Z is for Zealotry

Well, here we are at the very end of this year’s A to Z Challenge. We made it, folks! Look at me, making commitments and seeing them through! What do you know! Maybe I’ll even keep blogging more often in the future, since it hasn’t killed me yet. I probably won’t do another A to Z Challenge though, since the God Squad had an aneurysm about my “use of language” and then re-categorized my blog as Adult Content when I insisted on being “contentious.” Of course I don’t need to now, because I’ve inspired a new blogging challenge, the ABCs of Swearing, hosted by The Insomniac’s Dream, and the last time I checked, there were 15 people besides me signed up!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I still have one more post before I can call this thing finished. It’s funny that all that stuff happened, because the kind of religious zealotry that wants to enforce its ideals on everyone whether they like it or not is the exact kind that I can’t freakin’ stand. I think this sort of thing bothers me more than it does most people, because I grew up in one of those families where “people who are going to hell and why” was a fairly common topic of conversation.

Shocking, I know.

It seems to me that zealotry – defined by Dictionary.com as “undue or excessive zeal; fanaticism” – is at the root of all the world’s problems, or if not, at least most of the world’s problems. I’m sure some of the world’s problems can be chalked up to natural disasters, intestinal parasites, medical malpractice, incurable diseases, curable diseases, and sheer stupidity. The rest of the world’s problems go back to some dude, or lady, being entirely too devoted to his or her own religion, race, culture, country, political party, book club, or what have you. No matter how great your thing is, it’s always possible to get too excited about it.

How do you know if you’re getting too excited about your thing? If one or more (especially more) of these statements describes you, you may be a dickpickle:

• In your free time, you like to hold a picket sign and scream at strangers.
• Neither work, nor sleep, nor meals, nor your dying mother is more important to you than having the last word when someone is wrong on the Internet.
• You think starting a war to solve one or more of society’s problems is a great idea.
• You’re secretly (or not so secretly) sure that some people are inherently better or more valuable than others.
• You are right, and anyone who doesn’t agree with you is wrong.
• Your religion is the one true religion, and everyone else is going to Hell, assuming you believe in that.
• You are constantly ready to drop everything and deliver a long-winded, enthusiastic speech about why the person you’re talking to is bad, wrong, inferior and going to hell.

I could go on, but I think you get my point. Now let’s all take a deep breath, and get ready for the ABCs of Swearing next month.

Woot!

Y is for Yelling

This one might strike some of you as a little incongruous, since I have been known to do a bit of yelling myself, especially when I’m in a drinking establishment and there is a band playing. I’m not one for being yelled at, however. Doing the yelling is one thing, I’m sure you understand. Being on the wrong end, as it were, of the yelling is not my cup of tea.

If I'm sounding extra British today it's because I was just reading some Terry Pratchett.
Image credit: Jan Hoffman

I’ve found myself getting yelled at often in my life, both in the recent and more distant past, and I’m getting really sick of it. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m avoiding a lot of people over this kind of crap. Granted, I don’t miss any of them, since mostly all they ever did was make my life miserable. As a matter of fact, it’s astonishing how much happier I am now that I’ve created a list of people who can kiss my ever-widening ass if they think they’re having anything further to do with me ever again.

I’ve been wondering what I can do about this sort of thing in the future, though. Actually kicking people’s asses isn’t an option, as I’m sure you can also understand. Experimentation has shown that yelling louder than them only works most of the time, and what’s more, it’s given me a reputation. I’ve thought about carrying a straw in my pocket and blowing a spit wad at anyone who yells at me from now on. Of course, they might try to kick my ass for that, but it’d be worth it if I could manage to shoot it right into their wide-open, screeching mouth. I’m sure I’d have at least a few seconds’ head start while they stood there wondering what the hell just happened. Besides, anyone who actually tries to kick my ass may find it more difficult than they might have expected.

Of course, I have a smart phone, so whenever someone yells at me I could just film it and post the video online. These are the kinds of things that get me yelled at so often, naturally.    

X is for Xenophobia

Xenophobia is the fear of foreigners, or that which is considered to be foreign, which is a serious problem in this country. For example, when some people find out that I lived in France, they offer me their condolences. Some of them might be joking; it’s kinda hard to tell because I have such a sh&tty sense of humor.

