Please Stop Making Roe About You

May 3, 2022 — Leave a comment

Unless you live under a rock, you know that Roe and Casey are about to be overturned.

If you do live under a rock, my apologies. Last night, a leak from within the walls of the Supreme Court was published in a Politico article, which included the opinion of the Supreme Court, which has effectively taken an internal vote to overturn both Roe and Casey. This will throw abortion and other healthcare rights back to the states, which will have an avalanche of consequences, including the return of back-alley abortions, and an elimination of privacy for everyone. It also, effectively, makes travel even through a state with outlawed abortion a non-option for millions of young women, as even travel through will be subject to criminal proceedings should a woman later terminate a pregnancy that was merely conceived in the state, in passing. Here is a link to that article; if you need to go read it, we’ll be here waiting when you’re done: LINK.

There is little less in this world quite as grotesque as the actions and words of many within hours of the publication of that article. I am sure more will come.

If I were to include an incomplete list, it would include:

1. Men, like Congressional Representative Eric Swalwell, making this into being about him:

2. Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and the DNC/Joe Biden fundraising off the issue:

3. People who have been promising to protect women for decades, only to repeatedly fall short of doing so

And the big one:

4. Men who believe they have a right to pontificate on how women are allowed to respond, react, feel, and vote/not vote on this issue

And that is, fundamentally, what I am seeing of the most. Men, and a few women as well, taking to Twitter and Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram – everywhere really – to pontificate and bluster about how this is the fault of young people who didn’t vote in 2016, or this is the fault of people, especially women, that are critical of Biden and the Democrats now.

The problem with that is that it fails to acknowledge history, and the gift that Democrats have been given over and over again over the last 50 years, only to take that gift for granted, much in the way women are often used and abused and then thrown to the side when no longer needed in every day life.

Even if we just consider the last couple of administrations, since the Supreme Court evidenced itself to be a political body in Bush v Gore, you have to accept that:

-In 2009, Obama had a super majority in the Senate for 5 months. Prior to this, he had campaigned on codifying Roe into law, and yet as soon as elected, his agenda shifted and this no longer became a priority. With that super majority, nothing was done.

-In 2014, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked to retire, and she was either too selfish or senile to oblige. People claim that she wanted to wait until a woman was president, but this foolish viewpoint is a grim statement more (in my view) of why the Supreme Court should not be a lifetime appointment; that an age limit should be enforced.

-In 2019, as highlighted above, Biden campaigned on codifying Roe, much like Obama did. And while he has not been gifted a super majority, his weak leadership has only made the problem worse. When asked to expand the court, he created a commission to study it. After spending our tax dollars to research the issue, the group created a 300+ page document that simply provided a history of the Supreme Court, and issued no recommendation. Since then, the issue has been dropped, mentioned now only in passing when things get bad. Moreover, in fall of 2021, the House passed a bill that would codify Roe into law, and the Senate has remained in gridlock on the issue. Most notable though is that a handful of senators did not even show up to vote on the issue, Biden made no public moves to lead with an iron fist on the issue, and to this day he continues to take zero position in favor of nuking the filibuster – even for a carve out on this singular issue, which they have done before, on military spending.

And these last 24 hours, the people in power have again shown us who they are. Pelosi and Schumer issued perhaps the weakest joint statement they have ever issued; Biden did much of the same today. It was more “let’s wait and see what happens,” as if time is not of the essence in this issue, as if the clock is not about to strike midnight. Fundraising, because women’s rights are a big money maker; and moving on to their agenda for the day of passing more money for Ukraine.

In the end, the military and the economy is really what this is all about anyway. If women continue to stop having babies, the economy cannot grow. Right?

But all of that is neither here nor there, in the final analysis. The damage to this point is done, and now it is only a matter of time before women in this country are subjugated in ways we never even believed could happen. Interestingly, over the decades, abortion statistics have remained static, through illegal and legal times. The only difference, fundamentally, has been whether or not they are safe.

Then again, were we the ones foolish and senile on this issue? The people in power in this country – the elite oligarchy of Democrats and Republicans, and a handful of progressives who still have more cash on hand than the rest of us – have systematically shown women what they think of us for a long time. There is no universal childcare. No equal pay, truly so. No paid family leave. Women’s healthcare has been on the downslide for decades, with abortion being the final nail in the coffin.

And it’s more than that. It’s the rise in toxic masculinity that is pervasive to daily life. It’s people saying they don’t want to wear a mask to protect others because it makes them feel “weak,” and “feminine” to care about others, have compassion and express feelings like kindness. It’s feeling threatened when a strong or intelligent woman enters the chat. It’s being a woman and calling the cable company, only to have them ask if they can speak to your husband. It is exhausting to be a woman in America today, this decision by the Supreme Court is more of the same.

It’s a country of men mansplaining to women how they are allowed to feel and react, and – again – how to vote or not vote in reaction to their fundamental right to choose being taken away.

Please stop making Roe about you. Please stop posting your hot takes, turning it into your own issues, using it as a fundraising tool, and telling women their frustration with their supposed-allies is invalid. Even if you are an older women, consider that this only symbolically affects you. For young women – women under 50 all over this country – the stakes are much more dire; for you it’s posters and cries to resist, for them it’s life, death, and back alley abortions.

Consider this: when you tell a young woman who is now faced with the consequences of the world created for them, a woman who has to plan travel around not even going through states that outlaw abortion (unless they want to later on face possible criminal proceedings)… when you tell them that they cannot vote how they want, feel how they want, or react how they deem appropriate, because the Democrats said so and the two party system is just what we have:

You are doing the same thing that the Supreme Court did by voting to overturn Roe and Casey.

