fashion clothes

You guys. There is a lot to cover this week, made infinitely more complicated by the fact that I'm not at all in the mood to rant and rage this morning. The reason? I wrote a post yesterday about Philip Seymour Hoffman. Well, it was sort of about him, but it was more about how he is just the most recent public face of addiction. The post quite literally wrote itself, and I put it up not having any idea what to expect.

It went viral. Unlike the last time I had a post do this, the response has been quieter. I haven't been dealing so much with random strangers yelling at me and telling me what I stupid asshole I am. I've had a few critical comments, all obviously from people who love someone with an addiction they can't kick. I expected far more people to tell me that I'm completely off base, but almost everyone has been grateful for my words. I've received a ton of messages from addicts, those in recovery, family members and friends who thanked me for getting it and for actually writing it down.

In light of that, I might be a little less edgy today. A little more soft around the edges. A lot more teary and emotional.

I'm super pissed at my douchebag neighbor, so I will channel that rage instead. He shoveled the street right in front of his house, throwing the snow into the middle of the street...where my car is currently stuck. Asshole.

Off we go.


Have a Coke and get over yourself
There is a commercial that Coke aired during the Superbowl featuring the song America the Beautiful sung first in English, then in several other languages, all spoken within the boundaries of this country. Then the internet exploded, full of outrage that our national anthem would be sung in foreign languages, full of vitriol towards Coke at their audacity to include anything but our national language, full of angry people frustrated that their country is full of  _________, _________ & ________. I'm not writing what people said on purpose. If you want to see the comments, they aren't hard to find.

Anyhow, here's the thing.

- America the Beautiful isn't our national anthem. The Star Spangled Banner is. *bangs head on wall*

- America the Beautiful was written by Katherine Lee Bates, who happens to be a lesbian who left the Republican party after being disgusted with the growing xenophobia in the party. *how do ya like them apples*

- There is no national language of the United States. Never has been. *bangs head on wall again*

- The US is a country composed almost entirely of immigrants. Europeans weren't the first ones here.

- If you want to get technical with a "we were here first so we get to decide what language everyone will speak", we should be speaking one of the indigenous languages spoken by the native population, not English.

I thought the commercial was beautiful. Diversity is a beautiful thing. I've never understood why it threatens people so much.


I believe Dylan Farrow and by the way, why is disbelieving her even a thing?
Dylan Farrow, the daughter of Mia Farrow, came forward and wrote, in her own words, about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of Woody Allen.

Her story is disturbing to say the least, and one that has been the subject of lawsuits, media fodder and speculation for decades. She chastised Hollywood for celebrating this monster of a man and felt like it was finally time to share her story after being sickened by the praise lauded over him in recent weeks.

Allen's lawyers immediately took to the press denying her claims. It wasn't just his attorneys doing the denying though, as some celebrities had to throw their comments into the universe. The most mystifying one from Alec Baldwin, who seemed to discount her statement then simultaneously claim that it is no one's business when he tweeted this, "What the f&@% is wrong w u that u think we all need to b commenting on this family's personal struggle?"  Then again, he's not been known for tact or for treating his own children well, so we'll just chalk that up to the wonder of Alec.

I have to wonder why anyone doubts the validity of her story. The abuse allegations were part of a custody fight decades ago and are not new claims. Dylan stands to gain nothing from telling her story and yet people are doubting her. Why?

Why do we live in a society where we refuse to believe allegations of child molestation? Why do we care what a woman was wearing when she was raped? Why? 

I believe her. If you don't, you need to ask yourself why you don't. 

Throwing away food won't fix anything, nor will shaming kids who can't pay
Last week a story hit the news that made me so angry I couldn't even see straight. Lunch workers in an elementary school took lunches from children with account deficits and threw them in the trash before they could be eaten in front of the entire cafeteria. They claim it is district policy. People were outraged, and rightfully so, particularly since the food was already in the hands of the hungry kids and throwing it away was nothing more than a waste. The children were publicly shamed for financial issues that aren't within their control. 