There is no reason to be afraid of foreigners, and I don’t understand it. I’ve met lots and they don’t bite...much. I can’t fathom why you’d be anything other than curious upon meeting someone from another country, or someone who’s been to another country. Then again, if you go around talking to people from other countries, you might find out they have things you don’t, like health care. Of course there are plenty of countries worse off than we are, because we bombed them. Funnily enough, you never seem to meet anyone from those countries.

As an American abroad, I’ve encountered plenty of people who don’t like me the minute they hear my accent. Maybe the fact that I sometimes slap people also has something to do with it. I don’t think that’s fair – not liking me because I’m American, I mean. You’re allowed to not like me if I’ve slapped you. In fact, I expect it. Nothing’s worse than slapping a dude and finding out he liked it. Unless that was your plan all along, of course.

But I digress.

I don’t go around not liking people just because they’re British, and believe me, I’ve considered it. So I don’t think it’s fair that people should go around not liking me just because I’m American. I know a lot of things, I’m funny, I make a mean roast chicken, I speak French, and I’m a perfectly nice person most of the time. I’m even told I’m great fun when I’m drunk.

Remember, kids, don’t be afraid of people who are different from you, because no one is really that different from you! It’s a learning experience! Learning is fun!

Hooray!

W is for West Virginia Jokes

It never fails – every time I reveal that I’m from West Virginia, some butt pirate has to make a joke about incest or tooth loss or broken-down cars, that is, if the assclown even realizes that West Virginia is its own state. It’s gotten to the point where I’m actually impressed if someone I meet knows that West Virginia is its own state. I’m telling you, nine out of ten people think I’m from Virginia, and eight of those people keep on thinking it even after I’ve corrected them multiple times. I guess they think I’m an inbred redneck, I couldn’t possibly know something as complicated as what state I’m from. By the way, if I haven’t been returning your calls lately, this is why.

West Virginia: Separate from Virginia since 1863!

The thing about West Virginia jokes is that everyone thinks they’re so clever and original when they tell me that my parents are obviously siblings or they feign surprise that I can read. Right, in all my life, I’ve never had anyone anywhere assume that I’m ignorant, inbred, easy to take advantage of or unfamiliar with flush toilets. Garsh, I thought I was supposed to warsh my feet in them! Well paint me red and call me embarrassed!

People have even gone so far as to ask me why I dropped out of college, because I couldn’t have graduated, cause ain’t no rednecks got no book larnin! I would not be surprised if someone offered to teach me how to tie my shoes, since this is clearly the first pair I’ve ever owned and I just bought them yesterday to fit in with the real people.

What makes it even worse – and yes, it gets worse – is when the twat waffles in question clearly don’t even know where West Virginia is. A salvage yard owner in Oregon once told me that my gas tank had rusted out because of the “salty coastal air” in West Virginia. I took my business somewhere else.

West Virginia: Landlocked since probably forever, I don't know, I'm not a geologist.

V is for Victim-Blaming

Another reader recently said that victim-blaming is “the most reprehensible thing that you can do to a person,” and I’m inclined to agree. Well duh, because I’m writing this post. If I catch you victim-blaming someone, I will kick your ass so hard you’ll be biting my toenails. I will also deliver a scathing but informative lecture about why you shouldn’t victim-blame while I am kicking your ass. It will be a painful teaching moment.

You see, the thing is, when someone rapes somebody, or abuses them, or whatever, there’s only one person you can blame for that, and it’s the person doing the raping or abusing. When somebody gets robbed, you don’t ask them what they were doing keeping a flatscreen TV in the house. If a woman’s husband beats her up, you don’t ask her what she did to provoke him. This isn’t the Middle Ages. If it were, she could probably get away with murdering the twat waffle.

When you blame the victim, it’s as though you’re putting that person through the experience all over again. This may surprise you, but plenty of abusers actually blame their victims for the abuse even as they’re inflicting it. What else are they gonna do, say “Hold still while I give you this beating that you in no way deserve, you likeable, talented, intelligent, beautiful woman?” Of course not. If they fail to make their victims think they’re worthy of abuse, then said victims aren’t gonna stick around and put up with it, are they? Contrary to what some right-wing politicians seem to think, no one likes to be abused.

If you like it, it's not abuse.

It’s hard enough for survivors of trauma to move on with their lives without everyone acting like it was somehow their fault, like they brought it on themselves through their actions or deserved it by putting themselves in that situation, or that they’re just some kind of defective person who attracts only demented psychopaths as if by pheromones. At least one person has told me that victims of abuse – especially victims of childhood abuse – are being punished for the misdeeds of previous incarnations, and so clearly deserve every second of the misery and pain they experience at the hands of their abusers, even if they seem innocent to us lowly mortals. So yeah, I’ve heard it all.

