Live Blogging the State of The Union

8:06--Chris Matthews kisses Republican ass. Even calls Rice one of the most popular people in the world. 8:07--Why can't they get sportscasters to do the play-by-play? It's got to be better than Matthews repeating himself over and over. 8:08--Is that Keenan from Saturday Night Live standing next to Laura Bush? 8:11--Why does our president always look like he's afraid that someone is going to heckle him? Still, it's a good haircut. Is anyone else reminded of Mike Logan with all these tiny flags on lapels? Okay, just the Law & Order fans, I guess. 8:13--Is the president missing his top teeth? 8:15--The first 9/11 reference. If you had 8:15 in the pool, you win. 8:16--"We will act boldly in freedom's cause" by tapping your phone and monitoring and arresting vegans. 8:17--Burma is looking at itself all "What, when did we get on the bad guy list?" 8:18--"Allowing the violent to inherit the earth." Who had 8:18 in the "First Jesus reference" pool? 8:20--We're not for isolationism? Surprise, conservatives! 8:23--Short George Bush--"Politicians suck. But I'll ask your advice, if you're not too critical of me." 8:25--"We must stand behind our military" until they get home, then we must abandoned them. Argh. 8:27--MSNBC hopes the dead soldier's family will cry. Despite zooming in, no tears. 8:32--More shit about how we're done with isolationism and another God reference. 8:34--He just admitted he's going to use the Patriot Act in the "war" on drugs. 8:35--Now he explains why he gets to tap phones without a warrant. See "8:34" if you can't understand why you might ought to be worried about this, pot smoking hippies. 8:37--I can't hear the President over the rantings of the Butcher. 8:38--Talk of immigrants causes Kleinheider to howl so loud that I hear him clear up here. 8:42--Senator Clinton could kill with that withering glare. 8:43--For the first time in years, the Democrats show signs of life and SNARK! 8:45--The Butcher asks if the President is high. 8:46--Is that Kleinheider again screaming at the mention of a guest-worker program? 8:47--Again with the medical liability reform. I remember that from last year. 8:48--"America is addicted to oil." Coal. We're going to invest in coal. Perhaps no one told the president that mining is still deadly. 8:50--He said something important, I can tell by the clapping, but I tuned it out. 8:52--More math and science? Intelligent design, too, or not? 8:55--The President comes out against gay marriage. 8:57--Well, he was for math and science. Now he wants to limit science. 8:59--Laura Bush is now in charge of some initiative to love children. What happened to her initiative to love gang members? Did that work and now she's expanding out? Or it failed and so she's aiming for something easier? 9:01--Bush is going to give money to churches to help with the fight against AIDS, because churches are so well-known for their great love of people with AIDS and their caring outreach to communities ravaged by AIDS. 9:03--"May God Bless America." See how he gets our hopes up by insinuating that someone more powerful than him is in charge?

Reader Mail

Today, I've gotten a letter from a reader of Tiny Cat Pants. It reads as follows (edited to include some less-distressing content. Materials added to the letter are in brackets.):

[Dearest Aunt B.,] When are you feminists going to start going bonkers over Alito being confirmed to the Supreme Court? Can you feel your reproductive rights being taken away at this very moment? [Sincerely, A Gentleman Reader p.s. I think you're so cute when you're mad. The thought of your brow furrowing in anger as you read this letter about sends me around the bend. I want to kiss you right now.]

Dear Gentleman Reader, I'm sorry but there will be no smooches for you. Though I am righteously indignant at the thought that there exists only one Republican senator with the guts to vote against this man, I, like all other feminists, are resigned to the fact that he's now on the Supreme Court. Really, it's another day another politician trying to stick his nose into my vagina (and not in the fun way). Here's what will happen. Folks will now rush to get some monumental abortion ruling before the court, the court will then make some decision that, on the surface, keeps Roe in place, but guts it. Abortion will fall back to the states and women in conservative states will lose their right to one. It remains to be seen what kind of pressure is then brought on folks undergoing fertility treatments, many of which also create embryos which are never brought to term. Will they lose the ability to decide when and if they reproduce? I kind of doubt it. Much of the abortion debate is really about making sure slutty women are punished with children, not about making couples who really want kids miserable. It's all very interesting, and I'd love to be more outraged, but I'm busy making popcorn so that when it dawns on Republicans that they've thrown their support behind a man who thinks the Presidency is just like being king and what that means in terms of their own civil liberties, I can snack and laugh at the same time. Really supporting Alito was like watching Republicans route around in a septic tank looking for stuff to throw at us--Alito just happened to be the biggest chunk--and a day will come when they'll look down and realize that they're covered in the same shit they tossed our way. On that day, I will laugh, if I'm still allowed to laugh. (It's hard to tell how far back women's rights are going to get rolled.) Love, Your Dearest Aunt B.

I Smell GOOoood

Bless the Butcher's heart. He doesn't pick up after himself or have his own car or ever miss a chance to announce when he thinks he's going to shit the bed, but the man has mad skills of picking out bath products. When I buy things, I end up smelling, as I've said, like some kind of fuckable funeral arrangement. When the Butcher buys things, I smell nice and clean and slightly lickable. The Butcher is, as always, looking for a job. In the past, I thought he should be an interior decorator, as he could spend all his time taking money from cuckolded rich men from Williamson County. They'd never suspect him as the cuckolder, since the stereotype of interior decorators is that they're gay. However, the Butcher hangs pictures too high. Even though he can fit furniture in the best possible configuration for any given room, having to look up to view your art is annoying. So, now I'm thinking maybe he could be a personal shopper for these lonely Williamson County housewives. He'd make them smell good and he'd still have good cover for his crazy affairs.

Either David Boaz is an Idiot or He Thinks I'm an Idiot

So, I've made it up to Chapter Two in Libertarianism: A Primer and I can only conclude that either David Boaz is an idiot or he thinks his readers, of which I am one, are idiots. Since he's some bigwig at the Cato Institute* and I am your lowly blogger, I'm going to assume that I'm supposed to be the idiot here. I'm just at the point where Boaz is claiming that libertarianism is the preferred way of getting along in the world. Preferred by whom? By God. Yes, in a real live book about a real live philosophical system, that is supposed to give me enough information to decide whether libertarianism is the right political framework for my thinking, number two on the reasons libertarianism rules (Number one: Because it's better than socialism.) is "Because God Likes It Best." This? This is a reason to pick a philosophical system? Because some god somewhere made some passing reference to not liking kings? Well, shoot, one of my gods says "What does it hurt if a woman has a husband or a lover or both?" Shall I run out and acquire for myself a husband and some lovers just because some god said it wasn't that big a deal? Even if it bothers my husband or my lover or both? Or shall I continue to assume that what gods do is their business and the arrangements people make between themselves are best left to be worked out among themselves? Anyway, there's something deeply, deeply funny about arguing for libertarianism--a political system based on severe individualism and self-determination--by saying "You should do it because God likes it." *It doesn't have anything to do with this post, but this dude is with the Cato Institute as well and I've been totally digging on him since I found him. This is libertarianism a girl like me can take to bed in good conscience.

Sex With Someone You Love

Are there things that are off-limits here at Tiny Cat Pants? I guess we're about to find out. Because I'd like to touch briefly on female masturbation. Ha, I said "touch briefly." Okay, now that that's out of my system... I was thinking of how Elias used to have this 'zine and he asked me to write an article for it and so I wrote this hilarious expose about my experimentations in masturbation. Basically, I got on the internet, found some site offering tips on female masturbation, tried them out, and rated them for his readers. I wouldn't bring it up except that I almost died, twice, during the same session while doing the research for said article. If you're a woman, you've certainly heard of the bathtub method, where you lay down in your bathtub, throw your legs up at a 90 degree angle and scoot way down so that you're aligned with the faucet, and you let the water flow over your cooter until you orgasm. If any of you have tried this, you already know the first way I almost died. If you are scooted up so that your cooter is aligned with your faucet, chances are your butt is over the drain, and the bathtub is filling up with water. And, while the sensation of water flowing over your cooter is pleasant, it ended up being a race to see if I'd finish up before the water covered my face. I lost. That was bad enough. But then I went to sit up and, apparently, my back had made some kind of seal on the tub bottom so that when I sat up, it made this enormous farty groany noise which caused me to start laughing and I hit my head on the side of the tub so hard I thought I would pass out and end up drowning again. Luckily, I lived. But my larger point is that girls get a lot of fucked up messages about sex, which causes us to be very fucked up about sex, which is too bad, because it's fun, but if we're fucked up, chances are it's not very fun for the people we're fucking. I can recall masturbating as a little girl. I didn't know that's what I was doing, because no one in my family ever talked about sex with me, except my grandma, who had an elaborate theory about how the Pope was trying to convert all her grand-daughters to Catholicism, because "Protestant girls have needs and Catholic boys know this and they will bring you right up to the point where you will have to have sex or die and they'll hop out of the car and refuse to get back in unless you promise to marry them and become Catholic.*" There was a point where you'd have to have sex or die? And Catholic boys knew how to get you to it? Bring on the Catholic boys! Anyway, my point being that I was masturbating, but didn't know what it was (My favorite fantasy? That I was naked and encased in dried mud. No, I don't understand it either.). Then, I figured out that I was playing with myself and that it was wrong and made me bad and so I stopped. I got older and wanted to start up again, but I still felt like it was wrong. Then, I read an interview with Sharon Stone, talking about that scene in Sliver where she masturbates in the bathtub (though, wisely, not using the aforementioned method). And she went on at some length about how she cried afterwards and how all of the women on set were also crying because there's just something so sad about women masturbating**. And so then I was like, well, I don't want to be one of those sad women who masturbate. Luckily, I had this kick-ass feminist professor in college who was all the time talking about how she had to masturbate during commencement just to be able to not die of boredom. "You masturbate?" I asked. I'm embarrassed to tell you what I said next, but for you, I will. "But you have a husband!" "So?" "But..." "B., how the fuck is he supposed to know what I like if I don't know what I like? Plus, sometimes you've got to have a little something to get you through a boring-ass day." This was like some kind of revelation from the gods. Masturbation was fun and recreational and something one did in addition to propping herself up on the sink the the bathroom of a certain frat house while some dude whose name she can't even remember now*** told her he loved her until she asked him to stop because it was creeping her out. Ugh, what the fuck? Anyway, where was I? Yes, masturbation. More importantly women getting in touch with themselves. It comes to my attention that there is a portion of the female population who trade sexual favors for chores. Who does this? It's like me saying "I'm not going to go for ice cream with you unless you take out the garbage." Why would I risk missing out on ice cream? Do these women not like sex? Let's use a metaphor the boys will understand: you don't just learn how to catch the ball once summer when you're fifteen and then make a career of playing baseball. You have to continue to practice the fundamentals, even between games if you want to enjoy playing. So, it seems to me that these women who use sex as a means to manipulate their partners instead of enjoying it for its own sake might benefit from some alone time. *In all fairness to my grandma, I should point out that these Papist conspiracy theories didn't start until after she'd had a few strokes. ** I looked for this article and could not find it. So, I could be misremembering. *** Are there children reading this blog? If so, I say, respect yourself to wait for someone whose name you'll remember.

