant leggies perched
on plaid buttocks.
Slow beef shingle
on a stick
SCRIMP, scramp, stucco
Haunting moronic melodic horndog
BEIGE.

Thanksgiving Nonsense ~ The Sequel

Hamper lover fructose
Danny Glover liver mexico
Mr.Clean bean yamaka
Hoover jew smacks sineau
Jamboree canoe macoy
Poi kabob chicken wishes
Ska macabre
Blob barnyard boogie hummus
Bourbon turban
Yeek yike mama
Van-o-rama Llama lambert
Camper man woodstock
hubbub schlep grubs
two tiny knickerknockers
with fickle fossils and fruit
Dumpling dada mania
Maniacal monacle charcoal
Bob pile
Schlamile feeny fanny
Backfat biting bronchial
ham scram lamb and lamp
Ovary tubage cubicle
Asunder.

Thanksgiving Nonsense III – Lost in Arizona

Flog monkey Pierre’s lap
Perched domo arrigato domo gelato grotto
Paper people kickoff
Egg drop talk shop
Below Hannah Walt
Electric duo schmoozing
Reggae Cowchip
Flacid cactus bistro
Joe’s Roadhouse estate
Winkles Tinkey Toy
Cream cheese cretin
Zorba the greek
Hoffa Boffo Sock ‘em
Knock ‘em jock
Coleslaw enjoyment
Slotted spoons swoon
Petite.

But a conversation about German food with Kathy just now had me thinking about one of mike’s little peccadilloes… he’s a picky eater.

This sometimes poses an issue for me, The Girl Who Will Eat Just About Anything But Marzipan. It can be frustrating when your other half won’t stray from their four food groups: Pizza, Burgers, Mexican Food, and Pasta.

No fish (which isn’t uncommon), but also no fruit, none. No fresh fruit, no cooked fruit, no fruit in dessert. Nyet fruit. Except blueberries, but only if they’re in muffins or pancakes. Like, once a year I can get him to chug down a blackberry yogurt, but the rest of the time, it’s a fruit-free zone. Also, no vegetables — well, a few: corn, mushrooms, broccoli and sometimes green beans… if the planets are aligned and we’re having steak.

Now, to his credit, the things he does like, I happen to like, too. (Mmmm… mexican food…)  But I also have a more varied palette, so I get sick of those things pretty quickly. And I’m also fairly adventurous and love to try new restaurants, go out for sushi, explore ethnic cuisines… that’s not really his jam.

Mike doesn’t care for Asian food, either, on the whole. Since he’s Filipino, this sometimes gets him flack, but it’s just not his thing.  He likes enough of it, though. Lumpia/egg rolls, super-crispy won tons, teriyaki chicken, and chicken fried rice = yes. Everything else, from the Philippines to China and everywhere in between and likely surrounding = no.

Sometimes I feel bad for him. That sounds terribly condescending, but it’s because I care.  He’s a grown man, he can choose what he wants to eat, but some things are just so freaking good and the fact that he won’t try it or think he won’t like makes me a weep a little inside for all the deliciousness he’s missing. I want to enrich his life with dark chocolate and halibut! But not together, I’m not that adventurous.

He will occasionally give something a go if I harangue him enough about it or if it’s close enough to something he does like. And sometimes, he will concede that he likes something new. It’s not often, but I consider it a tiny victory. There’s a culinary end-zone dance going on in my head when this occurs.

What I find totally perplexing is the things he will eat, while excluding yummy goodness like roasted zucchini, grapes, strawberries or butternut squash.  Things like asparagus — now, I love asparagus, but as far as veggies go, it’s polarizing.  It’s not really a “starter vegetable”.  I’d say it’s more in the “advanced vegetables” category along with brussell sprouts and eggplant, so for that to be one of his favorites? I find that surprising.

Also, liverwurst. LIVER. WURST. It’s got “worst” right in the name, yet he likes it. Go figure.

