Dinner and an Ear Exam

Last night my brother and his wife and their son visited me. They had just watched Sicko, and guess what they said! "If things don't change, we're moving to Canada!"

Meanwhile, we visited their friend J___, a new myspace friend of mine through them, and who is getting a Ph D in Audiology. Gotta love nerds, no matter what field their in. "Just for fun," she gave us hearing tests. Had one before? It's not just the beeps and boops you have to listen to, it's the anechoic chamber one has sit in while being tested. Without any sounds or echoes, you are forced to listen to your own breathing, the blood rushing through your ears, and every swallow and lip smack you make. Torture! Try doing this for a couple of hours. Waterboarding is for sissies.

Anyway, I don't have any hearing damage, at least not above 8-12 KHz. Humans supposedly can hear between 20 and 20,000 Hz, when we're "young" at least. But since most sounds fall within 1000-8000 HZ, they don't even test for the outer ranges.

So after having bashed drums and cymbals into my skull for over two decades, and after having not visited a dentist in 7 years, I'm tinitus and cavity-free. Knock on wood.

But the most interesting part of the evening was my sister-in-law essentially pushing the audiologist and me together. "You should hang out; you're both right in Buffalo." Awkward silence. Yeah, except she's supposedly getting married to a dude who never visits her in Buffalo and whom she doesn't talk about much or apparently have anything in common with--except that he'll "be a great father."

"A great father"? Oh, I GET IT. So dudes like me are the one who (can) fulfill all the basics needs of a relationship EXCEPT the practical and domestic ones. And of course, the "most important" one--reproducing. God, it was so frickin' awkward realizing that the elephant in the room was, "See, B, if you just wanted to settle down and become one-half of a couple with someone, you'd get a girl like THIS. See what you're giving up?" I saw my life flashing before my very eyes! All the "hot" ones I could have had if only I was the marrying kind. I looked at pictures of this dude and saw how much she is WAY out of his league. That's how fat balding dudes can do it; that's the secret. Just be really, really nice, devoted, and a potential "good father." You'll never have to worry about what kind of books she reads or anything like that. That's something people do "on the side," anyway.

Just to add to cosmic joke, we indeed discussed books for a while and yes, we have very similar tastes in nonfiction. For instance, she's reading about Mormon fundamentalism and the Elizabeth Smart case. THEN she proceeded to outline all of her favorite VIDEO GAMES she plays. Wh-wh-what? Oh yeah. She's "addicted" to her PS2 and is a life-long Lara Croft fan. She "looks at her surroundings and imagines how she could jump or climb on things in order to get to the top of the highest building around." Sounds familiar?

Well, to end on a good note, here's a funny video about it. Watch all the way until the end, esp the angry people:

"We Are the Wo--" Fuck It--Here's Something Better

Since this is now totally mainstream, scroll down below for a much better story.



Okay, so at "work" one of the very, very young "clients" is Juno-esque. Got me? Here's how it was revealed to my co-worker/friend, who has their trust and can't break it.

Four clients show up during a break, close the door, and say, "One of us is Juno-esque." YEP! It's like the 80s TV mini-series Lace! They wouldn't say which one it was, just that "someone" in the group was 12 weeks. And that they want to know where "to go." Oh snap!

On the bright side, the movie Juno really is their point of reference. I'm totally not kidding. They have no other cultural text at hand to guide them with its carefully respectful take on "both sides" of "the issue" and thus were hoping that they could do like Juno did and go visit "the place" to "just see how it goes."



So folks, we'll have either a result that the clients home superiors know ZERO about, and probably will never know about until years later, OR another van shows up and whisks the client away to Utah. Wow. Just---fuck. Wow.

Looking Forward...

Sorry it's been so long, folks. A new school year has hammered me into the ground. Here's what I've been up to just today alone:

--gasping as Cait and Marla brutally murder my zombified and mildewed flowers (okay, okay, they should have been euthenized long ago--any thing else awaiting the axe?

--fixing my hallway: lots of spackling, taping, mudding and still painting and staining to go

--holding a funeral for my last already put-out-to-pasture DVD player and replacing it with an XBox.

--completing We Love Katamari and awaiting Beautiful Katamari (Oct 16) (I'm also awaiting GTA IV [March]). It's seems I never run out of things to kill, but at least it keeps me happy, awake, and motivated to do other things. Oh, what, that's the OPPOSITE of what video games are supposed to do? Feh. My new line for people who think TV and video games make you dumber is, You are only a strong as your weakest link, and if video games or TV is your weak link, than you have more serious problems than not getting out more.

