Godammit, I’m Mad!

My friend Romeo persuaded me to attend a cat show on Sunday, and it far exceeded my expectations in every way. The cats were disgusting, and the cat fanciers were totally weird.

If you’re anything like me, and I know you are, you like to explore subcultures. It’s fun being a cultural tourist as long as you don’t get too close to the natives.

I don’t have a camera but I used my cellphone to capture the intriguing hairdos of the cat enthusiasts.

This girl sat next to me as the guy in the top photo assessed some gigantic oversized cats, including two that belonged to her and resembled young grizzly bears.

This shelf-configuration was better in person. Her friend is clearly jealous.

This hairdo was so intricate and the two-tone thing was really eye-catching. This is a true cat lady. I like to think that she bought some of the cat-themed jewelry that dangled from every other merchandise booth.

Ta da! I saved the best for last. What the fuck! I was blown away by this lady. She was like a show within a show. Look at that hair! I got as close as I could, but I couldn’t tell for sure what was going on in that hairnet. She might have actually had a cat in there, or even Daphne Guinness!  Let’s look at her one more time:

Last night, my husband expressed his disappreciation of the acting on True Blood. I agree that the acting is terrible. But I suggested to him that it might be worthwhile to see Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer having sex, given their hotness.

My husband claimed to have no interest at all in a sex tape with Bill and Sookie. Upon reflection, I wondered if I wanted to see any celebrities having sex. If you’ve seen the Pam and Tommy opus, you know exactly what I mean, right? It’s just tragic and disgusting.

Are there any celebrities whose sex tapes would appeal to you? Angie and Brad, maybe? Or is it all just awful?

Sea has been so busy scouring the earth for new finery that I can barely keep up with her. Just briefly, she was lucky enough to find a long skirt with a leopard  “climbing up it” as well as a weird yellow and black clown suit. She wore the clown suit with black lipstick in an obvious attempt to frighten me. However, after my run-in with the good folks of Dallas and the Aldridge Gang themselves, nothing seems scary anymore.

Sea reveled in her childlike art projects and showed us some icky caterpillars. She shared her make-up secrets and posted a ton of old family snapshots so that we might worship her more fully. Perhaps she will post her dental records and old school report cards!

Mom had a date while the girls were out of town, and it proved to be an effective diversion from all the tweeting. Mom’s sister took  a well-earned break from sending me rude comments about my age, which continues to spiral upward toward infinity.

Sea doesn’t like to post comments and god knows, comments can be a little…..nutty. But since she wants us to admire and adore her, we must respond to those efforts out of the goodness of our hearts. I will begin:

Dear Sea, I think you look really cute in the hooker outfit and you might want to pursue this age-appropriate look more often. If you and your gang of rabid followers had a sense of humor, life would be so much better! Can’t you guys snag one on ebay or something? Oh well, keep up the shopping and posing. I’m sure you’re a really good person deep down where the camera can’t reach. Love, Sister Wolf.

“Stupidity is the devil. Look in the eye of a chicken and you’ll know. It’s the most horrifying, cannibalistic, and nightmarish creature in this world.”  ~Werner Herzog

Many years ago, I was sitting in my car, waiting to make a right turn. A disheveled man on a bicycle came toward me, and I could see in the distance that he was yelling. As he rode past my car, I saw that he was literally foaming at the mouth. “I hate niggers!” he screamed, spitting some foam.

I have never forgotten this incident. The image is embedded in my brain. It’s hard to describe how it made me feel. It shook me to the core. It was an encounter with fierce, virulent stupidity. It was like staring into the eye of a murderous chicken.

Yesterday, I was confronted again by that chicken, and it was horrifying. I thought we all agreed on basic laws of human decency. How could I forget that frothing bigot?

I don’t believe in censorship but I am against “hate speech.” I love a rousing debate or an exchange of ideas, but I’m not a martyr. I don’t mind insults, even nasty ones, but I’m not here to soak up the free-floating rage of the mentally unhinged. Who would ever think that mocking a spoiled rich kid would invoke an avalanche of crazed taunts about my worthlessness as a human being?

This reign of terror was launched on facebook by a self-avowed friend of the Aldridge women. This friend can’t stop firing off comments along the lines of  “You have sand in your cunt LOL LOL, come shop at my store any time!” Today, she’s still at it. Karen Aldridge has been firing off her own brand of histrionic garbage.

