Godammit, I’m Mad!

Unearthen is a company that makes jewelry out of empty bullets. Each crystal is chosen for its “distinct qualities” and the stone with “the right properties for your needs will inherently attract you.”

This could be why these necklaces don’t attract me: I don’t need to have a bullet, either around my neck or lodged in my skull.

The medium sized bullet necklace (9mm, .38 SPECIAL, .40 S+W, .44 CALIBER, and .45 AUTO) will cost you around $400.

When I first saw these necklaces on some shopping website, I was not impressed. The whole idea seemed kind of pseudo-avant garde and lame, like wearing a silver razor blade or coke spoon on a chain.

Now, I feel more strongly.

A few nights ago, a Loved One was dropping me off at my house, early in the evening. I opened my door and walked inside. I was startled by the sound of shouting in the street. Outside, a figure I could barely make out in the darkness was screaming at my Loved One’s car, “Ima fuck you up, motherfucker!” The voice sounded unhinged with rage.

My Loved One was making a U-turn in the street, evidently impeding the speed of the gangsta and his female companion. I heard the girl screaming something plaintive, like “Stop it, stop it!”, trying to talk the guy down.

I instinctively ran down my steps, and yelled “No no no! What’s the matter?!” hoping to placate the gangsta. As my LO’s car sped away, the guy took a step toward me and screamed, “Homie didn’t get out of my fucking way! Why don’t you shut the fuck up, you stupid fucking bitch!”

I turned and ran inside and locked my door. I heard an engine start up, and the girl’s hysterical laughter.

I called my LO, who was glad the cracked-out guy hadn’t followed his car. He told me that the girl was actually yelling “Put it away, put it away!”, not Stop it.

My mind keeps wanting to go back and complete the scene with an alternate ending, an ending where one of us gets shot by a crazy gangsta for no reason at all.

I don’t want to see any guns, ever. And I don’t want to see bullets or death being glamorized. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with people who oppose better gun control. But they better not make any U-turns.

According to this report, Urban Outfitters pulled this t-shirt from its shelves and online store, less than a week after it first arrived. A buyer for the company cited ‘too much bad press’ as the reason for pulling the shirt.

The CEO of Urban Outfitter, Richard Hayne, is a right-wing Republican who supports senators who vote for legislation against gay marriage.  A British business website wrote about this guy in May: “Hayne must be the only retailer whose expansion plans depend on no one finding out who he really is.”

Uh-oh. Now what?

If one were to boycott every company that behaved badly, well, one would be screwed. But it seems especially repellent of Urban Outfitters to cultivate a cool, hipster-ish image for its targeted market, when in fact it’s run be a right-wing homophobe.

I don’t like it. Should we write to Urban Outfitters, expressing our dismay about this? Or should we keep buying their crap because it’s cheap and trendy? My answer is: DUH!

On a happier note, here is a t-shirt my kid designed, to promote autism awareness. Hammie isn’t crazy about the puzzle piece logo, so maybe we’ll get rid of them.

Finally, the crazy lady posted more crazy-ass shit about me, including this:

Свинья всегда лужу найдёт

Can you believe it?!  Sure, I’m a cunt and everything, but not Свинья всегда лужу найдёт, right?

Unexpectedly, the discussion of Triggergate has started up again, and who am I to ignore it? God bless Andrew Sullivan and others who just won’t let it go. Why should they, particularly when new photos are discovered, raising the same questions about Mrs. Palin’s strange secret pregnancy.

Also too, this journalist has compiled some pertinent information, including a link to a video interview where Mrs. P is supposed to be in the final month of her pregnancy and says, in the SAME SENTENCE, that she was able to hide the pregnancy because of her “tight abs” AND ALSO TOO that she wasn’t trying to hide it at all. It is classic Mrs. P, gibberish and lies in the same breath.

Again also too, I have questions about the photo above, showing Mrs. P at her baby shower, just 4 weeks after Trig’s birth.  May I ask, who wears a short skirt in the first month post-partum? Is it Mrs. P’s need to always call attention to her legs? Or is it……you know, the other reason.

Since it isn’t nice to focus only on the negative, and god knows I like to be nice, Mrs. P may be trying to redeem herself with her constituents in Alaska by unveiling a plan to invest an extra $5 million to support children’s health, including a proposed increase in a program for low-income children and pregnant women.

“Interestingly, last year Palin opposed an increase in the program despite the fact that the state had a large surplus because of high oil prices.”

I strongly suggest watching the video of her announcement of this initiative here, because the difference between having a billion dollars worth of make-up artists and stylists is strikingly evident. Mrs P looks like shit, in other words, and who wouldn’t with four kids and a diet of moose, in a horrible freezing climate and a private sunbed to bake one’s face?

The Botox has worn off, and also too the Restylane.

Speaking of ageism, my pesky Russian nemesis has said this about me in a comment thread at another blog:

“No, what’s sad is a 55yo bulimic woman with no profession, no wit, no smarts, no morals but burdened with delusions of grandeur (what passes for grandeur in her tiny brain). Who calls herself [alternatively] a commie, a lesbian, a negress (even put it in email address), or a Devil – while in reality she’s just a grimacing macaque. A yapping chihuahua.

shooo! ”

Why oh why the chihuahua?! I just can’t see it. Why not a Sheltie or Labrador?!

