Category Archives: peeves

Yo, Mama.

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Lulu and JoelleI read a post shared on Facebook this morning that was in reply to another post on HuffPo that now has me writing this post in a fit of “what the fuck?!”. I have already been ranting on my Facebook profile about it, but I need to expound and can’t full express my indignation in that tiny font.

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.

Livin’ in a Mom-ish Paradise

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I have nothing against moms. I’m not one, but I have no beef, overall, with the institution of motherhood. We’ve all had a mom, in some capacity — be it a nurturing, lifelong presence or simply our vehicle into this mad, mad world.

So, moms are good — as a rule. There are some circles of moms — like any community — that has its peccadilloes, but to label all moms X, Y or Z would be unfair. My best friend is one (twice over) and I love her kids. And I still love her after 18 collective months of talking about baked ziti and back pain.

I’ve considered being a mom, but it’s not my jam, I’m afraid. Or maybe I am literally afraid. I don’t know, but I’ve got my hands full of bunny right now and if my eggs turn to fossilized Raisinettes in the meantime, so be it.

In the last few years, the internet and the world, really, have been deluged with the mom movement. Moms are a force to be reckoned with — on the internet, in marketing, on TV — they’re everywhere. There are hip talk shows based on them, hosted by them, and written for them. The internet has got a mommyblog in every nook and cranny. There are mom-related conferences from here to Botswana. A majority of our business over the last 9 years has been from moms. So, I can, without a doubt, say I am definitely not anti-mom.

But — and I don’t think I’m alone here — the whole “add a variation of mom to any word and make it the hot new lingo” trend must die. Please, 2012, please… make it stop.

(I actually feel this way about a lot of these portmanteaux, not just the mom ones, but they’re funnier and resulted in the following conversation.)

Me: I’m so over everyone being a ninja and a rock star.
Kathy: haha… and a mom
Me:  I think I’m just super sick of words, like “mom”, being twisted into new words. Like Safemama, that’s two words, it’s descriptive. I’m talking about things like…
Me: Momversation
Me: and Mommavation
Me: and Momiversary
Me: and Momisvere
Kathy: Momstipation
Me: LOL
Me: Momstruation. Momgasm. Momicon. Mompocalypse! MOMMAGEDDON.

I wish I had some tidy way to wrap up this post, but then our conversation went on to talk about how someone guessed “donkey punch” as an answer on Jeopardy last night — which pretty much trumps any amount of humor in this post.

GoDaddy is Holding Me Captive

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As you may have heard, recently GoDaddy caused a big hubbub when it was discovered they supported SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).  Anyone who supports the freedom of the internet should NOT support SOPA, especially an internet-based corporation! In addition to being ridiculous, it could hinder the livelihoods of anyone working on the internet and everyone’s access to valuable information, among other things.

Anyway, when I found this out, I, along with a lot of other people, moved their domains from GoDaddy to NameCheap or another registrar. (I picked NameCheap because they seem much more transparent as a business, their prices are comparable, their customer service was really awesome and they are openly anti-SOPA.)

Once I cleared out and transferred all our domains from GoDaddy for both my personal account and our Moxie account, I tried to close my accounts. You know, delete them. Like you should be able to since they were your accounts to open in the first place. But guess what? Apparently, you can’t.

I searched high and low on that site and found nothing. I did Google searches. And finally, I called their customer support and was informed that I cannot actually delete my account. Their recommendations are as follows:

  • Remove all your products and domains from your account.
  • Disconnect any payment methods.

That’s it. So your account just sits there, with your personal information in it, just in case you might ever want to return.  But what if you don’t want to return?  I just want to delete my accounts!

I asked the customer service person — quite nicely, actually — if there’s someone else higher up I could speak to about this. They insisted no, there wasn’t and bid me a nice day. Seriously!  She said, “I’m sorry, no. You can’t delete your accounts with GoDaddy and there’s no one higher than me on this subject. Have a nice day.”

Apparently, this woman is the Grand Poobah Empress of GoDaddy Account Deletions.

I hung up and went about my day, but now I’m still getting GoDaddy emails with no access or link to unsubscribe at the bottom. And the real pisser? They close every email “Thank you for being a GoDaddy customer.”

That just frosts me. I AM NOT A GODADDY CUSTOMER and I DONT WANT TO BE and STOP ACTING LIKE I AM. It borders in harassment.

With all the recent accessibility issues regarding GoDaddy, I’m concerned that accounts with our business name, personal information and usernames are just sitting there, empty, waiting to be exploited by hackers or GoDaddy themselves. This is unacceptable to me. It has my name on it, I want it deleted. It seems unethical and maybe even illegal to deny that, no? (I don’t know about the legality, but if it’s not, it’s certainly FISHY.)

I wanted to login and change my username and email address to something fake, but it wouldn’t let me. It said you have to verify the email address change — obviously I can’t do that if the email address I entered is fake.