Why Should I Remain Alone in my Distress?

For your edification, here are two images I'll never be able to erase from my memory.

• Plimco tells us about her sister's strange high-school greeting*.
• The Wayward Boy Scout makes me cry**.

*Or maybe this is just how Lutherans say hello. Who am I to judge?

**Just a little. I'm not a baby or anything.

To Answer Your Question

One odd thing about meeting y'all is that some of you seem to be unclear about how much of this is bullshit and how much of it is true. The most common question I get is "So, are you really an aunt?" For all ye of little faith, here's the boys.

Can't I Get a copy of "Libertarianism: A Little More than the Primer"?

So, I'm trying to read Libertarianism: A Primer. It's not going so well. I can only read until I get irate, which means I'm covering about ten paragraphs at a time. I've scoffed repeatedly, but so far only had to throw the book down in disgust twice--the first being when the author claimed that people have always had property rights and the second being when he claimed that student loans were a symptom of evil government. His ability to simplify everything the government does as "evil" is annoying the piss out of me. Surely there's a more nuanced argument to be made for libertarianism. Maybe he'll get to it. We'll see. But I'm intrigued by his choice to use "man" and "he" and "his" throughout the book. The author says right up front that he's going to do it, use male pronouns to stand for everyone. And at first I was like "Okay, this is annoying, but I'll stick with it." But on my walk with Mrs. Wigglebottom this morning, I got to thinking about a discussion I had with Sarcastro (which is here someplace at Tiny Cat Pants, but I can't even begin to find it) about how I said I'm not going to go around spelling it "womyn" because I refuse to concede more ground to this ridiculous notion that "man" means male folks, when really, it's always been a word that refers to all folks and it's only the anxiety of the weapon-men about their "weapons" that led them to try to coopt the generic for everyone as referring solely to them. And then Sarcastro made some crack about how "woman" means basically the trading-men and, oh, ha, ha, I wonder what they had to trade? Which would be more annoying if it wasn't true. We have been trading sexual access to our bodies for security for ourselves and our offspring since the rise of property rights. And we've been at the mercy of a free sexual market for all that time. How's that worked out for us? So, you see my suspicion, that if one wants to talk about what successful libertarianism looks like, it's best that one makes sure to gloss over the ongoing less successful version. But I was watching a little CNN Headline News last night and caught an interview with the author of Self-Made Man which is about a woman who passes as a man for some length of time in order to find out about the secret lives of men. One interesting thing she said in the interview was how her experience made her realize just how much power women have over men and that she's come to respect women less after having to deal with us like men do. This has actually been something that's come up repeatedly here--that women have all this power over men, with the implication being how can we bitch about the patriarchy and the ways the system sucks for us when we clearly have the best end of the bargain? And I haven't really addressed it because 1. I'm not sure I even begin to understand how men feel powerless in the face of women; 2. "Patriarchy" is not so easily about all men lording over all women, it's a name for a system of gender relations under which we all suffer. Pointing out my problems doesn't negate yours; and 3. I think I'm starting to believe that the real work of damaging women is done by other women so that it's almost invisible to men. It's done under the guise of being beneficial to men and it does benefit men, but they rarely have to see it. God. What does any of this have to do with libertarianism? I don't know. Maybe nothing. We'll see.

Blogging by Candle Light

Our power just went out again, for the third time today and it's pretty damn dark down here at the dead end when there aren't any lights. I should have just sat here patiently, but instead I thought I'd walk around banging my shin on things and stepping on the dog. I now have a candle lit, just in case we go dark one more time before I go to bed. Oddly enough, the first thing I noticed was that something in our living room smells bad. Ha, yes, come and visit us, down in the part of town where things smell bad and the power goes out for no discernible reason.

Jim Bob Cooter

Nashville Knucklehead just sent me an email* alerting me to the existence of one Jim Bob Cooter, a football player for Tennessee. I think it goes without saying that Jim Bob Cooter is now the official football player of Tiny Cat Pants. Thanks, Knucklehead! * Okay, honestly, he could have sent this email one million hours ago, for all I've been able to get Yahoo to work this weekend. But that's not important. The important thing is that I have the email now.

Hurray for Not Making Too Big an Ass of Myself while Drunken Blogging!

Before we start, I should just go ahead and admit that I let the dog eat a bunch of spicy queso even though I could see it turning her nose pink and she did that thing when she curled her lips back like it was too hot but she kept licking it anyway, even though I know it means she's going to drool all over me in about five minutes, because I am a bad dog owner. So, yes, heh, let's return to last night's post of drunken love. I'd like to say that being around me when I'm drunk is much different, but, except that it lacks my usual trying to get everyone in the back seat of some car to grope me only to discover that, instead of having the hands of three different people rubbing all up on me, I just continually am forcing the Professor to feel me up, what you saw from last night is pretty much how it is (oh, and I didn't pass out in a ditch someplace). I get drunk and love everyone. Anyway, thanks to John H., though he doesn't know it, I got hooked up with this theater-y person who wants me to help put together this summer program for girls. Last night was a get-together of some of the women involved and we sat around and bonded and brainstormed and watched the performance the girls gave at the end of the program last year. It was really amazing. I'm going to work on putting together a website on the deal, because I don't really feel like I can talk about it coherently other than to say "wow" and that I'm really glad and inspired to be a part of it. I'll tell you more about it as it progresses, even though it probably means dropping the anonymity a little more than I'm currently comfortable with. (Though, shoot, if Sarcastro's going to go around telling everyone how to stalk me, I guess it doesn't matter if you know my name or not.) And, Christ, I tell you guys about my cooter and my boob freckle. I guess if a day comes when you know my name and face, it won't be the end of the world. It just won't be today. Anyway, I do love you all. I'm just embarrassed you had to find out like this.

Hurray, Drunken Blogging!

Too much wine. But it's okay, I'm delighted for the first time in ages* because I've been so down for so long. You know, when most people drunk blog, they seem more coherent. Not me. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Ladies, let me lay one on you. Are you ready? "I'm glad to be a woman." Have you ever said this to yourself? I'm glad to be a woman. Frankly, I have not. I've been proud to be a woman. For sure or I wouldn't be a feminist. But glad? Not "I'm glad I'm not a man." That's something entirely different, involving a different kind of post. But "I'm glad to be a woman." That blows my mind. I want to talk about what that might mean, but I'm not even sure. Have I ever been glad to have this body? I don't know. Probably not glad enough. But y'all get that, right? That all the talk about my slick warm inviting cooter and my round soft tits topped off by the elusive, yet alluring, boob freckle are not some way of seducing you so much as trying to come up with a way for me to talk about myself that loves me? No, probably you don't get that. That's okay. I love you anyway. I love me anyway. I'm glad to be a woman, anyway, even if you think "slick warm inviting cooter" and " round soft tits" are for you and not for me. What do I care? You always misread me. But your sweet kisses, your awkward grins, your shaking hands (what? you think I didn't see that? I did.) when you're sitting next to me, it makes your inability to see me for who I am and love me anyway okay. I delight in you. I delight in you when you delight in me and when you're put out with me--"Am I in trouble for taking sides?"--and when you think you can do better than me--"I could be with any woman (prettier, smarter, taller, whatever)"--and when you're afraid that you can't--"But you're not like other girls. It doesn't matter what you want." I find you delightful anyway. And I wish you read more Whitman, who loves himself and loves men. And maybe he could reassure you in a way that I can't that you're so beautiful and worth loving and worth being good to and worth being good for. You. You should be good because you deserve it. I'm sorry I don't know how to convince you of that. But, if I could sit near you and give you soft kisses on your scruffy faces and my lips against your lips until you knew your inherent worth, I would. And not just because it would be fun for me. Y'all are worth it. Even though you so clearly hate yourselves. Even though you think feminists hate men. Even though you've not even heard "hate men" until you've been standing by the kitchen door in a house full of anti-feminist women, listening when they think you aren't. Even though your hating yourself leads to you eviscerating me and my kind, I love you anyway. I guess that's why you still read. I guess you know that, that I love you. Tonight, I sat around a table with three other women and we talked about how to take a handful of girls at an age when I was sitting in a bedroom with the music up loud to drown out my screams slicing a blade against my wrists and then when that failed to do the job, taking hands full of pills only to live and find myself moving to a worse hell than that**, finding a handful of those girls and teaching them that they are sacred and worth being here. Maybe we are lone individuals at the whim of the free market, but I'd rather not think so. I'd rather count on you and have you count on me. I'm dog-loyal to the people I love. Come take from me what you need and I'll gladly open my house and self to it. I'd rather live that way than be isolated. Isolation has no mercy. Y'all, tonight I watched six girls young enough to be my kids dancing around a stage and it made my soul ache. It made me feel brave enough to have girls. It made me feel an obligation to nurture children. Which made me laugh at the anti-abortionists, who think that they have to cut off all access to abortions to keep women having children. Little do they know that seeing girls thrive can make you want to have thriving children. So, yes, I'll sober up and tell you what I'm up to. And some of you will roll your eyes and scoff. But some of you will say, "Hmm, 'I'm proud to be a woman.' That sounds like a cool end result of anything." *Not counting when the Wayward Boy Scout tries to throw my own words in my face, which delights me on principle, no matter how depressed I am. He's so clever. Did I tell you that only the Wayward Boy Scout keeps it from being the Gay and Libertarian list--the list of men who will never fuck me--not that I expect him to; I just keep the list limited to gay men and Sarcastro based on my delight at the Wayward Boy Scout continually delighting me with his delightfully misguided ways. Or maybe ? I think there needs to be a ? in there. Anyway, I'm glad to have met him once. **I guess I've never told anyone that before. Surprise. Sorry.