Shrimp chips. He knows how I feel about these. I’ve grown accustomed to them over the years — in the beginning, the mere opening of the bag would send me gagging, but now I’ve learned to filter out the smell.  For those not familiar with Asian snack fare, shrimp chips are these cheese-puff like things, but instead of technicolor orange cheese flavoring on the outside, it’s a powdered shrimp flavoring. (I think Walkers makes something similar in England, but in potato chip form.)

Mmm… powdered shrimp. #heave (Yes, I just hashtagged. It’s compulsive.) Mike says it’s a throwback to his youth and despite not liking most Asian food, he loves shrimp chips.

So, as Kathy says, “But not a grape.”  He’ll eat liverwurst and asparagus and artificially flavored shrimp cheetos, but not a grape. Not a grape.

I endure these little quirks.  They’re not deal breakers. Besides, he puts up with my habit of never putting the toilet paper tube back on the holder. And finding my hair in places least expected. And my sneaky razor theft. And my inexplicable rage over too-short toenails.

So, when I consider those things and the fact that he kills the spiders and drags out the trash cans without bitching, I guess I can eat another slice of pizza.

Of course, it came out in 2005, so it was a little hokey and in true Lifetime fashion, was melodramatic and exaggerated. But it got me thinking about the internet and porn. Like y’do.

It boggles my mind that people still pay for porn on the internet. There are a zillion sites out there that give you porn for free, yet people are still willing to be $29.99 a month to jerk off. (And you’re not fooling anyone, if you’ve got one subscription, you’ve probably got more.)

I have no issue with porn, but I am on a budget. I just think it’s stupid to pay for something you can get aplenty for free. But whatever — maybe there’s just not enough free “busty redhead amputees masturbating chimps in smoking jackets” videos for your particular fetish.

(I can’t wait to see what the search results gods bring after that one.)

Penny-pinching aside, it occurred to me that my overall sense of porn is that it’s kind of passé. Granted, I’m not a 14 year old boy, who might have a different take on it, but it just seems kind of… eh. I work on the internet a minimum of 10 hours a day and I don’t think I run across anything porn-related… maybe ever.

Granted, I may just be so jaded that I filter it out. Perhaps I just don’t even notice it anymore. You’ve seen one beaver, you’ve seen them all, right? (There’s a whole diverse grooming conversation that I could digress to, but I’ll save that for another time.)

This lead to a conversation with mikey the other night about how the media/society, along with the internet and the mainstreaming of porn celebrity has kind of blurred the lines of sexy.  Everything is awash with sex (that painted a visual I didn’t anticipate) to the point that everything seems almost homogenized.

In design, it’s like when you make everything bold. If everything is bold, nothing is emphasized, so in essence, nothing is bold. Everything is “sexy” now, so in turn, not much is all that sexy. Very little is provocative, very little shocks anymore, so titillation is, in my opinion, socially at an all time low, despite there being an endless barrage of boobs and booty.

mikey agreed with me, throwing in totally reasonable 40-something man commentary about “kids these days” and “toddlers and tiaras” and “girls thinking they had to be slutty to be sexy”.  Which lead to a conversation about how while I believe everything he’d said to be true, as a man he still occasionally enjoys porn and isn’t that a convenient paradox? Neither of us could pin down what that’s about other than men are “wired differently”.

(Statistically, women use their imaginations more often when it comes to sex overall, than men who prefer literal visual input. I’m also totally pulling that official sounding statement out of my ass because I’m too lazy to Google supporting evidence, but I think we can agree we’ve all heard that before, whether or not it’s actually true.)

So, maybe it’s because I’m a woman or maybe it’s my age or maybe it’s just me, but things I find sexy are usually a product of my own mind these days because all the allegedly sexy things around me just seems like… oatmeal. Beige. Boring.