So you’re just stuck. I suppose they probably expect us to just sit on it and forget, but I’m not forgetting. I’m going to raise a stink. I will call and demand to talk to supervisors until someone can pull their thumb out of their ass long enough to hit “delete”.

GoDaddy, you may have changed your tune about SOPA, but that was only because you were scared of losing business, which you did — a lot of it. It has nothing to do with your business ethics, which are questionable, at best.

Some might see it as no big deal, but I care about what happens to my personal information. I admit, I sign up for a LOT of stuff on the internet, but if I don’t use it, I try to go back and delete the unused accounts. I don’t like all my cheese hanging in the wind, so to speak.  (Who thought of that expression?)  This is no exception.

Dramatic as it might seem, I feel as though I’m being held against my will and it pisses me off.

I “Like” You, Not Really: A Facebook Rant

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I’ve decided to be far more selective when “friending” people on Facebook or allowing people to “friend” me from now on.  What is the point of all this “friending” if you’re not actually going to be friends?  I’ve made more friends via this blog and on Twitter, people I actually call friend, than I ever have on Facebook. Granted, I keep my Facebook pretty private, but still 80% of my Facebook friends are people who never engage — they just watch, which is kind of creepy, if you ask me – which you didn’t, but I’m telling you anyway. What’s a blog without unsolicited bitching?

To avoid any pot n’ kettle action, there are really nice people on my own friends list that I rarely engage with either.  I do try to remember birthdays and comment or “like” occasionally, just to let them know I’m paying attention, but I have to wonder… why am I “friends” with them? Because they sat 3 seats behind me in AP English? That’s not fair to them either.

Once I was asked to add an old flame from high school to my friends list.  There was no introductory message (I prefer one), but I knew him on sight, so it was fine.  We dated for most of a year during my junior year of high school and well into that Summer, but eventually broke up. I don’t recall it being a bad break-up, just one of those high school things and over the years had thought of him fondly because above all else, I really liked him. I didn’t just date him, he was my friend.

So of course, I added him and sent him a note saying “hey” and “how are you?” and “what’s going on in your life’?” I commented on his beautiful children, asked about his career and wished him well.

Crickets. Nothing. No reply. No wall post. Not even a lousy “poke”.

What was the point of adding me then?  I’ve felt this way before, had it happen with several “friends” from my past, but this time, it just IRKED me. Why? Why bother? Why seek me out? Why add me to your list? To what end… networking?

Continue reading →

10 Reason I Unfollowed You (or Never Followed You to Begin With)

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There are the people with a lot of rules and strict do’s and don’ts about Twitter.  Then there are the people with a personal set of guidelines. I’m not really one for telling you how to do something — I believe people should use social networking in a way that’s meaningful to them and we should go with the flow, however it evolves.  But I do have some personal guidelines for my own optimum Twitter experience, to use it in way that’s meaningful to me.

Leah recently wrote a great list of “22 Reasons I’m Not Following You on Twitter” and most of her list I agree with (especially #1 and #18), but since I recently unfollowed a slew of people in a huff, the need to expound on and/or add a few guidelines of my own. Continue reading →

Reclaiming It Doesn’t Make It Untrue

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Marie over at Agent Lover had an interesting experience where a site complimented her by featuring her in a Fat Love fashion post.  I have never thought of Marie as fat and while she’s not a size 4, by her own admission, she doesn’t feel the need to declare “I’m a BBW!” from a rooftop either.   I’ve always thought she was unique and a little crazy and really daring when it came to fashion.  And I never once noticed her weight.  She’s just… Marie, hot stuff n’ all.   To quote her:

I don’t need to wear a sign around my neck and label myself as plus-size just so OTHER people are aware that I’m proud of my body. I just work my shit. And would continue to do so if I became a size 4. Ya dig?

I appreciate that. She’s just being who she is, working her swagger.  The original post, while intending to be complimentary, just missed the mark by assuming that every confident person who isn’t thin is totally cool with being the Grand Marshall of the Fat Pride Parade.

The author of the Fat Love Friday post responded immediately, according to Marie’s post comments, and offered to remove the offending post, explaining that fat doesn’t have to be seen as a negative word (“My view is that the word “fat” doesn’t always have to be used negatively. And I certainly didn’t use it that way in the post.”).  I’m in no way “villianizing” the author, she’s entitled to her point of view and I understand where she’s coming from — but I see why Marie doesn’t want it taken down. It’s because she’s making a point and removing the post would defeat that purpose.  To quote her again…

Try to change the meaning of the word all you want. Fat is fat. No woman, no girl, no matter what age is going to want to be called that.

And the Fat Love author responded with something that struck a nerve. I started to comment in Marie’s comments, but I was rambling and starting to veer off-topic, so I thought it best to give a little back-story, then vent my opinion here. The post author responded to Marie’s comment with this:

In regards to fat not being positive, I don’t think that’s necessarily true…There is an entire pro-fat movement dedicated to changing this.