I admit that these women scare me. I haven’t been exposed to this level of vindictiveness or indecency.  It reminds me of prison stories where the inmates are reduced to throwing their own feces to express themselves. It’s not okay. I would like the good citizens of Texas to get back to whatever they were doing, and to let the Aldridge women fight their own war of words with me.

I did say that Jane’s face is fat. However, it does not rate as an attack worthy of the ones I received last night, to the tune of: “I sucked your son’s cock in hell!” and “I’m glad your kid died.”

Stupidity is a funny thing. At one level, it can be amusing. Max loved to watch Sean Hannity on Fox News during the last presidential election. He chuckled each time Hannity pretended to be making a point. Personally, I love the New York Housewives for good basic stupidity.

But the stupidity of these pro-Aldridge people is another matter. It is the devil. And I’m not letting the devil have his say here. I will publish any and all comments that respect my right not to be taunted about my private parts or the loss of my precious child.

That shouldn’t be too hard, right, chickens? For those people complaining that it used to be more fun here, I can only say, No shit, Sherlock.  But we’ll still have fun again. I will, anyway.

Ahem. Let the meeting come to order!

First of all, in response to all the nice people who are concerned about my age, my shriveled anus, and so on, I would like to make it clear that I will be fifty seven this month and I fucking rule. See me arm wrestling above, at a family gathering a couple of weeks ago.

Face it! I just rule. It’s not my fault that I didn’t over-pluck my eyebrows, I didn’t like staying out in the sun, I didn’t fuck up my hair and I was just lucky that way. This rampant ageism among the nice people who have recently come aboard is very sad. They are terrified of aging but that’s not my fault either. In any case, that particular weapon is useless here. Thanks anyway!

Second: An excitable woman in Texas has taken it upon herself to rally her Good Ol Gals on facebook to come here and cause mischief. The woman is a pal of Sea and Mom.  Here is her best comment thus far:

Now we know more than we wanted to know about Sea’s appraisal of me. She is welcome to perseverate on female genitalia, as she does on her “other” blog. Just not mine.

As it turns out, poor Mom is also preoccupied with me as evidenced by a histrionic screed that she left as a comment, using a proxy server.  Her comment was particular shocking, coming from a mother, but obviously our ideas of morality are very different. At least she got Sea to delete this “thought:”

Grief, shoes, it’s all the same to some people. Scary but true.

~

Now, here is my thinking. I have been committed to a blog that is free of censorship. But this orchestrated attempt to waste my time is annoying my real readers. So, how about one of these strategies:

1. When some lunatic leaves a comment that slanders me ( in the true sense of slander) we shall respond to them with the word “WHORE!”  For example,  “Dumbbell” writes “LOL sister wolf, your an old old old anus with no sole” the response from faithful readers shall be “WHORE!”

or

2. I will just allow the first two lines of every slanderous comment and delete the rest. That way, “Judy under a fake name” can write: “sister wolf you make me sick, bile vitriol, venom, old old old empty lonely bad mother crazy as a loon and even reading my freaking ebay curations and you make me so sick and you hate on and your just so old and  why don’t you get a life you horrible old thing and bab bad mother who doesnt know how to grieve like we do in Texas you old old older-than-me narcissist narcissist bla bla bla bla” but it will be shortened to “sister wolf you make me sick, bile vitriol, venom, old old old empty”

Well, these are my ideas for now.

Remember how rad you felt when you found out that Gnarlitude’s Old Man was learning to be a taxidermist? Well, how stoked are you to see this picture of him working on these dead coyotes! No wonder she’s so proud. This is both totally rad and totally sick.

In other rad Gnarlitude news, she was completely stoked when her Old Man got her this green monkey fur coat from her very good pals at Ksubi.

How sick is this?!?

If only coyotes were green….that would be so fucking rad!

Of all the style bloggers who’ve been brought to my attention recently, this one disturbes me the most.

I don’t want to link to her or hurt her feelings. I just want her to eat!

How can one become so delusional that one’s starving body looks like a pin-up girl? This blogger likes to post several pictures of the same outfit, often posing saucily in front of various landmarks. She appears to be youngish, but her face is wrinkled from starvation and perhaps bulimia.

Just the other day, my sister and I were recalling our bouts of teenage anorexia. She can remember the exact moment that she decided to lose weight. We both remember how it was triggered by our dad, whose offhand comment about her weight was devastating to a sensitive 13 year old.