You are taking away a young woman’s autonomy. You are deciding for her what she is allowed to think, feel, and do.

Please stop making Roe about you.

[Just A Long Post About Laundry]

January 31, 2019 — Leave a comment

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH.

We need to talk about laundry.

I don’t know about you guys, but laundry is probably going to be the thing that does me in.

Honestly.

It’s not the cooking, which I loathe and yet find myself spending about three hours a day doing.

It’s not the cleaning, which – again – I’m not really a fan of; though being a health and sanitization freak, I see the necessity of. (Still, it would be nice if the second I wipe down a counter, my family could not immediately spill food and walk away…)

The errands. The kids’ sports. The homeschooling. The breastfeeding, largely unsupported.

It’s none of that shit.

It’s the laundry.

I never understood – before having three kids, plus my dad, husband, and myself – just how much laundry a family could produce. Like I kind of understood. When I was little, we had a big basement and the laundry would just pile up higher and higher until my dad or I finally got around to doing it.

But holy shit. Laundry.

LAUNDRY. WOAH.

Every week, the piles get bigger and bigger, and I’m just not sure how to go about doing it. I have a teen, a tween, and a toddler, so naturally all three of the worst laundry-with-kids phases. My kids also play sports too; and my husband and dad… well, men.

I tried one load a day, but that was insufficient for a family of six.

I tried two loads a day; somehow also insufficient.

I tried just continuing the laundry all day, every day. The problem with that was then the folding never got done and we just had piles of clothes waiting to be put away laying around everywhere.

I’ve tried one or two, specific, laundry days a week. But busy lives and a lot of people means that for the days afterwards, there’s still the laundry piled up everywhere waiting to be folded or put away, like with my daily laundry routine. And also, with a family of six, the longer it takes to finish “laundry day,” the more laundry gets added to laundry day.

And you guys get it; it just never gets done.

I’m at the point, now, of thinking: ‘let’s just burn all of our clothes once they start to smell.’ We can start fresh with the latest Target wardrobe du jour. Right? (Honestly, it would probably cost less than the endless amounts of detergent, combined with the water and gas bill from the washer and dryer – essentially – running constantly.)

It’s not just the doing of the laundry, it’s the folding and putting away. We are a family of six, and we live in a small house (duh, California cost of living). So we have to squeeze things in as best we can.

Which basically means we don’t.

There’s also that whole Gain thing.

Do you guys remember a while ago Gain laundry detergent had that Gooder campaign, and I basically lost my mind about it?

I wrote blogs, Tweeted, Facebooked, and even wrote a letter to the president of the company. I just could not handle a marketing campaign that used improper grammar. (Because, at the time, I really was that much of a pretentious grammarian. I know, I know…I hate me too.)

To my surprise, those motherfuckers over at Gain had the BALLS to respond to me, and their response was even more appalling than the campaign: they said THAT THEIR GOODER CAMPAIGN WAS GOODEST ENOUGH FOR THEM. (Or something along those lines.)

Like they not only defended it, they went so far as to bate me further. I. Was. Livid.

So I stopped using Gain for quite some time, which I’m sure was a real crisis to them. I mean I do a lot of laundry, so much so that I was once asked for identification because my local CVS security team identified through camera and cash register surveillance footage that I was purchasing Tide pods at an “alarming frequency and quantity” (their words); still, I’m fairly certain my lone boycott of Gain and their bullshit GOODER campaign had absolutely no impact on the company whatsoever.

But it was the point, you know?

So flash forward to last summer when we went on a little mini vacation and had to buy one of those one time use packs of laundry detergent – because, duh, I have a huge family and even vacations include Mom doing laundry. The only option was Gain, so I begrudgingly bought it…

…WELL… have you guys smelled that shit lately? They were right: IT. IS. GOODER. It was like someone had sewn roses into my clothes when I washed them with Gain. Like all of the good smells in the universe have been infused into a tiny pod, that they don’t even call a pod – they call it a fling. Some romantic shit you had the summer between your junior and senior years of college is now working overtime to get the scent and stain of your daily filth out of your Cotton On underpants. Like heaven is real, and it’s the smell and feel of my freshly laundered linens.

So now I feel like a hypocrite because I took Gain to task during that whole Gooder campaign thing, now I literally stand at the washing machine with my nose in the Gain Fling container like I’m sniffing a fine wine for the first time.

I’ve clearly lost it in the thick of all these socks that need to be folded, and bras that need to be hand washed. I don’t really know where to go from here.

I Think I’m A Pinterest Mom

April 28, 2015 — 2 Comments

Counting the Deviled Egg Disaster of Easter 2015 as the recent (and glaring) exception, I think I’m a Pinterest Mom. And even so, the Deviled Egg Disaster of Easter 2015 was inspired by the famed pin site.

It was like Night of the Living Dead meets a traditional, holiday appetizer.

When my husband said that the only thing he cared about on Easter was that I make a lot of deviled eggs; oh and by the way can you make those guacamole ones?; oh hey you should do those colored ones you did a few years ago…; oooh look at those bleu cheese buffalo spiced deviled eggs … well you can see I was overwhelmed. I also saw a pin where the person made the deviled eggs look like baby chicks, and immediately felt up for the challenge. This is around where it fell apart – I was just in way over my head.