The problem though is that this is not an isolated incident. School districts all over the country have rules like this in place, though some give more leeway to elementary student accounts. These were young children, not high schoolers, that had their food taken.

There is a story here locally that is similar, of a principal who was fired recently. She alleges that her firing was not because of lack of performance, but because she refused to comply with a district policy that required stamping the hands of children with negative lunch accounts. She did not want the children to be shamed.

The school claims she was not fired over the issue, but has stopped the stamping since she went public with the story.

What the hell is wrong with us? I wish that all these people making these policy decisions, all inevitably based on bottom lines and dollar signs, were forced to go without food for a few days before they voted. For some of these kids, school is the only place they are going to get a meal on any given day. For many of them, their parents are too ashamed to apply for free or reduced lunch programs. The answer isn't to starve the kids. That can't be ever be allowed to be the answer.

The bullying the media ignores
Just in the past few hours, some larger media outlets have begun to pick up the story of Michael Morones, an 11 year old boy who attempted suicide by hanging himself because he couldn't live with being bullied anymore. He is on life support in North Carolina, and it is feared that he may have permanent brain damage if he survives.

The reason he was being bullied? He is a Brony.

Is it possible that is also the reason the media isn't covering the story? I'd certainly make the argument it is. He attempted well over a week ago, and stories like his usually hit the news right away. This time though, crickets. I didn't even hear about it until a fellow blogger, Portrait of an Adoption, wrote about it earlier this week.

It hurts my heart to know that this little boy felt so helpless. It hurts my heart to see bullying in any form, to see children ridiculed for what they love, to see a society look the other way when the bullying is for something most people don't understand.

You can contribute to a fund set up in his honor here if you are interested.


My love and support to you and your family, Michael. All the Bronies and Pegasisters in the world are rooting for you right now.

Philip Seymour Hoffman died yesterday. He was found with a needle still wedged into his arm, heroin believed to be the culprit.


When I heard of his passing yesterday, it hit me in the gut a little bit. Not because I know him, not because I know his family members or friends. Not, much to the dismay of what some may believe, because he was an award winning actor.

It hit me because he isn't the only face of addiction, he is just the most recent one. He's just the face that most people recognize, the one that we were familiar with, the one that we came to love through his work on the screen.

Whenever someone famous dies, there seems to be this immediate attempt by far too many people to make their life and death insignificant, as though the death of a celebrity somehow negates the death of all the other people who died on that given day. People attempt to place more value on the lives of some people, less on others, claiming that the celebration of the death of a celebrity is a misplaced outlaying of our efforts. I argue the opposite, obviously, particularly in situations like this one where there is so much opportunity for us to learn about addiction, about mental illness, about why lives end this tragic way.

The opportunity is there, without question. The issue is whether we, as a society choose to seize it, or whether we chalk this loss up to drug use and wave it off indifferently as another selfish life wasted.

It seems we do the latter.

Plenty of opportunities have been presented to us in the past, of lives abruptly ended this way. Of people who happen to be famous, but also struggle with the same demons that many of us ordinary folks do, meeting sudden death in this way.

Philip became addicted to heroin after struggling with abusing prescription pain medications, an all too familiar and increasingly common path to this addiction. This is not the addiction we want to think it is, the sordid one that happens in alleys, nor is it one reserved only for those in positions of privilege. Heroin doesn't discriminate. Its use is up 75% in the past few years, and the demographics of the users have shifted. 

It's easier to think that drug addiction happens to other people, to them, over there. Reality tells us that it happens far more often than we want to believe. It's a false sense of security.

Chances are that someone you know is addicted to drugs right now, you just may not realize it.

Or you do know, but you hide their addiction because of the social stigma. 

Or you don't hide it, but you shame them instead. 

Or you don't shame them, but you slowly phase them out of your life because you don't want to be around them anymore or because you just can't do it anymore. 

Or you keep them around, but talk about them behind their backs, discuss how sad it is that they refuse to get help, vow to be better than they are.