I totally disagree with most “pro-fat movements” and “fat acceptance” declarations.  I understand trying to ‘reclaim’ the word, but frankly… why does anyone want it?

I don’t agree with fat-ism or discrimination against the overweight in any way.  No, indeed — that’s just rude, outright mean and something I’ve experienced myself.   But I feel the same about people reclaiming the word “fat” as I do about women reclaiming “bitch”. RECLAIMING IT DOESN’T MAKE IT UNTRUE.

Reclaiming “bitch” and putting a stamp of “empowered woman” on it doesn’t mean you’re not a bitch.  In fact, it probably increases the likelihood of it being true, in my experience.   And walking around declaring myself fat doesn’t make it any less true.  It doesn’t mean someone isn’t beautiful, but the terms “fat acceptance” and “pro-fat movements” give the impression that speaking out against discrimination of the overweight (which is generally the schtick of the pro-fat movement) is the same as saying “It’s OK to be 300 lbs.” Guess what?  It’s not OK with your liver. Or your heart. Or your kidneys. Or your back, knees or doctor.

While running PutDowntheDonut.com (and I won’t give you the song and dance about how it’s coming back — it is — when I have a minute), I was bombarded with “fat power” and “fat acceptance” and “pro-fat” protesters saying that because my site was about being real about losing weight, being candid and honest, we were anti-fat.  Uh, yeah, it’s a weight loss site — so that’s kind of the whole idea. We got a lot of “I’m 275 lbs. and I look HOT! Who the hell do you think you are?” or “I’m a size 26 and I work my ass, girl! Who the hell do you think you are?” or “I’m 310 lbs and my doctor said I was perfectly healthy at my last physical! Who the hell do you think you are?”

I think I’m someone who doesn’t really care how hot you are or how fat you are. It’s none of my business. I like a curvier woman — this is not news. I think women with more meat on their bones are sexy and I wish I was born in another era when a size 12 or 14 was considered the epitome of beauty. But I’m not and that’s the breaks, kid.  I don’t care what size you are or how confident you are — but don’t try to convince me it’s healthy to be fat.

The Donut wasn’t anti-fat people, just anti-FAT. There’s a difference.  And we weren’t anti-your fat. That’s on you… but if I want to be anti-my fat, well, that’s my own damn business.  I don’t have to accept my own fat if I don’t want to.  Improving on myself is ultimately a testament to how much I love myself, isn’t it?  I don’t care what doctor is blowing sunshine up your ass, being “fat” isn’t healthy, no matter how empowered you feel about the label.

And while I realized that Marie’s post wasn’t talking about health, but about fashion, my perception of fat acceptance is the same:  if I say I’m fat and wear the title with pride, it makes it ok that I’m deluding myself.  I’d rather not label myself something just to make others feel more comfortable about their own issues.

I know I’m overweight. I know I need to lose some weight to be healthier. But am I fabulous? You’re damn right I am. And I don’t have to subscribe to fat-acceptance or any other label to embrace that about myself, nor does anyone else.

I may have opened a can of worms, I may have just prattled incoherently, but… I needed to get that off my chest.

If It Were On Cinderblocks, She Might Have a Case

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So I was just climbing the stairs to my apartment and while on the second landing, I heard a bunch of people coming down from the third floor, where I was heading. I paused politely to wait for them to come down so there wouldn’t be a traffic jam.

I hear them talking and one of the women says REALLY snidely, “Oh my GOD, someone keeps their water bottles on their front porch? How TACKY!”, then they all start filing down the stairs. When they see me, they all say excuse me cordially and one woman was extra sweet — Texas style. Meaning, covered in bullshit, bless her heart.

I smiled back and said jovially, “Oh, it’s no problem. I’m just the woman with the tacky water bottles on her porch.”

They looked uncomfortable and kept walking. But at the bottom of the stairs, I heard one of the women exclaim, “I am SO embarrassed.”

Good, lady. If you’re going to talk shit, keep your voice down or be prepared to be called on it. They’re 5 gallon bottles of delivered spring water, where do you suggest I keep them? Those capris you’re sporting are tacky, but you don’t hear me complaining.

I feel a little bad for firing back and embarrassing her in front of her friends — I could have let it go. But… I didn’t.

No high road for me today I guess. Given the expression on their faces, the low road is more scenic.

Godzilla, Lord of the Dance

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I figured I’d blog today… you know, to give a update to the patient people who still keep up with this blog or who don’t follow me tweets.  Matey.  That should have said “my tweets”, but we have this thing where if we typo “me (something)” we follow it with “matey”, no matter what.  So I did and… well, now you know.