The Laziest Saturday Ever

You guys, I have to be walking out this door in an hour and a half (and back across the scary bridge, but we won't dwell on that) and I haven't even gotten in the shower yet. I've done nothing with my afternoon except found a sunny spot in the front room to lay in with the dog. I was too lazy to even nap. I just laid there, listening to her snore and counting the big black spots on the top of her nose. For all my bitching about having nothing to do and no purpose in life, and for all my feeling trapped and desperate and gloomy, yes, still. No not as bad as last week, but only by sheer determination, not actual better feeling. Ugh, let's not dwell on it. Where were we? Yes. For all my complaining, I actually have been invited to do something very cool, which I will tell y'all about when I'm convinced they're not going to uninvite me once they realize how nerdy I am. Hey, I think this is the first time I've ever tried to build up some suspense on Tiny Cat Pants. It's kind of exciting.

My Spirit Guide

Last night, as I was sitting around working on Shug's afghan, I watched "Most Haunted" on the Travel Channel. If you've seen this, you know that there's this crazy psychic guy who wanders through the haunted places talking to the dead folks and getting information from them. He has a spirit guide named "Sam" who helps facilitate such communications. Which got me thinking, I need a spirit guide. So, I pulled out the candles and the incense and sat quietly in the dark waiting for my spirit guide to contact me. Oddly enough, it turns out that my spirit guide is local celebrity and blogger Rex L. Camino. Shouldn't my spirit guide be dead? Shouldn't you get your own gimmicks and stop ripping me off? I'm not ripping you off. It's an homage. Don't use those fancy words on me, Frenchie. How did you know about my stint in Grease? I'm Rex L. Camino, Spirit Guide. I know all. Great, then, put it on me. And here's what he told me:

• Fritz, from TV on the Fritz, though he'll deny it, secretly longs to make his living as a George Jones impersonator. The only thing preventing this is Fritz's disturbing "yabba dabba doo, the king is dead and so are you." It's George Jones, Fritzy, not Eminem.
• The reason Kleinheider won't appear in public is that he has two heads. An even lesser-known fact? One of these heads is Al Sharpton.
• Sarcastro is actually an elaborate parody of a "divorced white male in his late thirties. Just like every other asshole with a weblog." perpetrated by two obnoxious Nashville feminists. He doesn't actually exist. The man in the photos and at the public appearances is really the infamous leftist, Church Secretary.
• The Super Genius chews tobacco, but only on national holidays.
• I have my grandpa's tooth and a raccoon penis bone in a bag by my bed.

Sadly, after these pronouncements, it appears that Camino's wife demanded he stop talking to himself or at least talk to himself in another room where she didn't have to hear it and I lost contact with him.

Still, I'm sure that these must all be true.

Why would my spirit guide lie?

If You Go Outside Now, You Can Feel Okay About Spending the Afternoon Drinking Beer

It's so beautiful out. Mrs. Wigglebottom and I walked over to Centennial Park, looking to see if any old men were using the free wifi in the park. They were not. But we did see a number of exciting things. 1. There is this enormous black dog who lives up on the hill by the park. Have any of y'all seen this dog? I swear, it could step over the fence if it wanted. It looks like a terrier in the face and has those kind of ears, but it's a giant. If you've seen it, Mrs. Wigglebottom and I welcome speculation about what kinds of dogs went into its makeup. 2. A tiny girl came around a bush and snuck a picture of Mrs. Wigglebottom peeing. This is the first paparazzi I've noticed stalking Mrs. Wigglebottom, but I doubt it will be the last. She asked us one probing question--"Is she eating goose poop?" And yes, it turns out that she was. 3. Mrs. Wigglebottom was complimented twice for being "a good looking dog." 4. We saw two bassett hounds pulling a lady behind them. Think about that, if you're familiar with bassett hounds, and revel in the funny. 5. Mrs. Wigglebottom sat at every crosswalk and I only had to push on her butt twice. Ha, I love that she sometimes gives the impression that she's well-trained. After we cuted everyone at the park half to death, we walked back up the hill, across the scary bridge, and home.

Pieces Fall into Place

Andrew Sullivan has a post today (er, I guess yesterday) about how we're apparently kidnapping innocent people in Iraq in order to leverage them against their spouses or relatives. ABCNews has the larger story here. Think with me back to the Abu Ghraib mess. Not the photos we all saw and the things we all heard, but the rumors of worse being kept from us. Seymour Hersch talked about it in this interview:

SEYMOUR HERSH: I don't know what it stands for, but out of Virginia. They just got a huge new contract. These are people who do hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business. They provide interpreters, among other things; that's part of their business. The private companies were all over Abu Ghraib, and they had local -- one of the people, one of the men from the private companies was -- did have forcible sex with -- there's women in the prisons, which is also a big contentious problem for the Iraqi population. The women are held in a separate unit, but they have children; and one of the children and one of the women was raped by a boy. There are photographs. There is testimony -- AMY GOODMAN: Was raped by -- SEYMOUR HERSH: One of the guards, rather. And witnessed by Americans taking photographs. There is testimony that has not been made public about this. I know that there's been statements made in various military proceedings. And the government's been very chary about writing -- putting out any information. People witnessed it. They had cameras, and I believe they were video cameras. They could have been still cameras. There were cameras photographing it, and the boy was screaming. But I don't have a videotape of it. I haven't seen a videotape of it. I know that such testimony has been given.

Now, there are some allegations that Hersch changed his story, that he claimed to have seen the video tape of the boy's rape and that now he's claiming he only heard about it. But I wondered at the time why there were even kids in the prison. Were we, as a matter of course, kidnapping and detaining innocent family members of people we want to intimidate? According to the Red Cross and people in the Army, yes.

The Red Cross also delineated eyewitness testimony of the abuse of these children. Provance, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib, told the media that interrogating officers had gotten their hands on a 15-or-16-year-old girl. Military Police apparently only stopped the interrogation when the girl was half-undressed. A separate incident described a 16-year-old boy being soaked with water, driven through the cold, smeared with mud, and then presented before his weeping father, who was also a prisoner.

We couldn't get this kid's dad to talk until we threatened his kid (I know some of you might argue that being soaked in water and driven around all muddy is no worse than some kind of college prank. I would argue that the point of the exercise was to show the kid's dad that we had no moral hesitation about using his kid to force him to talk. It wasn't what we did to the kid so much as that we did anything at all to him.). So, I guess the difference between what we knew after Abu Ghraib and what we know now is that now we have official military documents showing that this was a wide-spread practice and not just the word of witnesses.

"It's very hard, obviously, from some of these documents to determine what, if anything, actually happened," says the Pentagon spokesman.

Gee, yes, if we just keep looking at each individual bit of information as having no relevance to other bits of information, it is hard to determine "what, if anything, actually happened." But if you step back and look at everything together, the picture becomes pretty damn clear. We kidnap and lock up children, putting them in situations where they might be raped by sadistic guards, as a way to intimidate their families. If we're going to do terrible things, let's at least be honest about the terrible things we're doing.

It's Only Drinking Alone if You Don't Count Keith Olbermann

So, I say to the Butcher "Let's go do something exciting." He says "Like what?" I say, "I don't know. You're the one who always has the car. What do you do when you're not here?" He says "Sit around at my friends' house." I say "What are you doing tonight?" He says "Sitting around at Heather's house." I say "I wish I had an exciting life like yours." He says "You do. You just bought your ticket to Puerto Rico. That's exciting. Your life only seems boring because it's you living it." He walks out. And drives off in my car.