Which brings me back to porn on the internet. For all the talk people do about corruption of the internet on young people and porn being rampant, I actually sometimes forget there’s porn online. I never encounter it unless I’m just not noticing it. Like I told mel earlier via chat, you’d pretty much have to flop a hulking black schlong in the middle of the screen in 3D for me to notice. And even then, I might just try to close it. “F#$%ing Chrome! I can’t get rid of this pop-up!”

I hope it’s not just me, that I’m not turning into some wisened old lady, but society’s notion of sex just isn’t all that sexy anymore. *shrug*

The initial plan we made toward the end of 2011 was that when our lease is up in October of this year, we’re going to move back to San Diego.  This is still the plan — I really miss my hometown, Mike hates his job with the burning fire of Vegas in August and being far from our “people” makes working from home even more isolating.  It can be lonely out here in the desert (cue some cowboy’s woeful harmonica).

But, moving home is not quite as simple as moving here was. mikey had already been here for 6 months, staying with a friend. He had a job here and rent is cheaper here, so moving this direction was pretty easy. Going the other way is going to be more of a challenge.

Complicating things further, business in 2011 was really good (yay!), which conversely means taxes were a bear (boo!), which means less money in the honey pot.  (I can’t believe I just said ‘honey pot’, but I’m going to go with it.) So, the “moving reserves” and subsequent safety net while Mike looks for a job in San Diego are thinner than originally hoped.

And of course, I just bought a new car, because I can’t be trusted to get an oil change by myself. (Went in for an oil change on my 2011 Prius II, came out with a 2012 Prius C Two, which is being exchanged for a Prius C Three once it arrives from Japan.  Because I’m now the asshole who says things like “once my new, new, new Prius arrives from Japan.” Next I’ll be shopping a Chico’s and only buying fair trade organic water dug by native children from a spring in Peru.)

But I digress. What was I talking about? Oh, moving.

Anyway, now we’re faced with this pickle: do we stay one more year or do we go?  I’ve considered some pros and cons of both staying and going:

PROS of Staying in Vegas

No state income tax.
The second we move back to California, I will have to start saving additionally (or paying estimated taxes on) state income taxes. Not the end of the world to most, but as a freelancer, it’s nice to not have that.

Rent is cheap.
We would likely move across to the southwest corner of town, which is a nicer area closer to more things that we use every day (like a grocery store that’s not a Walmart — their produce makes me weep for vegetables everywhere). And we will likely downsize a little to a smaller place for significantly less rent so that we can save.

People visit.
I have gotten to see a lot of friends I don’t normally see living here. I just don’t see more friends often enough, I guess.  But I’ve seen friends I’ve not seen in 20 years who were in town visiting. I’ve seen “online friends” I’d never met, I’ve hung out with Nina (the Slackmistress) more in the last year than I have in the entire 6 years I’ve known her. And I got to deflower Kathy’s Vegas virginity and introduced her to a damn fine cocktail. So that’s been nice.

A damn fine cocktail.
The Cosmopolitan at The Chandelier bar at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino is probably the best cocktail I’ve ever consumed. It’s not enough to make me stay on its own, but it’s definitely a “pro”.

It’s time to buy a house, just not here.
Now that I’ve cleared up my credit (it only took a decade!) and I’ve got the hang of this whole “business” thing (sort of), I feel like buying a house is the next logical step. It’s scary and not something I ever thought I’d be able to do — I’d resigned myself to renting forever — but given the great rates and the foreclosures all over San Diego, I can get the kind of place I want (an older California mild fixer-upper) in the area I want for a song (ok, a California song, which is more of an opus or an aria than say, a jingle, like you might have in Kansas, but still — cheap for California).  Living here one more year will allow me to save a down payment. Or get close to it, anyway.