It also didn’t help a single bit that my husband’s cousin and his wife showed up with this bullshit cheese and chartreuse platter. I call it bullshit because it was SO. DAMN. AMAZING that it put everyone else’s nonsense to shame. I could have brought in a watermelon carving fashioned in the likeness of Jesus Christ himself, and it wouldn’t compare to that goddamned cheese and chartreuse platter. They actually hand-carved the platters at home, out of what I can only assume was wood they gathered from the homes of the gods on Mount Olympus.

So you can see, in the case of the Deviled Egg Disaster of Easter 2015, I was set up to fail from all sides. But this isn’t the normal course of affairs.

Usually I’m all over baking homemade dog treats, making my own laundry detergent, and hanging cutesy signs through out the house – that I happened to cross-stitch or paint out of, naturally, up-cycled materials I already had around the house.

Consider Exhibits A and B. After spending hours working on these, I can’t help but wonder if (a) anyone in my house will ever pay attention to them; or, (b) just how insane others will think I am when they visit the house.

I mean really… sock buddy system? How annoyingly cute can we get here?

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Birthday parties aren’t just birthday parties anymore. They are events. Events where every food item is perfectly labeled.

Exhibit C

Themes and color schemes are strictly adhered to.

Exhibit D

And there is always – ALWAYS – a dessert table.

Exhibit E

In Exhibit F you’ll see I’ve created a monogram for our family. It’s a fusion of our last name initials (P and S), and has taken over our house in monogrammed towels, wall letter art, and the labels I put on everything.

I actually have a day set each month to make more of those labels.

Exhibit F

As time goes on, I’m making more and more from scratch. I’m getting to the point of needing nothing more than a cow, and I will be fully sufficient. I can for canning season. I make homemade dog food, from-scratch Chex Mix, and homemade butter.

Yes – moving on to Exhibit G, now – I make my own butter. As in I churn it.

Exhibit G

And on the off chance that I’ve missed a beat, or something comes up like the Deviled Egg Disaster of Easter 2015, I feel that I have failed. Failed miserably – not only as a Pinterest user, or a Pinterest mom, but as a human being altogether.

Why? Because like many of you, I can’t help but compare myself, both to others as well as to that vast world of pins and pictures and examples of the far greater things out there. As I see it, Pinterest is just the new era of Better Homes and Gardens and Modern Woman magazines. And this is why women have been comparing themselves for ages.

We could talk about the social problems with this for ages, the fact that it happens is just that: a simple fact. No matter how many positivity-be-myself-and-love-it articles I read on Buzzfeed and Huffington Post, a part of me is always going to wonder if I could do as well as the others.

But it isn’t just a matter of self-comparison, because – quite frankly – a lot of the time I couldn’t give a lick about what others do. It’s more like a challenge. There is better out there, and I know I can do better. So I’m going to (unless it has anything to do with deviled eggs).

So I think I’m a Pinterest Mom. That means that a lot of you hate me. Like really-really hate me; like you’ve written your own articles about how I’m a big asshole making everyone else look like a pile of crap.

And here I am, feeling like my own pile of crap because of a fucking cheese platter.

Well there are a few saving graces, here. (One) is that a lot of my Pinterest projects likely come out looking more like the Deviled Egg Disaster of Easter 2015 than I’m able to admit. (Two) is that unlike a lot of people I know, I can only keep up charades for a relatively short period of time. Which means that before we know it I’ll be back to my bargain basement decorating skills, coupled with parties that consist of no more than a bucket of chicken on my cluttered dining room table.

As I get ready to make a Moving Day Binder out of printables I printed off Pinterest tomorrow (that is, literally, the only thing I have planned for the entire day), I hold steadfast in my hope that this Pinterest Mom phase will pass quickly.

Mr. Man-Panties

March 10, 2013 — 6 Comments

Special thanks to my friend Jeremy for this one; my husband does cry as much as this lady does too, as he laments over what I will do next…

I am in no way attempting to wage any mom-dad-husband-wife-bloggie wars here. In fact, I don’t really even know much about the blog that inspired this post: The Daddy Files. It would be terribly unfair for me to take a blog of his and pick it apart without knowing much about him, his intentions, and his blogging or writing style. So I won’t.

However someone shared with me his post today and – much like he preambles the man-pantie post of misogyny and insecurity with – I thought it my moral duty to at least address an important issue in the mom-dad-husband-wife blogging world: sexism.

Like I said, I find it terribly unfair for a blogger to take a blog or blogger s/he is unfamiliar with and pick everything apart (I’m looking at you, Daddy Files). But I would like to pay attention to one thing mentioned (perhaps in jest) when he took to task a fellow mom-blogger’s recent post over at Scary Mommy. Her’s was titled “10 Reasons Your Husband Is Just Another Child” and his response was titled “10 Reasons I Feel Bad for Your Husband.” You faithful blog followers are intelligent enough to assume where things went in the latter.

In the beginning, he says: “…all the man/dad bashing is so fashionable lately that letting it go unchecked seemed borderline irresponsible, so once again the dad blogosphere finds itself defending ourselves against idiotic, sexist and unfunny crap that litters the Internet.”

Woah there, sparky. Let’s settle down and not get our balls so twisted. There is a stark difference between making jokes, poking fun, or making light of the truth; and, acting idiotic and sexist.