Whew, the recalcitrant brother and the Wayward Boy Scout are Safe

It turns out that the FBI and the DeKalb County Division of Homeland Security have been working overtime to keep the folks in Georgia safe from the imminent terrorist threat of vegans*. Christ. Wasn't Dan Savage agitating for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing us a right to privacy? Can't we get on that shit for real? Hmm. You know, now that I think about it, if the vegans were peaceably assembling, they already have an amendment that's supposed to keep the government from interfering. Well, fuck me. Strange and scary times, folks. Strange and scary times. *It's easy enough to mock the ACLU, but someone needs to start throwing lawsuits around about this shit and I'm glad they're doing it.

The Lunch Blues

I had to go out for lunch because, when I opened my carefully self-packed lunch, it had in it only baby carrots and a Diet Dr Pepper. Since I'm not a coke-fueled country music star, this was, of course, not all I planned on eating. The other half of my lunch is, presumably, on the floor of my car. I remember the good old days when I could just go out to my car and retrieve anything I'd left there. Those were some glorious times.

Mrs. Wigglebottom, Menace to Society

No, I'm not going to run out and buy a gun. Yes, I will continue to be ill-at-ease about guns. But, god damn if Say Uncle doesn't remind me of the importance of... well, fuck me, boys, I don't even know what you call yourselves... guns-rights-advocates (?) and the necessity of throwing props their way every once in a while. Why, you may ask, am I moved to cheer for guns-rights-advocates? Because when it comes to the silliness and offensiveness of trying to shame people into "proper" behavior, they get it. The "proper" behavior in question? Apparently, if you're a pitbull owner in Commerce City, Colorado, you should be harassed and intimidated into giving up your dog. Yes, dog owners who are complying with a stupid ordinance are still being singled out by the local paper and their addresses published because Kathy McIntyre, an editor that paper, believes she knows best for the community. Anyway, one doesn't have to be a great genius to see the offensiveness of this. So, let's follow the link that SayUncle gives and take a look at the ordinance that deals with pitbulls in the first place. If you've been reading me for a while, you know my immediate "What the Fuck?" to this ordinance. If you haven't, here's the specific problem (I have a far greater general problem with breed-specific legislation and don't even get me started on how racist it is). It doesn't define what a pit bull is. How in the world are you supposed to know if the dog you have is one of the forbidden dogs? As I said in February*: **** Much of the confusion about what is a pitbull and what isn't comes down to this: the word "pitbull" is used to describe a specific breed of dog, a type of dog, and a dog that has a certain, inhumane, job. The specific breed of dog is the American Pit Bull Terrier, which is not recognized by the AKC (though it was at one point), but is recognized by other kennel clubs. The American Pit Bull Terrier is very closely related to the American Staffordshire Terrier, but there are differences. I'm no expert, but to my eye, the American Pit Bull Terrier often has a lankier appearance and the look of the dog varies a lot more than the look of the AmStaff in terms of acceptable weights and sizes. The type of dog is any bull dog that lacks the affable charm of the English Bulldog, including the ones recognized by the AKC--the AmStaff, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, the Bull Terrier, and sometimes the Bull Mastiff--and ones that aren't, like the American Bulldog and the American Pit Bull Terrier. All of these dogs come under the umbrella term "pitbull," though they vary greatly in size and appearance. That's why both the dog in the Target commercials and the Our Gang shorts are called pitbulls, even though they don't look a thing alike. Then there's the dog that has the terrible job I've seen a few of these dogs and, to me, they look very different than Mrs. Wigglebottom (though this site suggests I'm imagining the differences). In fact, I've had a number of people familiar with fighting dogs who insist that Mrs. Wigglebottom must be part boxer because she's much too big to be a pitbull. In general, my experience is that fighting dogs are smaller than she is. Their faces more resemble the Staffordshire Terrier than her. They often don't have ears at all. Also, if you look at them face on, their necks seem situated lower on their chests than Mrs. Wigglebottom, and their chests aren't as deep. This gives them the appearance of having longer legs in proportion to their bodies. But fighting dogs aren't a breed of dog the way the AKC thinks of it. If someone wanted a fighting dog that was a little bigger, he'd find an AmStaff and breed it into his dogs for size. If he found a really vicious Lab (if there is such a dog), he's use that as breeding stock. The dog fighter isn't as interested in "breed standards" as he is in dogs that can win. He's actually a lot like those folks on Animal Planet, in that, he knows a fighting dog when he sees it. ***** So any kind of breed specific legislation that isn't actually specific about which breed you can own or not own is not only a gross-overstepping of government into the private lives of citizens, but also incredibly stupid. *Is it pompous-jackass-y to link to one's self? Probably. Well, what can you do?

How Do You Know if You Suck?

You may be sitting there wondering if this post is addressed to you. My god, I am. And I do wonder if I suck. How can I tell, Aunt B.? Would you like me to link to you? Oh boy! Would I ever! Are you going to have the courage to tell me that you're out there and need linking to? Oh, well, no. No, I don't have that kind of courage. Then, my friend, I'm afraid you suck. But I will find you and link to you, eventually. Mark my words. And, because I'm a lazy son-of-a-bitch, I will never unlink you, so that even when you take a little "hiatus" and move and change your name and your job and even the gender of one of your children so that you're so lost even your mom can't find you and months go by until finally you figure it's safe to resurface, BAM there I am, already linked to you... Jon. Anyway, here're the folks already on the listen for getting linked to in the next big update. If your name is here, you may suck; you may not. You just can't use this little test to figure it out. Plimco Newscoma Mephistophocles Jag Nashville Knucklehead Tabula Rasa Anyone else who needs to be on the list can either out themselves in the comments or email me.

Not So Funny Now, Is It?

Poor John Spragens is trying to have an intelligent conversation about Joel Stein's piece in the LA Times on Tuesday over at Pith in the Wind. It quickly devolved into the usual "I can read liberals' minds", "I'd read conservatives' minds but they don't have any" bullshit that happens when you don't keep the well-being of the community in mind (But shout-out to my buddy Jon for being the funniest motherfucker ever). Which is too bad because it's actually a thought-provoking piece. Stein is clearly trying to be funny, to make some kind of humorous commentary on all the "support the troops" bullshit. And the people you'd expect to be outraged are properly outraged. But I haven't seen anyone ask the question I'm about to ask, which is, is this funny? I think I have a pretty broad sense of humor. I love "South Park" and am probably the only person who snickers at "Drawn Together" and I laughed all the way through The Devil's Rejects. So, I'm not immune to outrageous humor. But I didn't find this funny at all. I can't decide if it's not funny because the whole situation is too raw or if it's just not funny because it's not well-written. But I think it's not funny because it's too trite. The whole problem most liberals have with this war is that the world is a complex place and that this administration is and has been waging this war as if "close enough" is the same as certainty. And so to see someone who opposes the war in Iraq casting blame for the war so casually, as if holding whoever he can accountable--in this case the troops--is the same as actually holding the administration accountable, reeks of hypocrisy to me.

Troubling Revelations about Elvis Costello

[Let me just say up-front that this post deals tangentially with Sarcastro. I know some of you--Sarcastro especially--live for my posts about him, so here we go.] First, you must know that I have a high tolerance for convivial bullshit. I like good-natured teasing and stories told with a hint of "maybe it didn't happen quite like this." And probably anyone who knows me knows that there's always an air of good-hearted dissimulation. In other words, if it doesn't really matter and it's easy enough to fake my way through it, I'm faking my way through it. Second, Sarcastro and I have a friendship based on mutual admiration and the belief that we're smarter than the other. I mean, Sarcastro thinks he's just a tiny bit smarter than me and I think I'm just a tiny bit smarter than him, and on such pompousness and charity, our friendship is built. Third, Sarcastro is obtuse. I can't think of any specific examples of his obtuseness, but, in many ways, hanging out with Sarcastro is like boating on the Mississippi above Alton. You're going along just fine down the middle of what you think is a deep and wide river, when all of a sudden, you've run aground. It's one of the most startling things about him, because, he's 95% of the time so astute that you just take for granted that the other times he must clearly get what's going on. And, you know, I'm not perfect. Since I was kept in a hermetically sealed tube for most of my life, lacking basic necessities like cable and access to a big city and good radio stations, there's a lot of pop culture shit that I just don't know--books I haven't read, movies I haven't seen, music I haven't heard. So, the other day, Sarcastro lends me Elvis Costello and the Imposters - Club Date - Live in Memphis, because he's got this idea for a book that came to him while he was watching the extras on this DVD. And he sells it like this "Listen, I have this great idea for a book. Elvis Costello writes about Delta blues places..." and I'm totally like "Well, hmm, that sounds like a good idea but..." totally trying play it off like "Does Elvis Costello even want to write a book?" But really, I'm thinking, Elvis Costello? Isn't he the dude in the hat? Yes, that was the extent of my Elvis Costello knowledge--he's some dude in a hat. But I take the DVD anyway, because I'm not about to admit to Sarcastro that I wouldn't know Elvis Costello if he were sitting across the table from me. It turns out he's British. And that he sings some songs that sound vaguely familiar. And he's good, so that was a nice treat. But from watching the extras, it turns out that dude's in his fifties. How do I totally miss out on a long musical career like that? Are there other things I'm missing out on and don't know it? The whole incident troubles me.