For those who don’t know, I’m moving out of my apartment in a week and a half.  I am really going to miss Casa Cocktail and all the good things about it, but lately the crap has started to outweigh the good things.  To start, Slick (a.k.a. Guitar Hero) picked up the electric guitar and bass as a hobby, which he played  every day at 4pm for 2-3 hours.  Is it not bad enough that his girlfriend made sex sounds like a caffeinated baboon, he had to fancy himself The Edge at least 5 days a week?  But… a blessing!  He moved out in April and took Ape Escape with him.

But then, GFI moved out.  I don’t know who the hell she thinks she is just moving out and having a life and stuff. I mean, god, lady. Don’t you know everything revolves around my happiness?  Obviously I’m kidding, but I miss her as a neighbor.  She never made a peep, we were BNF: Best Neighbors Forever.  I could text if she needed help when I heard she might’ve dropped something, she could text me to ask if I had margarita mix, we could sit on the patio and gossip about the neighborhood and I never, ever had to hear her pee. Continue reading →

This Post is Stupid and/or Lame

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I admit, I don’t entirely ‘get’ Facebook. I don’t understand all the fans and groups and pokings and need for 4200 applications that send me a fake cupcake.  I just don’t have that kind of time.  I login, I look at what other people say, occasionally bust some Scramble, but most of the time don’t have time to respond to every poke, every request to join such n’ such group and to be quite honest… I don’t much care to.  I try sometimes, but it just doesn’t really ‘take’. But that doesn’t mean that someone else can’t enjoy it.  It’s just not my cup of tea.  Why do I even bother having Facebook, you might ask?  Because I realize that’s where things are right now on these fine Internets.  People use Facebook. We had a book coming out and our publishers recommended a Facebook presence so, I finally caved and set one up. Whether or not I choose to “make the most of it” is my prerogative.

Similarly, Twitter.  At first (and sometimes still) I didn’t ‘get it’.  As an old school blogger, I found the idea of microblogging kind of weird.  I didn’t want to know what everyone was doing right that minute.  But then I gave it a chance and actually quite enjoy it… because I use it the way I want to use it and not how Mr. Know-It-All Blogger says I should.  Sure, it’s almost killed my desire to blog in a sense because I can spit out whatever I’m thinking right when I’m thinking it rather than try to craft a blog post around one clever thought and, like anything else, Twitter and it’s users do things that bug me, but I take it with a grain of salt. Nothing is perfect and I have to assume that somewhere someone finds my tweet-style excrutiating.  Different strokes.

Continue reading →

Peep This

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I feel like there’s almost no point to television sometimes.   I’ve known TV was crap for a long time, so it’s no big surprise.  In a 2-hour episode of The Biggest Loser, I watch probably grand total of 45 minutes — the rest I just fast-forward through.  In an hour show, I get maybe 35 minutes of true footage.

I’m so sick of all the previews.  Commercials show the whole damn show, practically. The preview they show before the show starts (for FIVE MINUTES) reveals everything we’re about to see. The preview before each commercial break shows us 30 seconds of what we’re about to see when they’re done recapping for another 30 seconds after the commercial.  Then they maybe show me 3 seconds of real show they already showed me in the preview and then preview what’s about to happen next. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Now it’s happening in the ‘info’ on cable, too. I was sorting out my shows and was checking to see if something was a repeat. I hit ‘info’ on a particular episode and it told me the entire episode in detail, down to the ‘shocking surprise’. Thanks, now I don’t have to watch the show.  Assholes.

I don’t even bother going to the movies anymore. Why pay $10 for something I can see for free in the commercial?  Then the moment a movie actually hits theaters, the morning that it opens, before anyone has a chance to even see it, they show even more of it in the previews.  You just saved me $10 and my firstborn child for a box of Red Vines.  Thanks, Hollywood!

I tallied up the amount of series I have listed in my ‘scheduled series’ profile and it’s something like fifty. Fifty shows.  Granted, not all at once, most shows are cyclical and seasonal and only are about 8-12 episodes. Its not like I watch fifty shows at once. But seriously… fifty shows?  As Oprah would say, what am I hungry for?   Why does anyone have that much scheduled television?  Because there’s no show in my show!  I’m entertainmentally deficient! Showtime and HBO series (and sometimes Bravo) provide actual nutrients, but everything else is just empty calories.  Television is the 64 oz. Big Gulp of media.

And on top of that, now that so many people have DVR, shows automatically run 2-3 minutes beyond their scheduled end-point so that you purposefully lose the end of the show. I think they do it to discourage recording the show since television is losing advertising dollars due to the almighty fast-forward button.  Fortunately, AT&T U-verse has a “record until 5 minutes past” feature, which is handy, but I still think it’s shifty.

Gee, perhaps all this griping will get me to whittle the series list down to a manageable 35 or so.  Probably not.  But it does make me realize I really do have time to go to the gym… *sigh*