I have posted many blogs about my husband. Some referred to them as “over the top;” others suggested that I was intentionally trying to emasculate him so as to assert control over him. One time my mother in law called my husband and asked if we were getting a divorce. I’ve poked fun at my husband, and all husbands – I’ve called men pigs (which many are); I’ve called him insensitive and misogynistic (which he is); and I’ve discussed all the horrific nuances of cleaning stubble out of a sink, crumbs off the kitchen counter, and urine off the back of the toilet.

And I shared with everyone the time I discovered the Pussy Master 3000 (an artificial vagina, I assume for masturbation purposes) in my husband’s drawer of miscellaneous crap.

In response to these types of blogs, I get a wide range of responses, many of which are clearly penned by insecure men, unable to take jokes because their man-panties are so wedged up their assholes they can taste the fabric. Just a few days ago, some unbelievably pig-headed tightwad commented on an old blog of mine with the following: “Wow, must have been a heavy-flow day for you huh? Get your tampon out of your asshole.”

Now who’s being idiotic, sexist and unfunny?

The whole point, here, is that there are good things and bad things about living with a partner of the opposite sex. Even of the same sex. As for living with a man, it’s urine on the back of the toilet, too many ball scratches to make anyone comfortable, acting unappreciative when appreciation is greatly needed, gas at inopportune times and in a way that is completely irrespective to other people’s sensibilities (would an “excuse me” fucking kill you, Methane Man?), and bachelor-type behavior even when bachelorhood has been over for decades.

The only thing idiotic and sexist is expecting us to stay quiet about it. To omit (thereby lie) and act as though men are pristine gods, whose glistening ball sweat smells like roses and whose shit-stained underpants are yummy enough to roast up and serve with a side of asiago cheese bread, is just ludicrous. On the flip side, if my husband had a blog in which its focus was to talk about marriage and parenting, I would fully expect him to write about my period stains and the fact that this evening I flashed and jiggled my boobs for the complete strangers driving past our bedroom window, in the apartment parking lot (to be fair, I didn’t realize people would drive by as I joked about changing my clothes in front of an open window). It’s honesty. It’s reality. And it’s fucking hilarious.

It also reeks of something terribly narcissistic to just assume that everyone wants the same thing. Perhaps the mom-blogger that wrote that article about husbands being another child (which, case in point fact: many are) has a husband who can laugh a little at his own childish behavior, admit his faults as a human being, and fucking move on. Not everyone thinks the same, lives the same, laughs the same, loves the same, and expects the same out of a relationship. It doesn’t always have to turn into a reason to backlash with just as much sexism and misogyny as happened in the Dark Ages.

Unless, of course, the man who lashes out at such differences in experience wants to be a permanent Mr. Man-Panties. We all have at least one of these in our lives – a man that cannot take a joke; who thinks his bullshit is lined with 14-karat gold. I get comments from them all the time; the best was when a man told me I was “the most miserable cunt on the planet who just needs to die now” (that gem was for saying that women shouldn’t feel obligated to clean the house to a daily sparkle if they have physical limitations). There is a female equivalent, I’m sure. She probably gets uptight when people say “TMI” to her expression of cramps; or when people make jokes about living with a woman (of which there are many).

The point is this: I think as bloggers; but not just as bloggers, but as human beings, and as citizens of the 21st century – a time when we have a synthesis of traditional roles with a more liberal playing field when it comes to women and men having an equal voice – it’s time to lighten the fuck up. Can it with the “how sexist”s and “your poor husband/wife”s (unless, of course, there is some truly backwoods shit going on). Maybe instead of lashing out because a woman says that men act like children by leaving their leopard printed thongs on the floor in the bathroom, everybody should just chill the fuck out and retaliate with some kind-hearted jokes of their own.

And of course admit that your thong could be picked up, or the piss should be wiped off the side of the toilet. I’ll be the first to say that describing my daily period flow to my husband is about as disgusting as his eating an entire brick of cheese, followed by a King Sized Hershey bar is irresponsible. These things are funny, not idiotic. They’re honest, not a soap opera. Reality, not sexism.

Yes, that is my husband … another thing he did for my blog. You can make your own meme of Maxi Pad Man at http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3st15a/

Why I Could Never Be a Golddigger

August 5, 2012 — 14 Comments

Note, this blogpost is not titled “why I don’t think it’s right to be a golddigger;” or “why I would never be a golddigger.” It’s Why I Could Never Be a Golddigger, which I’ll get to in just a minute.

Why I do think it’s right to be a golddigger, quite simply put is because golddiggers get shit done. Today we were at Target, picking up more canning supplies and body wash, and I saw what was clearly a golddigger with nice clothes, a Gucci purse, tons of diamonds, and a guy about three times her age with his hand on her ass.

Hand on her ass. The dude had to be 70.

While my husband was keeping his body wash separate from mine so that he didn’t accidentally get charged for it, this lady had a cart full of all the terribly useless crap Target has to offer. She had tons of expensive shampoos and hair products. She had – like – four kitchen appliances and a new suitcase. When we walked passed them, she was saying something about how “cute” some Target home decorative thing was and he said “anything for you, baby.”

Anything for you, baby. Words I have never heard.

Golddiggers get shit done. I’m sure there is a happy medium between being a golddigger and being a “give the milk for free” kind of gal. But not only do golddiggers get shit done, they make damn sure they get treated with the respect they deserve.

Why I would be a golddigger, were my husband and I to ever separate – quite simply put is because this cow ain’t giving out milk for free anymore. I have gone on way too many dates where the guy was cheap – something no woman should ever tolerate. My own husband has never actually taken me out on a real date. Our first time out he asked me for my half of the In ‘N’ Out order.