Little Bits of This and That

1. I started a post about ten things about the Butcher that crack me up. I could only come up with eight, though. Once you get past the fire breathing and the wire men he leaves all over the house as tiny sight gags, there's not much more to say. He's just a funny guy. You can't really break it out into individual pieces. 2. I believe I'm the only person who can set off her fire alarm merely by boiling water. 3. Our favorite Boy Scout is putting a new floor in his living room. Because I have the maturity of a 14 year old, it's all I can do to keep from sending him an email that says "Heh, you said 'hard wood.'" 4. Huck is fixing for a fight, for those of you who are also looking to do battle. Right now he's busy baiting libertarians. 5. Every so often, Flea does these mailbags, and I read them faithfully, hoping that one of her readers will ask if she has any instructional videos about how to shoot ping pong balls out of her cooter and if that's even a good idea to try. No one has, as of yet, which means I'm going to have to break down and do it. Unless she reads this. So, everyone, you must click on the link, causing her to check her stats and wonder what's going on over here. She'll come look, see my question, and answer it. And that way, I won't have to figure out how to word the email.

Mad With Power!

Grandefille thinks I should be Queen of the World. I can't say that I disagree. My first official act would be to get a horse-drawn carriage and ride slowly past construction workers hooting and hollering at them. Okay, my first official act would be to buy some beer to drink while I was riding around in my horse-drawn carriage, but then it'd be a day of riding around town harassing construction workers and drinking beer. Then I would require Trace Atkins and David Banner to call me up and say "Well, now B., darling*, I ain't wearing nothing but my boxer drawers." Then I would demand that my political enemies trim Mrs. Wigglebottom's toenails. Except for George Bush. I have plans for George. Then I would endow a chair at a cushy university and install the Professor as Supreme Professor for Life of All Departments and Larry Summers would be her footstool. Then I would go to bed, at 9:30, as usual. And anyone who laughed or mocked me for turning in early would be stuck in my dungeon**. Anyway, it's not just the Queen of the World nomination that's got me giddy. Somehow, Tiny Cat Pants has been nominated for a Koufax Award for Blog Most Deserving of Wider Recognition. I suspect Kleinheider may have something to do with this. If so, he gets out of dog-toenail-trimming. Lindsey from Theology & Geometry seems to be the only other Tennessee blog and one of her readers already made the Koufax joke I wanted to make. J.R., I don't know who you are, but when I'm Queen of the World, you'll be required to wait some set amount of time to see if I want to make your funny first. Still, it's very cool to see Tiny Cat Pants in the same category as Theology & Geometry (which is full of well-thought-out good stuff) and I Blame the Patriarchy (which is full of patriarchy blaming good stuff and the song "[You've Got the] Second-Biggest Dick [I've Ever Seen]". Citizens of Earth, if you don't love patriarchy-blaming and good mock rock, I don't even know why you bother.). I Blame the Patriarchy should totally win, but I'm tickled to be nominated. I won't forget this honor, Koufax Awards, when I'm Queen of the World. [Edited to add: Of course Fritz finds the other Tennessee blogs. When I am Queen, Fritz will be my liaison to the media. In what fashion he might choose to liaise with Anderson Cooper is not my business.] *If men only knew the power of a well-spoken "darling," all hopes for undermining the patriarchy would rest solely with our lesbian sisters. It's very hard to undermine anything except yourself when you're giggling and blushing. As your Queen, I'll require there be one woman with me at all times who can say "Darling" so sweet and sexy that it causes me to blush to mitigate the power of the patriarchy. **People with fancy endowed chairs would do well to remember this.

Pandering Democrats Can Suck My Butt

Okay, y'all (and by "y'all" I mean the Democratic party leadership), right now you need to decide that you're going to support gay rights. Not as some after-thought, not as some bone you throw the base to keep them in line, but as a deep and heartfelt conviction. Why? Because Republicans can change their minds*. Mark Seda can stand in front of his colleagues and his community and say:

Like many other people around the world, I've been learning a great deal recently about the issue of Domestic Partner rights that has placed Ocean County front and center on the world's stage through the incredibly courageous story of Ocean County's own hometown hero, Lt. Laurel Hester of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

From what I can see, I'm only one of millions who's been touched in a very big way by Lt. Hester's story. If it weren't for Lt Hester's heart-wrenching story, I would probably not have paid much attention to this issue. Her dignity and the incredible bravery she's displayed at the end of her life in wanting to change the world has inspired me to realize that as an elected official I should be standing by her side.

I've been approached by a lot of people in Jackson and elsewhere about this issue. I was very pleased to learn that the overwhelming majority of them agree with me that this is an important civil rights issue; an issue that as Americans we all have to address. To me, it seems like it's nothing other than a very simple matter of fundamental fairness and Equal Rights for All Americans. If it weren't for Lt Hester's heart-wrenching story, I would probably not have paid much attention to this issue. But now I have, and I'm alarmed to learn of the loop holes New Jersey law dealing with Domestic Partnership Rights. I've found there are a lot of gaps in existing state laws that have been created in recent years and quite frankly in my estimation need to be closed.

And the committee then UNANIMOUSLY votes to extend domestic partnership benefits to the township's employees. Do you see what I'm saying? The change is coming. In some segments of the population (especially among young people) it's already here. Most people in America do not give a shit that people are gay and they support extending legal protections to gay couples. Here's a Republican talking about gay people and civil rights and HOW GAY PEOPLE NEED THOSE CIVIL RIGHTS. Democrats, if I could blast a siren right now to get your attention, I would. Because here's what's happening, right now, in the country you seem determined to continue to grow irrelevant in, Republicans are coming around. Folks like Seda realize that people they care about and admire are gay and want to act in a caring and loving manner towards them. That's trouble enough for you. But now Republicans who want to do right by gays aren't ashamed to say so. Not only that, they're meeting no resistance. If you can't scare gays into staying in the party for fear of being forced back in the closet, you'd damn well better start caring about them more than the Republicans do. You're pandering to a middle that doesn't exist. Stop it. *If this link does not make you cry, you have no soul.

A Guide to Illinois

Illinoisans have two pastimes--building towns right next to each other, even though there's plenty of room to spread out* and experiencing odd things. We'll get to the odd things in a second, but let's dwell on the twin cities phenomenon. Now, anyone who's ever looked at a road atlas can easily discern that the farther east you go in the Midwest, the more accommodating and easy to get along with people are. Ohio? Who doesn't get along with people from Ohio? Indiana? Yes, it's disconcerting that their Amish people drive trucks** and that everyone knows either Axl Rose or John Mellencamp or both, but, over all, okay place. Then you have Illinois, where we get a little grouchier--downstate*** hates Chicago, Chicago hates downstate; everyone who didn't go to the University of Illinois hates the University of Illinois and the University of Illinois hates them; coal miners hate the farmers; people of northern Italian descent egg the houses of people of southern Italian descent; people whose families came over from Germany 250 years ago still refuse to speak English; and so on, but as long as everyone stays in their designated area, there's very little overt hostility. Then there's Iowa, where it seems nice and peaceful, but only because there's no one in the state who's still talking to each other. So, the twin town thing in Illinois is peculiar, but I suspect it's born out of our inherent grouchy tolerance. You can almost imagine how it happened in, say, Bloomington/Normal. The settlers were like "We need a name that will let people know that this is a happening place. Things are busting out--this is a booming town. No, that implies industry. We don't want industry. Let's call it a blooming town. Yes, that's it. Bloomington." "Industry? You jackasses don't want any industry? What kind of freaks don't want any jobs in their town? Fine. You do things your way. We'll be here on our side of this creek in 'Normal people's town.' You can call it Normal for short." And the towns, separated more by ideology than inches, soon grow intertwined until you can't tell where one town starts and the other stops. But, if you're going to basically tolerate the people you don't like who live near you--thus ruling out a great deal of ethnic and religious violence****--you end up with not a whole lot to do. Which is, I suppose, how some lucky towns end up with some strange thing, like the Watseka Wonder or the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. Or they end up implementing really strange community improvement ideas. Take for instance, Aledo, Illinois (home of Suzy Bogguss). Even though the town has, maybe, 3,000 people in it, they decided to rename all of the streets to make it easier for folks to find their way around town. Only two streets were left with actual street names--College Avenue and Main Street. All the other streets were given numbers--with streets being east-west roads and avenues being north-south roads. You're still not seeing the lunacy, I know, but bear with me. Each street or avenue was numbered, starting with 2nd, from either College or Main. So, there was a North 2nd Street and a South 2nd Street and a West 2nd Avenue and an East 2nd Avenue. Which means that, in a town small enough you can walk across it and still meet friends for lunch up at the Garden Family Restaurant, you can stand at the corner of 2nd and 2nd at four different places in town. Really, you almost must see it to believe it. *See Urbana/Champaign, Bloomington/Normal, LaSalle/Peru, Rock Island/Davenport/Moline/East Moline/Bettendorf/Milan (better known as the Quad Cities. Yes, everyone knows there are six cities. Don't be petulant.), etc. **It's a little known fact that most traffic accidents in rural Indiana are caused by Illinois drivers going "What the fuck? Is that an Amish dude driving that truck behind me?" and turning around to take a look and ending up in a culvert. ***"Downstate" constituting anything south of I-80 or west of Aurora, thus leading to the peculiarness of Galena somehow being downstate of Chicago. ****Though it'd surely be something to watch the Lutherans and the Methodists take on those young upstart Assemblies of God.

Did I Ever Tell Y'all About the Tarantula?