CONS of Staying in Las Vegas

It sucks.
I know that’s an unfair blanket statement and that there are tons of people who live here happily. There are folks born n’ bred who have lived here their whole lives and are happy to be living here. I don’t want to disrespect them and their love for this city. I understand loving your town.  But this isn’t my town. And I find it really depressing here. There’s an air of desperation here that weighs on me. Not to say there aren’t highlights — there are highlights anywhere you go.  Hey, I hated Texas when I first moved there, too, and grew to love it. But it’s been 2 years almost and I’ve still not really found anything to latch onto to make me call Las Vegas home.

I miss my people.
I’ve always thought I was alone in this world.  That sounds dramatic, I realize, but family has always been kind of a thorn in my side. Complicated, at best. But what I’ve realized over the years is that my friends are my family. I love them. I miss my time with them. I need those Monday night cocktails at Mo’s.  I need Christmas ‘tinis and karaoke nights and  Sunday Funday brunches. Spending so much time at home, staring at a computer screen,  I need those times.  Mike’s awesome, don’t get me wrong, but he works full time and I’m a people person. I need more social in my life. And Mike’s family, they’re our people, too — and while we don’t go to every family function, we love them and knowing they were nearby gave me comfort I didn’t realize until recently.

Climate.
My allergies are killing me here. KILLING ME. And the lack of humidity is making my face look like a saddle. One can only apply so much moisturizer, y’all. And the weather… like I said, you get about 6 weeks a year (Fall and Spring) where you can open windows and go outside. The rest of the time, it’s hot as balls or freezing. I miss open windows, soft breezes and sunny days. I miss palm trees against a blue sky and the smell of an ocean breeze. I miss 75 degrees.

mikey’s job.
He hates it. It’s taking a toll on him, physically and mentally. It’s probably the worst job for a grown, capable adult with a brain in his head. He’s going positively bat shit crazy and it’s source of great stress here, for both of us. I want him to quit so badly, for his own sanity — and mine — but a job is a job right now. However, I don’t think either of us will survive if he has to work for there another year.

I could probably go on, but those are the highlights.

So responsibility says “Joelle, stay one more year. Move across town to a better area, stash cash, stay one more year and you can buy a home once and for all.” 

But my very soul says, “Run. Run away. And sort it out later.”

At what point do you put your grown-up responsibilities and logic aside and listen to your gut? And what good is responsibility and logic if your insides ache and you’re unhappy?  Life is too short.

So there’s my long winded predicament. I have time to decide and we need to run the numbers and see how it shakes out.  I mostly wrote this so I could hash it all out in writing, a way to see at a glance who wins: Vegas or San Diego.  Sadly, I’m still torn. I’ve worked so hard to get where I am, with my credit and my career, I don’t want to blow it by making an impulsive choice because I’m being bratty and spoiled.

But I also think that we only live once and spending any time where you’re miserable is not a life at all.

A. Age: 38 — I’m not really sure when that happened. When I think “ten years ago”,  I still picture the 90′s…

B. Bed size: A king. From Bed in a Box. I cannot say enough good things about them. SO MUCH AWESOME. (No, they’re not paying me, but I’ll happily take their money.)

C. Chore that you hate: Dishes. Yet, I’m the one who does them. mikey gets things like trash, vacuuming and spiders.

D. Dogs: Love dogs. I’m totally for dogs. Especially dachshunds, labs and pit bulls. Currently, Lulu is the head of the household, diva rabbit that she is.

E. Essential start to your day: Coffee, followed by extensive bunny love. And then after that some more coffee. And whatever I recorded last night on the DVR.

F. Favorite color: It changes all the time. I’m a big fan of pink, but it’s not practical always. I love oranges and aquas, rich reds, happy grass green… and I like to mix it up.

G. Gold or Silver: Silver. Or white gold. Anything not yellow, basically. I have gold undertones in my skin and it makes me look jaundiced.

H. Height:  5’10″ So, taller than you, probably. I don’t wear heels.

I. Instruments you play: I play the larynx. I’ve also dabbled in guitar and recorder (remember those?)  My mom was a concert-level pianist,so I also took piano lessons from 3 to 18 and taught them from 18-22. I haven’t played in ages and it makes me sad. Let’s talk about something else.