I’m not intending to talk badly about my husband or anything (actually … who taught him to treat women like that?); and there are plenty of things that make up for how cheap he can be. I’m just trying to illustrate just how much milk I have ended up giving out for free over the years. Maybe it’s California because before meeting my husband I dated a lot of guys out here that were very similar – cheap and expecting everything to come to them.

The point is that a golddigger demands the respect she deserves by virtue of her golddigging. Again, I’m sure there is a happy medium between nothing and everything. In the meantime, let’s hold fast to how much respect the golddigger commands.

Now to the point of this post altogether: Why I Could Never Be a Golddigger, quite simply put, is because I’m a slob. A pigslob. I’m an uncouth, unkempt, self-professed gutter whore.

#1 Every other word out of my mouth is a curse word. I mean every other fucking word. I don’t really swear around the Pookies, but every once in a while one slips. And then there was that one time (about an hour ago) that I announced “I think I pulled my left ass-cheek muscle vacuuming today.”

#2 I am terribly unkempt. Today was a particularly long and arduous day. I baked. I cooked. I made a delectable dinner that everyone bitched and complained about. I cleaned the bathrooms. I dusted. I did three loads of laundry. I vacuumed. And I scrubbed down the kitchen. Tonight I was sitting here working on my blog and eating some frozen yogurt to reward myself for all the work I did and I dropped a little bit on my shirt. No big deal, right? Just get a napkin and wipe it off, right? Well the napkins were too far away, and quite frankly I didn’t want to lose out on any speck of my fro yo, so I just licked it up. Licked it right up faithful blog followers, off my shirt. Then I went about my business.

#3 I say what I’m thinking irrespective of where I am or who I’m saying it to. I don’t act like a total jerk about it; and oftentimes I censor myself for a moment or two so as to not be rude. I also avoid conflict, but when I have something snarky or funny to say – I say it.

A great example of this was last night. We went out to dinner to what we thought was a restaurant/sports bar – but that had apparently remodeled since we were last there – to create this faux French bistro theme. Everything seems to be french-themed in our community these days – the fucking Eiffel tower is plastered everywhere, much to the disdain of those of us that actually have lived in or visited France, studied the French, or are Francophone. Nonetheless, it’s close to our apartment and the only other option it seemed was the Italian place next door that specializes in Barilla lasagna and fish tacos (I know … huh?).

When I looked through the menu, I immediately saw that the things they claimed to have added a “French twist” to were the exact same items as were available when it was a restaurant/sports bar. I didn’t know that the French serve BBQ Western hamburgers and turkey with mashed potatoes! The prices were a little higher as well; maybe that was the French twist. But all my old go-tos were the same: BBQ chicken salad, chicken sandwich with fontina cheese, and caprese thin-crust pizza, so I was happy to just go with the pizza. French you say?

So I had two classes of wine (not French, I might add) by the end of my not-French meal and was feeling a little lippy. It was loud and there were a lot of people there, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal if I leaned over to my husband and cracked a joke.

“Nick … this place is about as French as my asshole. You know what … I’m going to open a restaurant called ‘My French Asshole and Italian Hoo-Haa.’ Our main dishes will be hamburgers, donuts, and fish tacos.”

My husband immediately leaned a little closer to me, I could only assume to applaud my crass humor (that has never actually happened), and pointed out that the manager of the restaurant was standing right behind me to ask how our meal was.

So you see, faithful blog followers: I could never be a golddigger. It isn’t that I wouldn’t (because I would), or that I would have some sort of moral opposition to it (because I think in many cases it’s the only way to get shit done). Nope, I couldn’t be a golddigger because I’m a crass pigslob.

And on another note, we could also have an alternate title to this blogpost: Reasons That Birth Control Should Be Added To My Water Supply.

Top 6 Reasons Your Hubs Ain’t All That

July 18, 2012 — 21 Comments

Multiple times during the week, now, I am woken by some sort of tragic event going on in my bed. Sometimes it’s my husband spreading out like the entire California King is needed to fan all of his parts – pushing me to the small edge on my side of the bed. Other times he is punching me in the back as he flops from one side to the next. Last night, it was the covers. Around 3:15 AM, he – for some reason, in his sleep – pulled the entire comforter off of me and bunched it up in front of him, leaving me to freeze.

As I lay there, angry and desperately trying to get back to sleep, I composed a blog all about husbands in my head.

Top 6 Reasons Your Hubs

Ain’t All That

#6 Home Becomes Work Becomes Home

Perhaps it is a sign of the crippling economy, but it seems that men can no longer come home from work and hang up their hats, leaving work hanging there with it. Now, when the Big Daddy Breadwinner gets home, he has to talk about work, think about work, let work interrupt his evening activities, check emails from work, answer phone calls about work, allow work to disrupt him from getting his house stuff done, and go to bed with nothing but work on his mind.

I’m all for the general “how was your day at the office, dear?” conversation over dinner. What the hell else are you going to talk about? But there is that and then there is taking it too far.

The fundamental problem with this is your husband is allowing work and his job to define who he is, rather than what the real definition of him is: a conglomerate of many different things, which includes father, husband, friend, son, etc; not just “employee.” Perhaps this is just a California thing, where it seems as though everyone lets their jobs completely dictate their lives, but the old adage should always be kept in mind to keep a healthy work/life balance: it’s just a job.

#5 The Identity Crisis

A while back, I wrote a blog called “Stop Being Such a P*s*y.” I will never forget the response of one man in particular, who said that men are in the midst of an identity crisis as a result of smothering mothers, the Feminist Movement, and people like me calling them p*s*i*s

Bull shit.