Eddie. That was his name. Though, considering how large he was and how long he lived, I venture that Eddie was not a he but a she. No matter. Eddie belonged to one of the most delicious looking farm boys you ever saw. Those of you from the Midwest probably already have a mental image, kind of tall, kind of lanky, hair the color of dry corn, green John Deere hat sitting on the top of his head like he'd just lifted the bill to wipe some sweat and not bothered to set it back down. Brown Carhartt coat, gun rack in the back window of his pickup truck. He was a freshman at the U of I. And poor Eddie was being subjected, frequently, to freshman boys filling his tank full of pot smoke. Not to mention that the U of I will let you stick your hand in a cow's stomach* long enough to figure out how to wiggle in such a way to cause said cow to fart on the Man from GM as he walks by but it won't let you keep a tarantula in your dorm room. I already had a snake, so I guess it seemed logical that I could also then take the tarantula. Which was fine, because except for the rare occasions when he would pull out all his butt hair and then crack open his butt skin and wiggle out of his exoskeleton, thus leaving a perfectly hollow shell of a spider you had to fish out of the tank** and the few times when you might actually catch him eating a cricket, he didn't do much. Well, not much that we saw. For one day, Eddie chewed his way through the nylon screen at the top of the tank and escaped. On the one hand, this sucked as the cute farm boy no longer had any reason to come over. On the other hand, once word of the escape got out, no church busybodies came over either. We all presumed that Eddie died. After all, the house was a crappy dangerous place. My mom repeatedly fell through the porch and above the TV dangled some weird mold stalactites. And tarantulas aren't native to Illinois. How long could he last? A year, America, a whole year. When my parents moved from the house, while I was away in college, they found Eddie under the entertainment center in the living room, fat, happy, and alive. Mom swears that she thinks he was living under there eating mice. It could be. Sadly, after all that freedom, he never readjusted to life in the tank, and shortly died, probably of boredom. *via a hole they had cut in the side of the cow and kept open with some kind of plastic plug. **It occurs to me that this may explain why the tiny cat pulls her butt hair out. Perhaps she's trying to molt.

My Neighbor

My neighbor is one of those guys who seems constantly hunched over. When he's out mowing the grass or driving in his boxy van or walking around, he's stooped a little, like the world and he had a fight and the world won and won't let him forget it. I'm almost certain he's got a little girl. The dirty naked Barbies with small blades of grass placed precisely in their knotty hair started being left at the base of the high tension wires like little perfect sacrifices around the same time he moved in. I could be wrong. Maybe it's him, leaving plastic women to the elements. His dog is broken, too. A small mutty shepherd whose back leg supports his weight as awkwardly as if it were made of wood. But the dog barks happy to see us when we walk by, and runs the length of the fence, and doesn't seem to mind his funky limp at all, so we don't mind it either. Mrs. Wigglebottom has long ago decided that he poses no threat. She doesn't even bother to acknowledge him any more. Every morning, as we walk along the backside of the interstate, he climbs in his boxy gray van with the trailer behind it, and pulls up next to us. He never stops and the slowdown is so slight as to almost be imperceptible, just enough to cause you to look over your shoulder and see a bright white hand thrown up in a friendly wave and a nod as he pulls away. He and I are the two most predictable morning routines. After us is the old gray-bearded man who's riding his bike up the hill. Less often than that is the man who sits at his window and knocks as we walk by. If we don't wave, he'll come out to shout at us "How are you doing? I, for one, am not dead yet." And somewhat regularly is the young kid on his bike, going someplace in a white shirt and nice slacks, always happy to see us. Sometimes, it's obvious that he forgets how quiet the neighborhood is and he'll shout "Good morning" as he passes us, even though we're making only quiet shuffly noises and he's making only the the sounds of shifting bike chain and he's only two feet from us. His voice is always so loud that it's clear that it startles both of us. And he'll start to laugh at himself and I'll start to laugh and the dog will look up at me curiously, as if she can't believe I didn't see that coming.

Andrew Sullivan: Genius or Idiot?

[I believe the last time I used this title, it was for a post called "Eminem: Genius or Idiot?" Someone could do an interesting comparison between Sullivan and Mathers, but it won't be me.] Sullivan writes an awesome piece for The Times* about Clinton's bid for the presidency. Here's the part that blows my mind:

Besides, there is a perfect position for her in American public life -- and it's not in the Senate, despite her eminently respectable record there. She belongs on the Supreme Court. She's a lawyer who wants to change the world. That's almost a job description for a liberal justice.

Good idea or bad? Obviously, I disagree with Sully's ideas about what constitutes a "respectable" record, but what of this Supreme Court nonsense? I have to say, it's kind of intriguing. *London, not NY, so no registration necessary.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today is my dad's birthday. He has one of the most awesome birthdays, being born on 01/23/45. Damn the newly responsible recalcitrant brother, though. I wanted to be the first one to call with birthday wishes, but the recalcitrant brother beat me to it. He was, however, beaten by the littlest nephew, who called my dad yesterday and announced that he was driving up to visit. Oh, how I wish this were just one of those cute pronouncements four year olds make, but knowing my sister-in-law, I would not be surprised if she handed him a map and the keys and told him to go for it.

But I'm Always Blogging for Choice!

I wasn't going to blog for choice with all the other good feminists, because I write about abortion all the time and if you don't know where I stand by now you're just not paying attention. But then the Super Genius was all like "It is still time for anyone that is concerned to stand up and speak out, or to sit down and write." And so here I go. I've written a lot about how reproductive rights are essential to women's right in general. One only has to look at how the abortion debate has grown into a debate about a woman's right to have access to birth control of all sorts to see that this is really about who gets the final say over what happens to a woman's body. And once we accept that the government can make broad laws about what medical treatment we receive, we're accepting that we're not as fully citizens as men are. You men might not care that the government is constantly intruding on the treatments my doctor deems necessary for me, but I'd think at least some of you would recognize the scary problem of the government deciding what medical treatments someone can receive based upon the morality of said treatment for what it is. But I think I'd rather talk about the fact that supporting the criminalization of abortion is cowardly. This is a nuanced claim, so listen up. I'm not knocking people who are personally anti-abortion. I'm not suggesting that being personally anti-abortion is cowardly. I'm saying that, if you think abortion should be against the law, you are, in fact, a coward. Which is fine. I'm afraid of crossing bridges and I hate heights and open escalators. But at least I'm honest with myself that when someone's like "Let's go rock climbing" and I say "no" that I'm refusing to face something that frightens me. And what, you might ask, frightens those that want to see abortions criminalized? Life. I'll wait here a second for those of you who are laughing incredulously to catch your breath. Ready? Okay, here we go. Life is messy and scary and often doesn't turn out like we want. The baby we so desperately hoped for has some condition that makes its survival outside the womb impossible. Or we are pregnant with triplets and the doctor says that it will be nearly impossible for us to carry them to term and that we should consider selectively reducing the pregnancy to give one baby a real chance. Or we're told that having the baby might kill us. Or we're raped. Or we can't afford another child. Or we're leaving our husband or he's leaving us. Or we're thirteen. Or we think we'd be shitty moms. Or the condom broke and his wife is our sister. Or we've already had four abortions. Or we hate kids. Or we're on drugs. Few women make the decision to have an abortion lightly. We weigh a bunch of complicated factors and make the best decision we can under the circumstances. Most women who have abortions feel it was the best choice for them taking everything into consideration. Some come to regret it. Most don't. But they're complex decisions that get to the core of what it means to be human and a good person. Do you try to bring another life into the world or not? And it's not just some philosophical discussion that academics and politicians make and then decree from on-high what the right answer is. This is where it counts, when it counts, a woman, her doctor, and hopefully her family trying to do the right thing when the right thing isn't so clear. And isn't that what the folks who want to criminalize abortion are afraid of? That the right thing isn't clear, that there's not just one right and obvious answer that fits every situation. Rather than face that, they just want to make all abortions illegal and return certainty and moral order to the universe, or something, I guess. What's especially scary to me is that criminalizing abortion seems premised on the idea that there will be some point in the unwanted pregnancy when the fetus will magically turn the woman into a "Mother"--someone who puts her child's needs above her own, and who either finds it in her to make a proper home for the kid or finds it in her to put the kid up for adoption. Anyone who's known actual women knows that this is not the case. Women who want kids can be shitty mothers. Women who don't sometimes find themselves really taking to it once it happens. But you can't predict. You can't say for certain. Again, we're just shitty, imperfect people who never have enough information to make perfect decisions but who have to make decisions anyway. No, there's no way to say whether that fetus might have grown up to find a cure for cancer. There's no way to know whether it might have been a serial killer either. You can't know if that women would make a good mother or that woman a poor one. You can make all the moral objections you want to abortion, that's your business. Stand in front of your church, in front of the clinics, write long letters to the editor, whatever. If you want to try to influence women to make other choices than abortion--if you're fine with sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong--that's your business. But making abortions illegal says to me that you don't trust women to make the right decisions for themselves. If that is the case, I just have one question for you: If women can't be trusted to do what's right, why are you trusting them with the babies?

It's Just That I Wanted to See Blood

One of the Professor's lovers had a party, the theme of which seemed to be "Let's get most of the Professor's lovers together in one house." Some snuggled on the couch, some gathered in the kitchen, some stood on the porch pouting. Very few of them were interested in me or my fabulous bra or my boob freckle. Fine, Nashville. I didn't want to talk to you anyway. I wanted to drink cheap beer, walk down some dark back alley, knock twice on on a dimly lit door, and enter some big room where a small audience milled about waiting for... Something. I don't know what. Hardcore wrestling where ordinary men drop each other through barbed wire onto broken glass, maybe, or burlesque dancers with intricate tattoos shaking their hips to old Dixieland jazz, or an exotic pet auction or a drunken nun fight or something. I want to be distracted from my ordinary life by some kind of spectacle. But I don't know where you find that.