Or they do try to get help and sometimes they get better for a while. 

Or they relapse and die just like he did yesterday.

The trouble with drug addiction is that it really isn't about the drugs, no matter how much most people seem to believe that. Drug addiction is a means to an end. It begins usually as a way to try something new, to try and get high, to try and transport yourself somewhere else, to try and just feel better for a minute.

Most drug use is self medication for the things that people either can't or won't cope with in real life. The root of most of all that? Mental health conditions, the huge piece of this issue that we find ourselves ignoring all too often every time drugs are involved.

Nancy Reagan taught us all that drugs are bad. D.A.R.E. programs taught us that users are criminals, they are bad people. No one ever bothered to tell us that the vast majority of them were in need of help from a mental health system that largely doesn't exist.

And you know what happened?

People believed them. I can't even begin to tell you all the things I saw flying through my newsfeed yesterday in the wake of his death. Proclamations that he was selfish, that he was a waste, that he should have been happy because he was rich and famous. People who decreed from the mountaintops that if he would have just tried harder, he would have been better. That it's his fault that he died.

In reality, he struggled with depression most of his life. He got clean. He was recently in rehab.

Addicts don't want to be addicts.

Addicts don't want to die.

Addicts don't want to throw their lives away.

Addicts don't want their children to grow up without parents.

They just want to feel better. They just want to feel normal. They just want to stop feeling everything else for a little while.

Addicts are people, just like you and me.

Addicts come in all forms, dependent on many different things, drugs just being one version of dependence.

The problem is that our system is limited, laboring under the illusion that drug addiction is a criminal issue, a medical issue on the fringes that can be fixed with proper rehab. That all ignores the fact that drugs aren't the problem...what led that person to drugs in the first place is the problem. The drugs are just a means to an end.

Rehab doesn't fix addicts. It primarily treats the physical symptoms of withdrawal.

Prison doesn't fix addicts. It just puts them in a cage for a while.

Even death doesn't fix addicts. It just leaves the people who love them here, forever wondering how different things might have been.

The only way to really deal with addiction is one that is multi-faceted, one that makes us uncomfortable. It is messy and complicated and takes a lifetime of effort. It sometimes involves relapses and second chances and third chances. It involves support, sometimes sponsors. It involves therapy and counseling until whatever the root cause is has been revealed and addressed. It involves consideration of not just the physical withdrawal, but the emotional withdrawal, the social withdrawal, the psychological withdrawal. It requires a mental health system with adequate resources, which clearly doesn't exist. It requires us to do better. It requires support instead of judgement.

And sometimes, even when all those things exist, it fails. It fails because addiction can take people and swallow them whole. It can rob them of everything they value, everyone they love. It can strip them of everything they care about, rob them of reason and logic. It can convince them that they aren't worthy, that they have failed not just themselves, but everyone else. It tells them that they are broken and irreparable. Then it shoves them back down and does it again.

Our society says it failed because they didn't try hard enough, because they were selfish, because they were stupid.

How exactly is saying things like this going to help anyone?

The short answer - it isn't. It just allows us to believe that if we try hard enough, if we care about other people enough, if we are smart enough, we can avoid addiction. Our false sense of security hurts those who need help the most.

Never mind the damage done to the people they leave behind.

To those who claim Philip's death isn't tragic, I ask you to think about his children. I'm sure they would disagree with you.

Until you've been there, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've watched someone you love try and claw their way out only to be dragged back in again, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've seen someone throw everything away just to feel better for a moment, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've dealt with someone desperately in need of help who turned to self medicating instead, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've had to tease out where the line between believing in someone and enabling them is, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've had to make choices no one should ever have to make, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've done all you can to help someone who doesn't want it, you can't know what it is like.

We all have our demons. We all have our issues.

Many of us are closer to being addicts than we would ever admit out loud.

Some of us know how easy it would be to turn.

Some of us are addicts already.

Some of us already walk the line.