A man isn’t a man because of the identity that he holds, the masculinity that he asserts, and his oppression of women. He’s a man because he has a dick. Period, end of sentence. It’s what he does with that Big D, though, that makes him either a real man or a p*s*y. But this incessant whining that in the last few decades women have oppressed men by demanding equal rights; and that men need to reclaim their masculinity by putting women down is just stupid.

And furthermore, if a woman is upset about something a man does – even her husband – she has a right to say it, wherever she wants. This doesn’t cut at the man’s masculinity; it is honesty with the intention of fixing an unhealthy behavior. I’m so tired of people acting like saying how things are is a bad thing. Your husband ain’t all that if he can’t take a little honest criticism. If a man is acting like a jerk, he’s acting like a jerk. He won’t know to fix it if no one tells him.

#4 Honey, You Married My Parents

My in-laws are coming over for dinner next week and I am again reminded that my husband is really his father and tries – routinely – to treat me the way he has observed his mother treated.

There is a reason why psychologists say you need to set a good example for your kids: they will inevitably believe that this is an acceptable way to treat their spouse. If he doesn’t want to hear it, my husband’s dad will simply ignore and not respond to my mother-in-law. One time she was sitting there and she just kept asking question after question after question, all of which were ignored. I’ve seen it happen on more than one occasion, and when I talked to my husband about it he said “yeah, well that’s what you do when your wife is blathering on, spewing her emotion everywhere.”

Indeed.

Your hubs is just as much his parents as my hubs is, and he ain’t all that because of it. How he handles it, though, does redeem him.

#3 Feeding Time At the Barnyard

It is astounding sometimes to see the way that my husband eats. Here’s how it goes: I spend about three to six hours preparing a delectable, healthy, and perfectly seasoned meal. I hate to cook, so this is a really big deal for me to do every day, day in and day out. Nick comes home and promptly takes his plate, smothers it in a complete layer of salt and pepper, then sits down to inhale the food – periodically slurping it up; only to be disrupted with guzzling and slurping down whatever he’s drinking to wash the pig slob down.

Sometimes I think about just installing a trough.

I see men eat like this all the time, and quite frankly it is horrifying. Whatever happened to the days when a husband put his napkin in his lap? When he waited and tasted the food before piling it with seasonings? The days when “boy Mom, this sure is a swell meal” came out of his mouth? The slang swell should clue you faithful blog followers into how long it’s been; nonetheless, your husband would be all that if he would adopt such slang himself.

#2 Bodily Functions & Personal Hygiene

Gross. Gross. Gross.

Since graduate school ended and I took to being home all the time, I have become evermore aware of the bodily functions and personal hygiene we have in this house. My husband and your husbands alike all ain’t all that simply because they are pigslobs.

They miss the toilet, every time.

They wear underwear with gaping holes in them.

Which also have stains in them (I just vomited).

They have a never-ending case of foot fungus.

And as if that is not enough, they top it all off by laying around and scratching their balls nonstop; emitting bodily sounds intermittently as if “excuse me” is foreign to their vocabulary. And then they deny it all when you mention it.

#1 He’s Competing With A Million Other “Best Husband In the Whole Entire World LOL OMG ! ! ! ! ! !”

If you are like me, every day you check your Facebook and are inundated with all your friends – God love them – posting on their Facebook statuses all about how their husbands are their heroes, their everything, and THE BEST HUSBANDS IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD LOL OMG ! ! ! ! ! !

I wrote a blog about this a while ago too, although I think it was far too logical. The crux of my argument was that: obviously, everyone can’t have the best husband in the world because there can be only one “best” of anything. Far too intellectual, but if I were to continue I would say that obviously no one can have the best husband in the world because there are none.

As a result of this, though, your hubs ain’t all that because he is competing in this post-modern age of Feminism and people like me calling them p*s*i*s with other husbands to outdo each other, and live up to this “best husband in the whole world LOL OMG ! ! ! ! ! ! ” standard. So he does one of two things: (1) tries to outdo other husbands and becomes completely effeminate in the process; getting his floral thong in a bunch every time you admit any of his faults thereafter; or, (2) decides he cannot win and so does absolutely nothing. Mine falls into the latter category, and I know the majority of his friends are pulling their pink thongs out their asses right now in rage over the fact that I said it.

I’d have to argue that those are the top 6 reasons why your hubs ain’t all that. There are obviously more, like mommy issues and my afore-mentioned sleeping traumas. Like I said, I’m sure a lot of my husband’s friends will read this and complain how can you tolerate her saying those things in her blog? Well, because it’s all true. My hubs ain’t all that. Neither is yours. Neither are you.

My Menstrual Hut

June 12, 2012 — 27 Comments

Yes, I am going there faithful blog followers. If you are a man easily turned off by all things feminine, get over it – this isn’t about stuff like uteruses and tampon tips. And this most certainly is not a series of gripes about being a woman.

A few days ago I was perusing the Internet and somehow happened upon a site called The Menstrual Hut. It wasn’t a joke or an Health and Wellness site either. No, no – it was a website where some women gave homage to their periods by posting photographs of their used tampons and maxi pads. Usually all you hear about are women complaining about their periods, though. Menstruation does seem pretty inefficient (for the most part at least); and it is a pain (literally and figuratively).

But despite the cramps and the headaches, and the occasional zits popping up in odd places, I love it. Not so much that I would post photographs of my used maxi pads anywhere; but definitely enough to make a list of reasons why I do.