Slightly annoyed; slightly drunk

Nashville, if my boob freckle can't persuade you to make small talk with me, I just don't know what can.

"But you know, deep down, I'm kinda tempted to go and see my Bessie again"

I've been trying for an hour to come up with something coherent to say. I've got nothing. The Professor and I went to the park. Mrs. Wigglebottom behaved like she'd never been outside before in her whole damn life. That was annoying. ***** After I dropped the Professor off, I heard "Up on Cripple Creek" by The Band on the radio. I have a soft spot in my heart for that song, and "Rainy Day Woman" by Waylon Jennings. They're cheating songs, but they're not your normal cheating songs. No one's lying there with Linda on his mind. No one's acting like some kind of martyr for love because the hardest thing he's ever had to do is holding her and loving you. No one's standing at your door because he's left the one he left you for. They're love songs without demands. I just like that. ***** The Professor and I were talking about men on our walk and then at lunch. And we were talking about some dumbasses we know who seem incapable of articulating, even to themselves, what they want. And as we were talking about all the ill-at-ease men, I realized that this is exactly what's so disconcerting about the Wayward Boy Scout. Here's a man who comes across as utterly at ease. Hmm. No, maybe not at ease, but open to being pleasantly surprised. No, he's definitely open to being pleasantly surprised. I stand by that. But I also think he is really at ease--maybe not with the world; I don't know that a man running around armed could be called at ease with the world--but he comes across as being at ease with himself. At one point we were sitting in a bar and I was saying something witty and obnoxious and feminist and he said "I'm sorry. I didn't hear what you were saying. I was busy staring at your tits." Now, this is not the kind of thing most men could say and live. But I also doubt most men would have been so blatantly staring at my tits, either*.I think it was the mix of unapologetic and appreciative that utterly disarmed me**. ***** But talking to the Professor about this made me wonder if men have any idea that this is how women think about them. Do y'all know how much we like you and how dear you are to us? Do you have any clues about all the ways we're fond of you or do you think our reactions to you are all reducible to anger and resentment?*** So, I think I'm going to spend more time thinking carefully about and writing about the men I know. I think it might be useful, not just to me, but to y'all. ***** I had this weird dream last night that the Butcher came home with a baby and said that some Katie or Kathy girl had given birth to his baby and now he had to raise it. And in his arms was a baby chimp wearing a pink dress. As I was trying to figure out how he could have a chimp as a baby, he handed her to me and she grabbed my cheeks and shook my face and I went "blurb blurb blurb" and she was really strong for a baby. She had a really firm grip. I guess because she was a monkey. *Though, really, if you want to, boys and girls, who can blame you? Stare away. Write poems about them. Conquer lands in honor of them. They totally deserve it. **That and the fact that he was obviously also listening, not just staring. ***I said this to y'all once upon a time ago, that it cracks me up that feminists are considered the man-haters when anyone who's ever stood in a kitchen washing dishes with a group of women who think feminist means "man-hating man-wannabe" will hear some feelings about men so vile it'd make you more than glad to be out in the front room watching the game. You think feminists are the ones who hate men, you're just not overhearing enough kitchen talk.

Okay, I'll Admit It

I don't like Hillary Clinton and I think that, if she runs for President, that will be the end of the Democratic party as we know it. All they'll be left with is this so-called center Clinton is constantly pandering to, which doesn't even exist. The far left and the anti-war crowd and the gays and the pro-choicers and, in all fairness, the he-man woman-haters, when slammed with a Clinton presidential bid, will all blow off like the bits of proto-earth that settled into a rocky ring around our planet. And then we'll all have the pleasure of waiting around to see if they coalesce into a new moon, er political party. Whew. Actually, I'm not quite smart enough to sustain a prolonged metaphor about politics and pre-lunar planets, but I hope you can appreciate that I tried. But here's my problem with Clinton. She's smart enough to be President. She's got the gritty determination. But I feel like her every move is calculated to grab power, and thus she panders. Now, all politicians want to grab power. I'm not faulting her for that. I'm faulting her for coming across like a person whose every movement is opinion-polled and focus-grouped to death. You want power? Act like you have opinions of your own, even some that Republicans might find unpopular. I mean, isn't that what's funny? Republicans, in general, don't like her. She could come out tomorrow with fourteen assault rifles strapped to her body, quoting Jesus, and blocking the door to abortion clinics while kicking any gays who want to get married who happen to stroll by and right wingers would still be like "Bitch is crazy." So why the fuck is she trying to make herself palatable to them? Molly Ivins kicks some ass about this in her latest column.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

And then she makes her best point in such a beautiful way, I bow down before her:

In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means.

Preach on, Sister Ivins. The fact that the Democratic leadership appears to be willfully oblivious to the dissention in the ranks is alarming. Every liberal blogger, every liberal columnist, every liberal I know is fixing for a fight. But we're all supposed to either accept Kos's "moderate voice of reason"* or... or what? Some conservatives, like Ole Sully, will use shitty polls to draw strange conclusions** about us and call us "unhinged and ineffective"? Well, Jesus H. Christ, they already do. Ivins is right. Where are the brave Democrats? The thoughtful and plain-spoken who can lead the party? Who are the folks who are going to stand up and say "This isn't right?" I'm not seeing them, especially not in the likes of Clinton. *No one has said that specifically about him. I'm just using the quotes to indicate that that seems to be the stereotype. ** I don't hang out at Kos's site because I don't like to be daily reminded how the Democratic party sees my personal autonomy as some kind of fringe issue that can be discarded whenever convenient. But there was a poll, apparently, in which 41% of the respondents said they hated Bush more than Bin Laden. From that, Sully concludes that this is some "indicator of how unhinged and ineffective the far left has become." For those of you who don't understand the problem, let me explain. Say that Kos has 10,000 readers a day. There's a poll with this kind of stupid question on it. Say then that 9,900 of his readers, of all types of liberal persuasions, look at the question and are like "My god, that's asinine" and don't participate. So, 100 do and 41 of them hate Bush more than Bin Laden. That doesn't tell us anything about the attitudes of the other 9,900 readers, some of whom may be much farther left than the 41. Polls that require people to feel passionately enough about the question to respond are going to attract only the people who feel passionately enough to respond. It doesn't tell you anything about the attitudes of the majority of leftists. And, what kind of poll is that anyway? Can't a person hate Bush passionately and still wish Bin Laden's head had been mounted on a pole in the crater of the World Trade Center within weeks of September 11, where it would be left to rot and be torn at by stray dogs?

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

And why isn't your cell phone working? Heh, I kind of wonder what he'll do when he gets home and I'm not there. Will he think to call or will he just figure I'm off some place? And who will let the dog out?

Regrets, I Have So Few

I realize now that, not only am I not much of a rebel, I don't even have a long list of bad things to regret.

• I once made a guy get out of my car in the middle of nowhere and acted like I was going to drive off without him, which is pretty bad, but in my defense, the week before he said he'd teach me how to drive stick if I gave him a handjob and I still can't work a manual transmission, so fuck him. I let him back in the car eventually.
• I told the Man from GM that one of our mutual acquaintances was so bad in bed that he'd turned the other girl he was seeing--when he claimed to be seeing only me--gay, because I knew the Man from GM would go back and blab it all over his small home town and that his friends would tease him about it. She actually didn't come out of the closet until she'd worked her way through a couple of other guys I knew, but why let a minor detail like that stop me?
• I didn't speak to my college roommate for six years because she fucked a guy I liked and didn't have the guts to tell me.
• Oh, and I got this darling sparkly-stubbled man arrested. Apparently just because I think it's a good idea to drag race down Center Street from Illinois State to Illinois Wesleyan doesn't mean the Normal cops agree.
• And the Shill once had to yell at me "Pull your pants up and get in the car" when I was drunkenly showing one of her friends--and inadvertently everyone who was looking out the patio door--how much I was enjoying getting to know him.
• Okay, Miss J. and I did whip out the Bible and start reading all the passages about the ills of drinking while our other roommate (who is extremely religious) threw up in her trash can.
• And I tried to put a curse on our old landlord.
• And I accidentally had an affair with an amateur professional wrestler. But I don't think that counts, because I broke it off with him as soon as I discovered he was married.
• And I'm lying to the Butcher about our household expenses--not by much, I swear--so that I can have a little money to go out with.
• And I haven't told my parents I'm not Christian. I let them think I don't go to church as some kind of noble protest against the ways the Methodist church has done my dad wrong.

But that's it. So, you can see that my dreams of being a bad-ass are pretty far-fetched.