J. Job title: This is the part where I am supposed to put like “web design ninja/rock star/goddess/diva/bad ass”, right?  I honestly have no idea what my job title is. Web designer. Business owner. Creative director? Principle? Lead? Whatever. I make pretty websites that go.

K. Kids: The forecast is 99% no kids with a 1% chance of holy shit.

L. Live: I currently live in our nation’s tramp stamp, Las Vegas. North Las Vegas, to be specific, for all you creepers out there. I’m from San Diego, of which I’m proud and for which I’m spoiled absolutely rotten and have been ruined for every other city. Thank god we’re going back in the Fall.

M. Mother’s name: Jamia Jewel.  We have the same first name.

N. Nicknames: Dude. Babe. Whore. Jo. (Only a few get to call me Jo and only one gets to call me Whore.)

O. Overnight hospital stays: One. I assume you mean one instance and not one night. I spent 3 nights, I think, back in the early 00′s for an acute asthma attack.  It was totally not awesome. The pudding wasn’t bad.

P. Pet peeves: Lack of a courtesy wave. Not acknowledging when someone’s held a door for you. Amazeballs. Obvious poor grammar, like “supposably” and “fustrated”.  When you’re signaling to get around the guy in front of you and just when you get a window, the asshole behind you dashes out and takes it. Eff that guy.

Q. Quote from a movie: “Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?”

R. Right- or left-handed: Lefty

S. Siblings: It’s complicated.  The short answer is: 1 half sister, 2 half brothers and 2 stepsisters.

T. Tattoos & Piercings: I have a nickel-sized butterfly on the back of my neck near my hairline I got in Dallas in the early 00′s after 2 bottles of sake. It’s my favorite one. I also have Kanji on my left ankle I got with Allison in ’98. I’ve been thinking about covering it up because in hindsight, it doesn’t make sense and they’re bigger than I wanted and the guy put this magenta fade around it that causes people to ask if it’s new fairly often, but most of the time I forget that it’s there.

Piercings: my ears, only once. I had my tongue pierced in the early 00′s, twice (once with Sarah). Like y’do. And I had my nose pierced in the mid 90′s — just a tiny tiny little one that I took out a few weeks later when it was allergy season.

U. Underwear: I used to not wear any in my 20′s, like girls do for some reason. Then I went on a “let’s wear sexy underwear all the time to make ourselves feel sexier” kick, but that just left me with expensive underpants and a lace chafe, so I’m a fan of cotton boyshorts in black, white, or nude. Wank accordingly.

V. Vegetable(s) you hate: I have to agree with Sizzle, mealy tomatoes are abominable. But I generally like most veggies. I’m not the biggest fan of fresh green beans, for some reason. The crappy canned kind I love, but fresh ones just feel hairy and tough to me.

W. What makes you run late: Very little. I tend to be one of those annoying early people and spend a lot of time in my car on my iphone waiting.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Oh, lots. Mostly my ankle, which I’ve twisted and sprained several times falling down stairs. (It’s a gift of mine.) I also have had my back x-rayed when I slipped and fell in a grocery store meat department and my lungs x-rayed to make sure I didn’t have TUMAH.

Y. Yummy food that you make: I make pretty good chili, I think. And tacos. I make good spaghetti sauce — I got Kathy to eat mushrooms, so that’s saying something. I also bake these cookies that are affectionately called Orgasm Cookies due to the sounds people make when they eat them.

Z. Zoo animal: Pandas, pandas, pandas. I also love to see the flamingos, even though they reek. And the polar bears.

When I was a teenager, my younger stepsister had a thing for babies. She probably still does, I haven’t asked her. But she loooooooooved babies. Wanted a baby, talked about babies, loved to babysit, couldn’t wait to have babies… and she love love loved those Anne Geddes photographs and calendars depicting babies in a daisy, curled up like a ladybug and other uber-precious scenarios.