Reason #1: Skinny Jeans

The minute my period begins, my body sheds water weight like gang busters. From then until the time I ovulate (roughly two weeks later), I am in the skinny jeans zone. Some of the nicest compliments I have gotten about the way I look have been when I am on the ol’ rag.

Reason #2: An Excuse for being a Crazy B(itch)

I mean, I’m certifiably crazy most (read: all) days of the year, but on the 3 – 5 days that Aunt Flo is in town, I have an excuse. I also silently excuse others in assumption that they, too, are on the rag. “Oh, my friend just told me I’m an asshole … she must just be on her period – I’ll forgive her” or “oh, that other mother just gave me the stink eye before she started screaming at my kid … we’re going to just assume she’s feeling a little hormonal today and move along.” While I like to confront the world head on, sometimes it is a little less stressful to pick your battles and excuse the bitchiness.

Reason #3: My Hormonal Changes Affect My Husband’s Hormonal Changes

You faithful blog followers all know that men go through a monthly hormonal change just like women do, right? And just like women closely confined bleed at the same time, men and women closely confined have monthly hormonal fluctuations along the same pattern as well. I know my husband is on his rag when he starts breaking out like a 15 year old, throwing little temper tantrums like a queen, and eating entire bricks of cheese in one sitting. Personally, I find it entertaining.

Reason #4: With Aunt Flo Goes Lots o’ Toxins

I just read a great article in Psychology Today about a female scientist that disappeared in the 90s after publishing some controversial papers, one of which was about menstruation being a good thing and birth control inhibiting the body ridding itself of toxins. I thought to myself – well duh, this is why I don’t take birth control, and it’s just another reason why I love my red flag.

So when the zit the size of Puerto Rico planted itself on my face this morning, I knew this was just junk getting flushed out of my system. Yay for Period Pimples!

Reason #5: A Biological Trick on my Husband

Every month when it gets close to period time, my husband starts fishing around to find out when I’ve gotten it. I don’t take birth control pills, so when I am stressed out or sick my period comes early or late. This month I got sick with food poisoning and then I was super stressed out with everything my Trailer Trash Mom was putting me through, so Aunt Flo’s flight came in a whopping week and a half late. For the last week or so, my husband has asked over and over if I’m pregnant, only on the sly:

Nick says: “Oh, you have cramps? PMS or something … … else ……..??”

Nick means: “Is there a baby growing inside you?”

Nick says: “How are your cramps doing this evening?”

Nick means: “Are you still pregnant? Because in my mind you are and the world is going to end because of it.”

The funniest part about this is that it appears that Poor Nick thinks his sperm can be implanted in my uterus simply by looking at me contemptuously from across the dinner table. You may be magical, darling; but not that magical.

See, now – was that so bad? Five reasons why I love my period; and there are plenty more why I’m sure you secretly love yours.

Things a Married Man Should Never Say…

January 19, 2012 — 16 Comments

…to his wife.

I’m sure this is going to be filed under the “reasons we hate Heather”-file as far as the in-laws are concerned (although I am fairly certain they don’t read this blog… they are far too busy listening to Hello Kitty Toaster tell stories about looking at herself in the mirror, or engorging themselves on cheesy EYEtalian food). This is likely because I won’t lie and say that at least half of the items on this “Things Married Men Should Never Say” list at one time or another didn’t come out of my husband’s mouth. Because they did. I mean, how else would I even have the basis for coming up with some of this shit? What, am I supposed to lie?

To be honest, I’m also out for revenge this morning. There are a lot of things I appreciate about my husband. For one, he puts up with my horrific cooking. He also remains married to me despite the fact that I hate the industry in which he works, mock his snobbery when it comes to music all the time, and make the gag-me face every time he suggests cooking (because his cooking is even worse than mine). My husband even attempts to have a sense of humor, despite the fact that he is generally very serious – since humor and satire, and laughing, are essential to my daily existence. What I do not appreciate about my husband, though, is that what comes with that seriousness is an uninhibited (yet unintentional) lack of care or concern for anyone’s feelings. He is so serious and removed from almost every situation (stolid and austere, you might say), that he has no idea when he says something that is more fucked up than the brother and sister I saw making out down the street from my father’s house the other day. (Yep…you heard me right – brother and sister; neighbors of my father and the chick used to be our babysitter…)

A lot of husbands are like this; in fact, it takes a long time for a man to learn to be emotionally present in any situation, especially a marriage. Unless your husband is naturally effeminate [insert long pause for insinuation], chances are at one time or another (probably many) he has said something that belongs on this list. That doesn’t make it OK, though.

Last night, my husband said one of those fucked up things. We were organizing my half of the closet – it was previously a disaster, now a masterpiece in organization, and I came across my wedding dress. Doubling the organization as also an opportunity to get rid of old things, we were bagging up old clothes I wanted to get rid of to lighten the load. I asked him what he thought we should do with the wedding dress and he responded “I don’t care.” I looked at him – absolutely horrified that he would say he didn’t care about preserving the dress I wore on the day we solidified our marital bond and he proceeded to insert his foot even further into his mouth with “What, Heather? Why should I care? I’m not the one who wore it.”

Sadly, he still doesn’t seem to understand why that hurt.

So the first thing on our list of Things a Married Man Should Never Say… to his wife is #1 “I don’t care what you do with your wedding dress, I’m not the one who wore it.” (…or anything from the wedding really, for that matter.)