--finding out more about my best friends than I ever knew by doing the "WTF?" function on OKcupid.com. This fun website allows you to answer literally hundred of questions about your beliefs, most about relationships, but a good chunk not, and then, after you've submitted a "WTF? request" you get a report sent to you that shows you how your friends answered. To my friends K and A, how was it that I never knew exactly where the line on inappropriate comments about religion was! (awk grammar, sorry)

--emailing my ex-fiancee about her childbearing anxiety. She has actually listened to my spiel about not-feeling-like-a-real-woman-if-you-don't/can't and has decided that all this time she's been living to please her mom--wow! I also sent her this cool webstie that can help narrow down the REAL reason one might have kid anxiety. Scroll down:
http://www.vhemt.org/biobreed.htm

--enjoying excerpts from Julianne Moore's new book on redheads here:
http://www.amazon.com/Freckleface-Strawberry-Julianne-Moore/dp/1599901072

Asenath has pointed out that it's really just the Ugly Duckling narrative. If so, than I will probably hate it. Why? Because the whole point is to LOVE YOURSELF THE WAY YOU ARE (clears throat), or else you might, oh, join a fucking CULT.

--checking out "top" websites. Here are two: Top Noir Films and Top Conservative Horror Films. Discuss.
http://www.ericenders.com/noir25.htm
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=2689

--keeping up on that latest discourse on intersexuality. Check THIS out:



--and finally, enjoying the wonderful satire that is The (U.S.) Office. At first I didn't like it, but I've come to understand its appeal. The Pam/Jim tension is much better than the Tim/Dawn tension. And no, I don't think one has to somehow like Michael to like the show. I so hate this guy and feel better for not being as weird has he is.

The Master Plan

I have suddenly realized that my true calling in life is to POPULATE THE WORLD WITH GINGER KIDS!!!
You see, there are too many people in the world, but not enough of us Redheads. The prejudice is weighty.












So what choice do I have but to convince a ginger girl to ENGAGE EMERGENCY REPRODUCTION SEQUENCE. This is possible in times of stress. At least one member of the species must be as short-haired on her head as she is Lilith-long-haired on her legs and the other must possess a firecrotch whose hue is no less bright than twenty-three cetifibes. A ginger root is dug up and then becomes a sort of "third party" in the mating process.














DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STOP US.







The world will soon be a better place for us--and you, if you behave accordingly.









HAVE A NICE DAY!






Laaaaaaaa La.
La La La.

My New Nephew, a Childwen

Now play the line from American Movie/Coven over and over in your head: "It's allright/It's okay/There's Something to Live For..."

Is there? Dude, you are already as fat and only slightly more self-centered as I am, and have achieved ZIP! So why not just call it a day, eh?

As I approach middle-age (no protests, please: 35 x 2 = 70 years, at which point I will be retired), I'm more and more disheartened by how many of my friends rank (having a) family over art, politics, and venturing beyond their homes. (You folks who don't find these things mutually exclusive, good on ya!). I don't doubt that I've "settled" in here with my own version of the American Dream, and I still might someday visit the Land of Monogamous Coupledom. But it's not the relationship or the kids per se that bothers me the most: it's the all-consuming attention to these things as if they make one a "grown up." I flirted with the idea of wrapping my dissertation in a bonnet, putting it in a bassinet and sending it around at Christmas. "Ben and New Breed, Old Blood Wish You Happy Holidays!" I still might do that. But the literary-creation-as-birthing metaphor is troublesome for other reasons.

If it's my "choice" not to do these things, why should I think about it all the time? By think, I do not mean "wonder if I should propagate after all." I mean, how am I to continue "developing" as a person when there's little to nothing that I do that actually counts as development, other than my career (which, let's face it, becomes boring to talk about after fifteen minutes). Deep down, I must really believe that some day it will no longer be cool to mention marriage+kids at a party. I've decided to start saying to my breeding friends, "Good thing you had a baby now while it's still cool." This works a little bit better than Marla's "heternormativity is doomed," although I like her quote much better, personally.

I'm left with the tired old debate in queer theory over "choice." I'd like to say that not having a family is not a choice, it's who I am. I could try it, but it would seem violently wrong. There are two problems with this. First, I face no political danger and this makes my anxieties unlike those of GLBT's. Second, saying this means conceding that breeders didn't choose to breed either. So how can I criticize them?

Besides overpopulation and First World privilege, most of them are simply going to have to stop it--or else. They will have to fight against their "nature" or we're all doomed, not just heteronormativity. My hope is that breeding will simply cease to be cool. Breeding will be like littering.

Aha! As I typed this, I realized I had unconsciously equated having "a litter" with "littering."

Okay, now I'm not depressed. I'm fucking happy as all hell and am going to use "litter" much, much more. As in, "Pitch in! Put Your Gametes in the Trash," "Litter is Unsightly. It Attracts Vermin and Causes Disease," or