I have been writing almost every day now for five years, as of yesterday. Ironic, at least for me, that the day that I crossed that threshold was one where I didn't even open up my blog to do anything more than check for comments.

Hair, hair everywhere. What's a man to do?

For as long as there have been humans, there has been an abundance of hair. On heads, on chests, on arms and legs, and yes....down there.

I must include a disclaimer here so that I don't get a bunch of hate mail over this post, and/or totally gross out family members. If you don't want to read about sex, penises, balls, happy trails, vagazzling, tweezing, waxing, chafing or rubbing, stop reading now. I mean it. Like right now.

Last chance.

I'm not kidding. Go.

Okay, now that we're done with warnings and disclaimers, let's get on with the business of the day, manscaping.

This topic came to me as a request from a fan. Someone I have known, quite literally, forever. He's a dude that needs some questions answered. He knows that I can't refuse a challenge, so here we are.

Since at least 4000 BC, people have been removing hair from their bodies. Razors were invented sometime around 3000 BC. Prior to that hairs were plucked out using shells. (I'll just let you think about how awesome of a process that must have been for a moment.)

Facial hair is the hair most commonly and historically removed for men, leg and underarm hair for women, though some cultures have long dictated the removal of pubic hair for women. Oh, and just in case you are wondering, if you search bikini waxing on Wikipedia, there are pictures. I've linked it here for ease of use. You are welcome.

Though the removal of pubic hair is nothing new, the widespread societal expectation of female removal is something fairly recent, at least in this country. Sex and the City didn't just bring back day drinking, it urged women everywhere to get their tingly bits waxed.

And the world rejoiced.

It's a trend that hasn't seemed to let up, though every so often there are stories that pop up alleging that waxing is on the way out, that women are embracing their pubes again, that the moral center of the nation is encouraging growing it long and strong to rebel against the horrors of porn. And so on and so forth. Then vagazzling becomes a thing a few weeks later and we all realize we're still going to be shaving for a while.

So, women have been doing it a long time...what about the men? They've come over to the smooth side too.


I could get into a lengthy explanation about chest hair or leg hair or any other hair, but we all know that's not why you're here. You're here for the naughty bits. Unless you are a porn star, swimmer, model, elite cyclist or runner....you probably aren't shaving your entire body bald because you have to. You're shaving it either because you want to or because someone told you it looked good.

Little secret here. Ready? Most women I know actually like chest hair as long as it's not unwieldy and doesn't fan out too far or stick our of the top of your shirt. Feel free to trim it up, but don't shave it all off. (Also, feel free to discuss among friends, ask your significant other what they prefer, choose to ignore them if you like to be a bear, whatever....however you get your freak on, I'm good with it.) Whatever you do, leave a trace of the happy trail. Please.

Don't do this.

In researching this post, I've been fortunate to have many male friends willing to tell me their stories. Some go full 70's bush, refusing to shave anything below the neck. Some use clippers to tame their body hair, but refuse to shave with an actual razor. Some trim pubic hair only, leaving the chest hair alone. Some were even kind enough to tell me they shave the pubic hair on top but leave the ball hair alone. And then there were the bald boys who go for it all, clippers first, then razors.

Every guy does it a little differently, and they all have slightly different reasons.

Some started during puberty or very shortly thereafter. More than a few started in college. Some started at the request of a significant other. One guy I know started when he found his first gray pube. True damn story.

My only word of caution is this, ladies....if you have been married a long time and your husband has been hairy the whole time, then suddenly decides to shave his balls, worry. Middle aged men don't often just wake up one day and start doing this unless there's a reason, at least not from the stories people have told me.