In any case, please refrain from going to her “Salon”, as the increase in traffic makes her gloat. Nyet on the gloating, since the goal is to spoil her fun, if not something a little more, ahem, diabolical.

You know that crap you see on MSN that’s there to distract you with mundane and/or bizarre trivia….like “Lose Weight While Eating” or “Ten Ways to See if He’s a Mass Murderer?” Obviously, I’m much too savvy to click on that shit.

But today I noticed “I Stalked My Boyfriend’s Ex” and thought, Big deal, who hasn’t?

When I met my husband, his Ex was living with a man she would later marry, but the divorce wasn’t final yet. Everything I heard about her was horrifying. On one of our first dates, he even showed me her ‘head-shots,’ because she was an Actress. I was shaken by the big actressy smile and the long blond bob.

When he went out of town, the Ex always took care of his cat.  I suggested that it was time to let me take care of the cat, and after a lot of soul-searching (i.e., bitter arguing) he decided that the Ex and I would share the job.

I was furious but terrified of bumping into her. Instead, because it was nearly Easter, I left her a chocolate Easter bunny. I was trying to demonstrate how nice I was. She responded by leaving me a potted plant, with a little note that I still have somewhere. She dotted the i in her name with a little star.

I consulted a friend who gave me good advice: You can’t beat someone at their own game. This is advice I’ve passed on several times, that’s how good it is. She warned me that the Ex was known for her friendliness; if I kept trying to outdo her, I’d end up giving her the deed to my house and STILL she’d think of something to up the ante.

I gave up the niceness and went straight to pure seething hatred. She would not stay in line, even though she was about to marry someone else. On the eve of her marriage, she left a whimsical poem for my husband, just to keep her hand in, so to speak.

Time passed and I got pregnant. The Ex got pregnant too! She was like a horrible toothy spectre that wouldn’t stop haunting me with her legendary Friendliness and Kookiness. I had come to learn that she loved giving parties, wearing hats, and dressing up like a clown in her own TV show on the public access channel.

Finally, the Ex and I had our babies. My husband was invited to a wedding where the Ex would be in attendance. I geared up for it by dying my hair even blacker and wearing a tiny pleated Catholic schoolgirl skirt.  Our first encounter was dreadful, even though I knew it was funny. She took my husband’s coat like she was still the wife and put it on a chair. I could barely look at her. She smiled in a way that showed her back molars. Her voice was loud and animated, like someone who has a show on the public access channel.

Our babies started crying and the Ex and I had to both get our boobs out to breastfeed. We began to talk shop. I tried to feel normal, as though we were two normal women with new babies. She remarked that her boobs lactated differently. I told her that, yeah, that happens. She leaned toward me and said dramatically “I call [my boobs] Comfy and Squirty.” I was speechless. All I could think to say was “Uh, I call mine Right and Left.”

God, I was obsessed with that Ex. For years, I would call her phone number on holidays just to hear her themed outgoing messages. On Saint Patrick’s day, she used an Irish accent.

All these years later, I can still get steamed when I think about her. She was the anti-me, and that was a big part of her mystique for me. Over time, I’ve come to feel more secure about being an angry inhibited brunette. I think I’m the best in my league, I guess. A loud vivacious blond can still irritate me, but that’s about it.

If you’ve never been pathologically jealous, you’ll have no idea of how awful it feels. But also too, you will never know the insurmountable pleasure of having a friend make a prank-call on your rival, and getting her to believe she’s just been offered a leading role in the sequel to the Wizard of Oz, called Beyond the Rainbow.

Today I stopped at a Starbucks on my way home from an exciting outing to a box store. I checked out the two girls in front of me, who were decked out in a weird combination of work-out attire and leather. They were both tall and somewhat lesbitious looking.

One of them addressed the barista as though speaking to a member of a lower caste. “We want the coffee that gives money to AIDS,” she explained. “We want to make sure we get that kind, okay? That’s why we came here.”

(Now, I’ve seen the new Starbucks commercial, announcing that 5 cents from each coffee will go to the Aids fund.)

The guy looked baffled but game. “Uh, okay,” he said. “I’m not sure what kind that is.” He conferred with another guy and took the girls’ orders. They spoke loudly, like the Martian family on Saturday Night Live pretending to be from Paris.

“How do we know that the money is going to the charity?” demanded the more lesbitious of the two. The guy fumbled his way through an answer, obviously unaware of how the Starbucks ‘Red’ enterprise was supposed to work.

Watching this interaction, I was absolutely flabbergasted. I wanted to scream, “I’ll give five dollars to AIDS if you’ll just shut the fuck up and let me get my coffee, you fucking morons! You’re talking about ten cents!”

After politely ordering a normal cup of coffee, I wandered outside, filled with rage and wonder. Are there really people walking around, expecting the Nobel prize for giving ten cents to charity? This is why I’m better off staying at home and sending the husband to go to the box store.

I’ve just read about the Starbucks Red deal at the Starbucks website, where I learned that:

“In honor of the 20th World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, Starbucks will contribute five cents from every hand-crafted beverage sold that day at participating stores in the U.S. and Canada to increase awareness of AIDS in Africa.”

Hand-crafted beverage?! God. Just yesterday, I realized how much I hate the word “artisan,” thanks to hearing it attached to things like bread. Now I’m ready to hate “hand-crafted” too.