Salon.com, I'll be yours for $50,000 a year

I'm reading this article over at Marketwatch about what an awesome job Rebecca Traister has at Salon.com. And it must be true, because I'm pretty sure I saw her on one of those VH1 "Let us interpret popular culture" shows. Anyone who's anyone gets on those shows. Shoot, I saw Zakk Wylde* on one of those the other day. So, it's fair to say that Rebecca Traister has some cultural cache. Doing what? Her beat is, according to the article, "gender politics." Oddly enough, as the article explains, she writes about women. This is perplexing. Do only women have gender? Last night W. sent me a joke via email** that goes like this: "I read recently that women still make 30% less than men in the workplace. Which I think is fine, cause if we didn't make 30% more, you guys would marry each other." I thought this was funny, but I also sent him back a list of all the reasons straight men don't have to worry about straight women rushing into each other's arms. I think they were some darn good reasons--mostly having to do with the joys of scruffy faces, how your smell lingers, and how much fun (even when frustrating) your inscrutable natures are. But the two things got me thinking. There are lots of genders, at least three sexes, why does Traister get the whole "gender politics" beat. She is but one women. Salon.com, lighten her work-load. Give me the men. I'll start with Zakk Wylde and work my way from there. *Okay, I'm going to just go ahead and admit that in my fantasy life, where I'm a daring, well-armed, intricately-tattooed bad-ass who makes her own moonshine and regularly sits on her porch watching half-naked men fight each other for the privilege of fucking her, Zakk Wylde is so my man. **Y'all may always send me jokes via email. And naked pictures of yourselves. Not that either of these things often happen. I've gotten one joke--from W--and one naked picture--from the Wayward Boy Scout. But I continue to hold out hope.

Old Man Blues

Here's something amusing. In 1966, my parents hadn't even met yet. My dad wasn't even preaching. Forty years ago, they were still kids. But it's not fair to think of it, forty years, I mean, as being so long ago. Really, I'm sure, for a mother the time must seem to go by very quickly. How she still remembers changing diapers or sending her boy off to school and how, when you're young, you think that thirty is ancient. Surely, you will never be thirty and your own son will never be forty. Real life catches up, though. The constant turn of the planet and soon enough, we're all older than we ever suspected we'd be. Thank god for that, I say. I'd rather be old and rowdy and breathing. The other option is so much worse.

Walking in on Your Folks

The Butcher and I were reminiscing about the times we've walked in on our parents having sex, which has got to be one of those formative, mortifying moments of any teenager's life. The Butcher's was traumatic, I'll admit. He'd gotten home in the middle of the night and went upstairs to tell my folks he was home and when he opened the bedroom door to address them, there they were, spotlit by a reading light my mom had clipped to the headboard. But I don't think that's as bad as mine, which happened one Christmas when we were up at my grandparents'. Now, sleeping at my grandparents' house was traumatic enough because my grandpa would regularly fall asleep while shitting*. And so, if you waited until you really had to go before getting up to go pee, you'd go sprinting down the hall, spring into the bathroom, and be greeted by a mountain of a man wearing only a thin v-neck t-shirt with his underpants around his ankles, snoring with his head resting on his chest. Every time, it'd scare me so bad, because I wasn't expecting it and I'd have to stifle a scream, because I sure as hell didn't want to wake him up. So, getting up in the middle of the night is already fraught with peril and then you get to be a certain age and nature takes its course. But as nature does, it takes its course in fits and unpredictable starts. So, there I am, having cleared the first hurdle, in actually getting in the bathroom and finding it empty, only to discover that, to my mortification, I really needed a pad, right that second, for perhaps, only the third or fourth week of my life. Now, gentlemen, if you're still reading, I know you can't really imagine what this is like, but let's say, it takes some time to get used to, and for the first little bit (okay, ten years) you're convinced that it would be awesome if there were some female-only village filled with large tubs of constantly circulating warm water that you could sit in and get filled full of Pamprin and chocolate while older women told you uplifting stories for the whole week while you navigate emotions somewhere between mildly grossed out and supremely annoyed. But instead, you're supposed to remain a part of the real world. And so I had to go into the bedroom where my parents were supposed to be sleeping and retrieve the needed item. I knocked lightly. No one said anything. I opened the door. And there they were--knowing each other in the biblical sense. Already on edge from the stress of the possibility of having to confront an angry old sleep-shitting German and then discovering that I was menstruating, I couldn't help but scream. Which, of course, brought everyone else in the house running into the room before my parents even had a chance to figure out what was going on. So, it's hard to say who was more traumatized, me or my parents. *Yes, perhaps we should have suspected earlier than we did that he had a brain tumor. As I recall, it was only after he started being nice to my dad that folks figured out that something was wrong.

My First Brush with Law-Breaking

I emailed JR today, which was the first time in ages I'd talked to her. Since I was out there in the Fall, she's gotten a promotion and she and Elias are looking at buying a house. I was thinking how, when we were little, we used to lock ourselves in the bathroom and make these concoctions of whatever we could find under the sink--baby powder, perfume, nail polish, nail polish remover, crushed blush and eye shadow--and stir them up into these big thick, stinky goopy messes. I can't for the life of me remember why we did that. I don't think we ever did anything with the goop, though it would have been awesome if we'd thrown it at our brothers. JR's mom was all the time letting us do cool stuff (and I mean cool in a nerdy sense) like cut each other's hair. Mine is curly, so really, you can't ruin it. Whatever wrong you do, the curls will cover. But JR has this thick long straight hair and you start hacking away at that... yeah, it's going to show. The best, though, was when I was thirteen or fourteen and JR and her brother were over and her mom came to pick them up. She was standing in the kitchen talking to my parents and I asked her if I could drive her car around the block. She handed me the keys. So, we all--me, JR, her brother, and my two brothers--piled in the car and drove it around the block. When we got back, my dad was like "Where have you guys been?" I said, "We took the car around the block." And all the adults were like "Sure, whatever." Yes, folks, that's how nerdy I was. They didn't believe I would misbehave. They refused to believe I'd actually taken the car. I'm almost embarrassed to tell you that.

The Sully Love is Spreading

Something has changed. I don't know what it is. I used to read Andrew Sullivan as fuel for my "god, conservatives are so stupid and unreasonable" fire. Hence the "Ugh, Andrew Sullivan" there on the right--a little admission that I read him but am embarrassed to be caught doing it. But, then Lindsey points out, "Andrew Sullivan was on The Colbert Report tonight and I thought he was utterly charming and cordial and downright jolly about things." And she's right. He is utterly charming*. Is this new? And today, Sully's** all hopeful about a vibrant American culture. Kids, I can dig that--celebrating a vibrant American culture. He's talking about a change in our cultural sense of humor: "The writers and actors trusted the audience to be in on the joke, and to realize that the fun they were poking was sharp but not designed to wound." First the cat and the dog get along. Now I'm agreeing with Andrew Sullivan. Will wonders never cease? Anyway, I like the shit out of this idea of "sharp but not designed to wound" and I'm going to mull it over. *Lindsey, did Fritz ever give you an answer to your question? I've been going back and forth between this and this and I just don't know enough about gay male culture to say yes or no. **Can I call him Sully? I want to. Can one have pet names for men she's never met? He can call me something sweet and diminutive if he wants. I won't mind.

The Raw Food Debate

In yet another installment of "I Read Salon.com So You Don't Have To" (also known as "Yes, I'm all out of creative ideas for today") we turn to the wacky world of folks who feed their pets raw food. The basic argument is that the ancestors of dogs and cats in the wild eat/ate raw food, so it must be better for household pets to eat raw food. It's an interesting article, but there's one unaddressed flaw in this premise. My dog eats poop. Every chance she gets--goose poop, deer poop, poop of indeterminate origins, whatever--it all goes in her mouth if she thinks I'm not looking. In other words, when left to her own devices, she's not just chasing after squirrels, she's munching on whatever disgusting things she can scavenge. By the logic of these folks, since my dog would naturally eat poop, I should feed her a diet rich in poop. And yet, I see things like "broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, red chard, parsley, garlic, ginger, kelp, alfalfa, zucchini or squash" on these dogs' menus, but no poop. You're going to tell me there's some large band of wild dogs (or wolves) running around harvesting kelp for themselves in the wild? That more dogs would rather eat parsley than poop? I'm just not convinced. Many of you oppose socialism because it eventually gives people no motivation to work, since there is no reward. But seriously, when you read about folks feeding their pets three to five hundred dollars worth of food a month, don't you, just for a second, entertain the idea of taking their spare cash away from them?

The Orange Cat

I remember when we got the orange cat, he was so tiny that he could barely walk. If he wanted to get any place quickly, he kind of hopped sideways with his little tail sticking straight out behind him like a constant exclamation point. It was up to the Butcher to teach the orange cat such important tasks as stair climbing and wrestling. I'm proud to say that he's an expert at both. When Mrs. Wigglebottom came to live with us, she had a lot of experience with cats, having lived with Simon, my brother's cat that my parents got stuck with. Mrs. Wigglebottom loves Simon and she used to chase him around the house and he'd then chase her back. As long as Mrs. Wigglebottom has been with us, the cats have been, at best, indifferent to her. At worst, they've done her like she's Carrie at the prom. But like the sweet dope that she is, she keeps trying to befriend them. Well, things had been tense here, since the black and white cat moved in at the very end of the dead end. He's a bully. In fact, he's such a bully that the tiny cat won't go outside any more. But the orange cat has taken to fighting him and, usually, losing. But the weekend before last? He finally kicked that cat's butt. This resulted in him sitting around on the garbage cans bragging to everyone who would listen. And tonight, there was another altercation and I opened the door and asked the orange cat if he wanted to come in. He declined, at first. But after Mrs. Wigglebottom barked at him, he sprinted through my legs. And then, I swear, he spent a good ten minutes letting Mrs. Wigglebottom sniff him all over and wag her tail at him and he strutted around her and rubbed up against her like "Yeah, I am such a motherfucking bad-ass." Now he's all stretched out in the chair asleep and even though he's not a big cat by normal standards, he's taking up that whole chair like he owns it. I swear, he's practically smirking in his sleep. If the tiny cat doesn't knock him down a peg or two soon, living with him is going to be unbearable.