What are the reasons for a guy to shave his junk? (for the love of all that is right and just in this world, if you are related to me and haven't left yet, go now)

1. Sex. Really, this is the main reason. Let's just be honest about that. I don't have a penis, but I can tell you that sensations are heightened in the nethers when hairless. I assume it would be the same for a dude.
2. Oral Sex. It's just better. And your partner is probably more willing to go there if things are tidy. No one likes getting hair in their teeth. Cough. Cough.
3. Illusions. There is a thing, referred to as the "optical inch", reasoning goes a bit like this: if the bush is trimmed back a little, the trunk seems longer and thicker. 
4. Cleanliness. Hair hangs on to sweat, and let's get one thing clear: balls sweat a lot. Sweat stinks. Less hair, less place for sweat to fester - less smell.
5. Looks. You know you've stood in front of a mirror and admired it. If you say you haven't, you're lying. If you are a guy and try to tell me you haven't at least attempted a helicopter, I'm never believing another word you say.
6. Because someone asked you to. Okay, so maybe this should be the main reason.
   
    

Courtesy of my good friend, also possible story contributor, The Musings of Munch, an earworm for you, sung to the tune of Miley Cyrus' Hoedown Throwdown. Wax it, shave it, epilate it.

Day 29 ~

I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger.

~ The Joker, The Dark Knight


Heath Ledger. The Joker. One of the best acting performances of our entire generation, the character that infiltrated his mind, the craziest bad guy we love to hate and hate to love.

He was that good. The world lost an amazing actor when he died.

The script for this movie was written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, based on the characters we have grown up with. Batman is one of the most mysterious, darkest heroes in the superhero universe, so logic dictates that his enemies must also be mysterious and dark.

This phrase is uttered very near the beginning of the film, during a bank robbery, as The Joker shoves a smoke bomb into the mouth of a bank employee.

The Joker is a twisted person, to say the least. His motivations are different than most villains. He doesn't just want money or power or influence or weapons. He wants chaos more than anything. He literally wants to watch the world burn just to see what people will do when faced with ethical dilemmas.

Why he is the way he is, we may never know. There are several different versions of his past, and in the film The Dark Knight, he spends quite a bit of time telling stories, always different, each one a little more crazy than the last.

On to the quote, one which seems appropriate for a man like him to say.

And, if I'm being completely honest, one that I tend to agree with.

Let me explain.

There is a run-of-the-mill quote very similar to this one, uttered in a million different incarnations, about how what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. There's truth to that one, of course, assuming that what you deal with doesn't damage you too much. Living with PTSD now, though there are days I would say I am stronger, there are also days I would say that I am too damaged now.

I think we all learn and grow from our experiences necessarily, that we gain perspective and wisdom, that we mature and expand our view of the world. Or we should. Not everyone does. Some people take their experiences to be the only ones, their perspective to be the only one, and then spend the rest of their lives laboring under the delusion that the version of the world they see is the only one.

So, what doesn't kill you can make you stronger. It can also make you damaged. It can also make you bitter and deluded.

This quote isn't that one, of course. It is a mockery of that quote, twisted and mangled by the raving lunatic shoving a smoke bomb into an innocent man's mouth.

It's also true.

At least for me, it's true. I've been through a lot. There were times that life beat me down, kicked my ass, shoved me down further and left me to rot. It was that bad for a while. I've lost a lot. I've had to do things no one should ever have to do. I've been scared, I've been alone, I've been used.

I survived it all, somehow, probably just out of pure stubbornness.

Now that I'm here, hopefully past the worst of it, I'm this version of myself.

I'm stronger in ways, weaker in others. I'm smarter and wiser but far more skeptical and cynical than I ever was before. I'm more prone to show emotions at times, more likely to stuff them away at others. I'm more interesting for sure.

And I'm a hell of a lot stranger than I ever was.

I'm writing this while re-watching this week's episode of Sherlock, so I apologize in advance if it tempers my rage. It's hard to be angry when Benedict Cumberbatch is being all swoonworthy right in front of me.

I'll still try.


You guys....it's January, calm down
It's winter. In winter, it is cold. In winter, there are storms that bring snow with them. This is what happens. This year is particularly cold and snowy for parts of the country thanks to the wonder that is the polar vortex.

Still. It's January. It's winter. This happens every year, though perhaps not to this extreme.