I’ve got to confess that they creeped me then and they creep me even more now with the deluge of maternity/newborn photographers that have surged the internet in the last 5 years.  The digital camera has made everyone Anne Geddes and for me, they might as well all have become clowns. *shudder*

I mean no disrespect to any friends or online acquaintances who have taken up this profession, it’s not personal. It’s a sweeping, across-the-board cringe at that genre of photography, a fire that Pinterest has done an excellent job of stoking lately.

I’m only speaking for me, but cramming your baby in a teacup and suspending them in a sparkly meshbag from the ceiling is not adorable, it’s grotesque. If you found a similar photo in a creepy dude’s basement, you’d be calling the FBI not framing it over the fireplace. It makes me think of kittens in jars or fetal pigs in formaldehyde. It’s practically… gothic.

And while we’re on the subject, I could also do without all the glistening pregnant torsoes floating on black backdrops. And little hearts around belly buttons with parental hands. And the sexy ones, mom in grayscale, lusciously prone on a chaise, a yard of shocking pink chiffon covering her naked bits.  And the piece de resistance, the topless pregnant couple, dad’s hands covering mom’s breasts, both floating in a sea of black,  often headless, soft focus midsections captured for posterity and the inevitable future “ew” from their unborn child.

No child, even when they’re 40, is going to look back at those photos and think, “Aw, that’s me in there.” their heart swelling so much they book a cruise to celebrate their parent’s love. They’re going to think, “That’s dad holding mom’s boobs”, followed by 50 minutes with their therapist.

I don’t knock the talent of these photographers, technically, many of these photos are lovely — it’s about the subject matter, not the talent. And, I also realize that demand dictates supply, so if you get a sea of parents asking for photos of husbands kneeling and worshipping at their wives baby bumps, then by god, that’s the kind of photo you’ll take. It may not be art, but it pays the bills and I totally respect that. It’s not like I’m making “art” with every website I design.

It’s just a personal preference. It’s not for me. And I’m grateful that Kathy never made a papier mache cast of her pregnant belly, bedazzled it and displayed it in her living room because then I’d have to mock her about it until we we’re 80 and that takes a lot of work.

But “subpar” is too kind of a word for the property management we’ve had here in the last year since we moved in. Terrible. Lazy. Combative, even. It’s been a revolving door of management companies, but the thread between them all is that no one wants to do their job and every month, they evict us.

We are bill-paying people. I bust my ass and make sure every bill is paid on time, usually without incident. I use my bank’s bill pay and know, without question, that the bill has been paid and issued on time. But for some reason, five times in a year we’ve been issued a “5 Day Pay or Evict” notice on our front door, as well as by mail.  Five times. Four of which happened in a 6 month period. In December, they even issued it on festive red paper! Ho ho ho!

For some reason, these people insist that they don’t get our rent check. We’ve been told it’s our fault, we’ve been told it’s the mail man’s fault, the bank’s fault… we’ve been asked to prove that we’ve paid. And once, back in December, I was told I “have an attitude” and I “probably just trying to get the fee waived” when I deigned to come into the office and address it personally.

Every single time, when I’ve insisted my check has been issued and/or provided proof from my bank, they’ve found the check. Magically… in the back of the mailbox, under a pile of old mail, in a letter tray, and my favorite, in the front seat of the maintenance man’s truck a week later.

So, today, when we got yet another one, both of us kind of lost our shit and stormed over to the office, intending to tear (yet another new) property manager a new one and possibly even ask to be let out of our lease.  But fortunately, this new manager seems like he’s got a clue.  He seems professional, experienced, friendly, like he really cared who we were and where we lived, so Mike and I both were instantly calmed and felt confident he’s doing his best to clean up the “hot mess” as he put it.