#2 “Geez…what did you do to your hair? …it looks so … poofy.” If the words “you look beautiful” are not coming out in relation to your wife’s looks, you should just keep your yap shut. There is too much room for error and miscommunication, and if she’s like me she’ll sit around all day wondering why she looks so awful to you.

#3 “I don’t know any other women that do that.” It doesn’t matter, asshole. Your wife isn’t “other women.”

#4 “That’s something you should figure out.” Can we say abandonment? My husband said this to me recently about a class I was supposed to take that got canceled, and the first thing I thought was to call him since working out problems together is the principle function of marriage. Don’t do it, men!

#5 “I thought I was going to marry someone that had the same career goals as me.” Then why don’t you go marry her, jerk.

#6 “I’m just adding some salt and pepper because I know your cooking is usually pretty bland.” My husband has never said this, but he does automatically add salt and pepper to everything. Never have I been so offended as the time I spent four hours making butternut squash soup – seasoning it perfectly – and without even trying it, he piled tons of salt and pepper in it. I sat there staring at him, absolutely disgusted that he had done that and he just looked at me cluelessly and said “what?”

#7 “Long day? You look tired.” I get that this is an attempt to be nice, but it really isn’t.

#8 “You sound like your mother.” There are very few people in the world that would respond well to this. Nothing against your mom, but this is usually meant as an insult. Don’t do it, guys.

#9 “Your half of the check is …” Okay, every family manages money differently. Fair enough. But when out on Date Night, charging your wife for half the bill is wrong. Do you ever do nice things for your wife? Because chances are if you are tallying up her half of the bill for Friday night sushi, you don’t.

I can think of a whole host of these…but these are really the cream of the crop. Do yourself a favor, guys, and just don’t do it. You will save yourself a world of hard feelings and subsequent silent treatment. And if your wife is like me, keeping your yap shut will prevent a blog written about your horrible words too.

Stop Being Such a Psy

October 18, 2011 — 10 Comments

I’m not a fan of the p-word, but I feel it is in order at this point. Stop being such a p*s*y!

Who am I referring to, you might ask? Men. Not all men, just some. Let me elaborate:

I recently read an opinion piece by a CNN contributor, called Why Men Are in Trouble. The crux of the article was that, beyond just reaching equality, women have surpassed men in education, career, and salary in the United States, today. What is disturbing about this trend is not that women are doing more than men (which is troubling on a number of other levels beyond the extent of this particular blog); but really that it is correlative to some other things going on in American culture. Most noted, as the author of the article points out, is the fact that as the numbers of unemployment and lack of education for men go down, the numbers for video game use among 18 – 34 year olds surpass those of young boys. Further, role modeling in the mainstream media, particularly in movies, no longer espouse the typical qualities of a mature, responsible, adult male.

Now, I have no problem with adult men playing video games, but there are conditions which must apply. If you have no job and no car and are over the age of 18, well then there is a big problem if you are spending all of your time in your parent’s basement playing video games. If you are in college but prioritize your World of Warcraft marathons over going to class, there is a big problem with you as well. What has happened with American culture that 20% of the male population is unemployed and sitting around their parent’s homes playing video games all the time, not taking the responsibilities that an adult male should be taking?

I think the other relevant point in the antiheroic qualities of men in movies, and male role models in general, is a strong one. Men in movies now are portrayed not as heroes, leaders, or responsible and upstanding members of society. They’re pot smoking babies that don’t want to grow up. They show up on the screen as whiney children that refuse to take responsibility for their actions. It’s no wonder there are so many single mothers out there, and children abandoned by their fathers, when the classic role models in our film and media do the same, exact thing. It was like when Manny Ramirez was first busted by the Dodgers a few years ago for doing performance-enhancing drugs. Everyone said “well, everyone in sports does it.” As a role model for young men growing and looking to people like Ramirez to model themselves after, is that an acceptable response? The same can be said for every movie or television show where the male characters act like adult babies in the face of situations where they should be acting otherwise. But just because everyone does it now, does not make it okay.

I cannot count on both hands how many men I have run across in my own life that act like complete babies when it comes to a myriad of things. Some of them, I wonder if they are even really men. I started to notice this a few years after mother’s day when I saw a family member (who shall remain nameless because I know his mom and brother read this blog…) post on his Facebook page “just got back from a nice brunch with my mommy.” I almost vomited when I saw this because, while in normal circumstances it might be sweet or a nice, mother’s day gesture, I knew that it was indicative of the fact that on most days of the year he (like a lot of men) still cowered under his mother’s skirt. And how many of us don’t know at least one man who acts irresponsible when it comes to his family, or (more often) his job? Who spits in the face of his family or the people around him, and refuses to take responsibility for the decisions he makes? Who will walk out on a job whether he has a way to pay his own bills or not? Or, how about more simply put: how many of us can say we don’t know a guy that’s skating out on his child support, or on properly caring for his wife? I can name a lot of those, which is a sad state of affairs if you ask me, faithful blog followers.

But I think this goes much deeper than just video games and bad role modeling. Somehow our generation – our entire culture even – has gotten the idea that we don’t have to actually take responsibility for anything. This is a great problem, which will only become greater, if something doesn’t change. My solution is about twenty-fold, from education to government to parenting, etc. But for the sake of being brief (for now), I’ll stick to just saying to all those men out there (and you know who you are): stop being such a p*s*y!

Heather Christena Schmidt

Mom. Writer. Artist. Misanthrope. Political Commentator. Closet Idealist.

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