I'm amused, to say the least, by the posts I'm seeing on Facebook. The parents pissed that school is canceled. The parents pissed that school isn't canceled. I'm amused because I don't work for a school district and don't have to put up with the emails and phone calls by all the pissed off parents.

Here's the thing.

The districts have to worry about safety first and foremost. They really aren't concerned with inconveniencing parents, honest. They have to worry about road conditions and whether the buses are equipped for winter driving. They have to worry about the kids who have to walk to school or to the bus stop. They have to especially worry about the kids that have to do those things but don't have coats or gloves. They have to worry about the required number of days in the school year. They have to worry about whether the school year will be extended into the summer, which would inevitably piss more people off.

This year, districts that never have to worry about any of this shit are having to worry about it.

Have we had snow days that were unnecessary? Of course. Have there been times that it should have been called and wasn't? Of course. There's no perfect way to interpret weather forecasts because of the simple fact that they aren't always accurate.

Give the districts a break. They are doing the best they can with the information they have.

The people who don't read, but comment on everything
This. So much this.

If you're going to take the time out of your day to ponder a response, type it out and wait for the shitpot to get stirred....for the love of all that is soft and fluffy in the world, read the goddamn article first.

This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves as a writer. I really and truly enjoy commentary and even criticism on what I write, but before you give me feedback that I will take to heart, you have to read what I actually wrote. You can't glance at a title or a picture or the comments being left by other people and know what I wrote. It doesn't work that way.

I deal in sarcasm here people.

Case in point, I wrote a piece for Lefty Pop about Justin Bieber yesterday. It wasn't even really about him so much as it was about the news networks running stories about him over actual news stories that are far more important. I had a picture of the Biebs in the story. Some people just saw that and jumped to conclusions. Head:Wall.

The people who believe whatever people tell them
This. So much this.

Maybe it's just been an off week for me, but I've seen a lot of people sharing fake news stories, sharing articles from satire sites as though they are real, sharing so-called facts that someone told them as though they are true at all.

Stop that.

Maybe I'm just the most skeptical person in the universe, but I fact check everything. I tend not to believe anything people tell me. I doubt most of what I read. I love Snopes. You should love Snopes too.

Chances are anymore that if something rubs you the wrong way, makes you overly happy, makes you overly pissed off...you should verify that information before you spread it all over the book of face. There's plenty of real stuff out there to outrage you, to make you happy, to disgust you...stop falling for the fake stuff.

The Gays Are Coming!!!!!
The weekly developments in the struggle for equal rights have taken some bizarre turns. Two weeks ago, a judge ruled that Oklahoma's ban on gay marriage violated the Constitution, so legislators there have taken the next logical step...they want to ban all marriage as a way to forbid gay marriage. If everyone can get married, then no one can.

I'm going to take my toys and go home, the 2014 elected grown-ass adult version.

On the Grammy's Sunday, during the performance of the song Same Love, 34 couples got married. 68 people who love each other pledged vows and exchanged rings in front of the world. It was beautiful. I was crying from here, feeling so many feelings at the same time, honored that I was able to see it.

Then the homophobes of the world had to chime in. I'm not including the screenshots of what they said for a reason. You can read them here if you want.

Congratulations to all the newlyweds.

“At some point in our lifetime, gay marriage won't be an issue, and everyone who stood against this civil right will look as outdated as George Wallace standing on the school steps keeping James Hood from entering the University of Alabama because he was black.” - George Clooney

Can't you just be Christian? Or quiet?
This story brought out my inner Luther. And reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend very familiar with this area of the country just last week, where she made many of the same observations.

There is a sixth grade teacher in a public school telling kids that the Bible is 100% truth, that evolution is impossible and that anyone who doesn't believe in God is "stupid". A Buddhist student in the class got fed up with this and told their parents. Parents went to the school district with complaints, where they were told by the Superintendent that "this is the Biblebelt", then given options.

The options?

Change to a school with "more Asians" or change their faith.

No, I'm not kidding.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the family.