I’d told mike the day before after talking to the manager on the phone about the barking dog, “We have a new manager. He seems nice… professional. My gaydar totally went off.” And sure enough! My gaydar doesn’t lie.

Not that I’m the Homo Whisperer or anything. Just because someone’s gay doesn’t mean he’s competent or that we’ll get along, but I felt at ease instantly, for some reason. He had a dishy and friendly, yet still professional demeanor and let’s just say he was well maintained. I knew he probably handled his job the same way. I sort of want to go over at quitting time with a pitcher of cosmos and meet his cocker spaniel.

At one point, while he was reassuring us that he was going to whip the property into shape, he said, with this totally SoCal Latino/gay accent, “I don’t want to be dramatic or anything, but I’m really good at my job. I’m excellent, but I have to be allowed to practice my craft.”

I had a hard time stifling my smile, so I just let ‘er rip.  I found that totally endearing.  It’s prop management in North Vegas, honey. Not Cats.

Anyway, our lease is up at the end of October, and hopefully, we’ll be on our way back to San Diego, but in the meantime (or, if heaven forbid, we have to stay), we hope this manager sticks around.

I started this blog on January 22, 2003.  For all you youngin’s out there, back then blogging was actually kind of like Twitter, just with more characters and less people. It was more of a stream of consciousness — you’d blog short things, long things, multiple times a day, whatever.

Blogging was a bit more intimate with considerably less bloggers — we used to be able to count them on list. Remember the Top 100 on Blogrolling? No? I’m old.

It was a tiny pond and at the time, I guess I was about a mackerel in terms of popularity or maybe a trout. I wasn’t like, a yellowfin tuna or anything. I kind of want an “I was famous on the internet once” shirt, but they don’t make those.

I had a total blast meeting people online. We’d start conversations between blogs, “trackbacks” were all the rage, and Zonkboards. Holy crap, Zonkboards… the original Twitter.

I kind of miss those days sometimes — I had more things to say (after 9 years, you get tired of writing about yourself and can’t remember if you already blogged about that. Blog senility, I guess.). I was also almost a decade younger, single and living in Texas. So… life was decidedly different.

I’ve met amazing people through blogging.  Kathy, the blonde ying to my yang, and I started Blog Moxie a mere 3 weeks after we met through our blogs in Feb 2003. I met mikey at the same time, thanks to blogging. I met my best gays because of blogs. And so many other wonderful people I now consider good friends are all because of blogging.

So I have my career, my family and my friends all because Sarah (who I ran a message board with prior to blogging) suggested I start a blog. She even picked this domain name.

I’ve pansied around with other domains over the years — some of you may remember SnappyHour.com and YetUpbeat.com, both of which I didn’t connect with and came back to my roots: Tenth Muse. I recently found the database with the posts from those urls in them, so I hope to dig them out.

In my older blog posts, you can see immaturity — I complained a lot and swore a lot — mostly because that’s what bloggers did most of the time back then (and I suppose still do). It’s cool to be disenfranchised and sarcastic when you’re in your 20′s. It’s not as hot at 38.  But that won’t stop me from virtually rolling my eyes, saying ‘fuck’ where appropriate or posting conversations about monk balls. I’m only human, people.

I’m glad I’ve kept this blog alive, even when it gets a little dusty. I hope to write more on it, as whenever I do write, I think of like 30 other things I want to write about… then forget… until I write one of these “I haven’t written in a while” posts and the cycle starts all over again.

In the meantime, I’ll share some of my favorite posts with you from over the years.

• Like They Do on the Discovery Channel
• Burgess Fisherman and the Discount Diaper Cream
• Debbie Diapers and the Amazing Technology Craptacular
• You Say Potato, She Says “Hell Yeah!”
• Ben Stein Likes Boys and Other Bar Stories
• Fiddy Wouldn’t Front
• Trigger Happy Jack
• Whispering Punanni and Slick Dick
• Codfish to Strangers
• Hat Sass
• Meltdown in Aisle 5