I can’t remember what triggered my anorexa, but it started when I was living in a place for juvenile delinquents. I got down to 96 pounds but still worried about calories. When I ate eggs, I threw away the yolk.

When you have anorexia, the image you see in the mirror can never be thin enough. Even your bones look too fat. All you care about is being thin and staying thin. You lose all capacity for being rational about your body.

A couple of years ago, I met a girl with anorexia who was also a drug addict. She reminded me a little of my younger self, and she was like a wounded bird that I longed to protect. She confessed to me that she cried after eating an apple. I tried to explain that her thinking was distorted.  She  died from huffing, thin as a twig.

A new study suggests that the propensity for anorexia begins in utero, due to hormone fluctuations. There is also a genetic component.  Therefore, it’s not just a reaction to cultural pressure and stereotypes. Maybe it’s an issue of seeking control when you  feel powerless: If you can control what you put in your mouth, you are in charge. That is the fallacy.

I hope someone can help the poor blogger. I hope someone can reach out to her, although who knows how many people may have tried and failed.

The good thing is that once you start to eat, your brain can work again. You begin to end the struggle with your body, and the spell can be broken, just by gaining a few vital pounds.

If you’ve battled with this shit, or you have an opinion, let’s hear it!

On a rare night out with my husband, we drove to an independent bookshop where a guy we like was reading an excerpt from his new book. I felt tentatively hopeful. I almost never go out in the evening.  I was pleased to be doing something arty for a change.

We sat in the front row of chairs, since there weren’t many set up in the aisle at the back of the store. An affable guy read from his book about encounters on the bus.  Then, the guy we came to see introduced himself and read a short chapter of a charming, offbeat memoir of his childhood in New York.

Another guy quickly replaced him and introduced himself. His name was Chris D. I should have been warned by that D.

He gazed at his shoes and began a rambling account of his various artistic endeavors:  He was involved in music for 20 years, he had written several unproduced screenplays, poems, and short stories. He noted that some of his stories were based on dreams. He introduced a story about a couple of  war veterans from Vietnam, describing their convoluted situation.

He began to read the worst piece of writing I have ever heard in my entire life. He read in a deep-voiced monotone. Some GI was shooting dope with a Vietnamese prostitute named “Lucky.” The dope-shooting was described in lurid, over-the-top detail.  Veins, blood, abscesses, verbs, more blood, adjectives, then sex. “They fell to the floor and fucked each others brains out.”

I stared at my hands and played with my hair. I wanted to kill that fucker. I imagined a question and answer period after the reading, where I would confront him with the question: “Are you a junkie or just a fucking idiot?”

He read for close to 30 minutes. No cliche escaped him: It was hackneyed melodrama, both dismal and pointless.

We left the second he stopped reading. Outside as we walked to the car, I exclaimed, “What a fucking motherfucker!” My husband agreed. He added that the guy had once been in a band called The Flesh Eaters.

Back home, I googled Chris D and saw how important he was to the L.A. punk scene.

Nothing is sacred, not even old punkers.

I am left with these two thoughts:

1. I am fucking Tolstoy compared to that bastard Chris D.
2. I can’t even enjoy a simple night out.

Neither do I!  But a whole lot of people are working hard at this very moment to perfect their gait and spruce up their saddles in preparation for some exciting “ponyplay.”

Why am I the last one to find out about stuff like this?? My husband showed me an article in the LA Weekly about a 50 year old woman who dresses up like a pony and makes a good living at it. She goes to crazy pony events where ponies and masters hope to hook up, and others where the ponies compete for awards.

Listen, I understand role-playing. Naughty schoolgirl, fine. Cantering around with a bit in my mouth and a tail in my butt, I’m just not feeling it.

Here are some hooves you can buy….”Nice look, clip-clop sound when used on the floor.”

What the fuck is wrong with people, you know? Life is so difficult and complicated and so easy to screw up, why try to live it as a fake pony?

Why can’t I feel bad for poor Lindsay?

I think it’s the duck lips. They just make me mad. Who asked her to get these lips? She messed up her face out of sheer greed! She had nice lips, but were they enough for her? No.

If a jail sentence prevents her from starring in a movie about poor Linda Lovelace, so be it. Maybe she can even get sober.