Where'd I put that brick?

U is for Untenable Unpleasantness

I couldn’t come up with a topic for U, so I googled “words that start with U” and wouldn’t you know it, I found two. I’m pretty sure there’s no one out there who hasn’t wanted to reach out and slap the stupid out of someone’s face just for being nasty.

I’m personally avoiding several people, some of whom are related to me, because their unpleasantness is just too much to be borne. When I was living with my aunts, one of them threw a laundry basket full of towels at me because I’d washed the towels, and I’d folded the towels, but, crucially, I hadn’t put the towels away. Later, when the aunts and I went to buy paint for my new house, and the paint boy at Lowe’s (who was kinda hot) was telling us that we should probably buy multiple paint pans, so as not to mix up the paints, she glared at him and said, in the snottiest voice you ever heard, “I know not to mix up the paints, I’m not stupid.” At some point later than that, I’m told (I wasn’t there), she threw a screaming temper tantrum in the middle of Mall-Wart because she went to put her purse back over her shoulder and got it caught on the bottom of her jacket.

It’s moments like these that you wished you lived in the Middle Ages, because you could probably get away with beating the crap out of someone who deserved it. You probably wouldn’t even have to do it secretly. Hell, in some areas you could straight up kill a dude if you were willing to pay off his family. Not that I’m advocating killing anyone, but some people could use a good slap.

In the teeth, with a brick.

T is for Teasing

If there’s one thing that really burns my ass for no good reason, it’s being teased about stuff. Everyone who knows me knows this, and they use this knowledge to psychologically torture me for their own amusement. By the way, everyone, if I haven’t been returning your calls lately, this is why.

I’m sure this sensitivity to being teased goes back to my school days. I was bullied for years, and this was back in the days when kids were expected to stand up for themselves. When I complained to my third grade teacher that one of the other kids had called me a name, she replied, “Smack him.” As the years passed, a lot of people got smacked, and I got punished for smacking a lot of people, but the larger problem went unresolved.

So, in addition to having anger management issues, I cannot stand to be teased. It’s been the end of more than one relationship, since I am, apparently, just so damn entertaining when I’m wound up. There is nothing on this Earth that can compel me to spend a single second with someone who picks on me for their own entertainment. I really don’t understand how picking on someone is supposed to be funny for anyone except the person doing the picking, and then only because that person is a twat waffle. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who don’t understand that when they tease me and I respond with some variation of “Go sit naked on a bucket of angry bees,” that I’m being serious. It’s not f&cking nice, people. Knock it off.

S is for Slut-Shaming

Slut-shaming has been getting a lot of press lately; as well it should, because it’s some f&cking bullsh&t. Here we are in the 21^st century, and everywhere you turn someone who should know better is giving some woman or girl, or sometimes even just women and girls generally, a hard time for having sex, liking sex, looking like they might have sex, expressing sexuality, or being someone that someone else wants to have sex with.

You might judge someone for having dated “too many” people – I think the general consensus now is that you’re allowed three relationships over the course of your entire life, and after that, your genitals wither up and fall off. If you’re a woman, you might judge other women for going out once in a while instead of staying home with their husbands every night for the rest of their lives. What do you mean some women don’t have husbands? Hush, liar.

So, let’s clear up the confusion right here and now:

Women are allowed to have sex. We are allowed to use birth control. Yes, even teenaged women are allowed to use birth control. It has medical uses, you know. It’s not all about the filthy dirty nasty horrible sex, although if it were, that would be none of your business.

Women are allowed to have sex with more than one person in their entire lives. We’re allowed to have a lot of boyfriends, too, if we want. Girlfriends, even. If you are dating a woman and you find out that she has had sex with “too many people” and you dump her for that, the problem is that you are an asshole, not that you were dating a slut. No one is a bad person because she slept with “too many people.” A woman is not her vagina. Nor does a woman’s vagina have any more bearing on her character than her foot does, unless she is using it to kick your ass. The foot, that is, not the vagina. I’d like to see a woman kick someone’s ass with her vagina. It’d probably be that Russian lady who lifts something like 30 pounds using only her vagina. Makes me wonder how much I can lift with my vagina, you know?

And on that note, I'll bid you good day.

Q is for Queer-Bashing

It seems like you don’t get as much queer-bashing these days as you did back in the 90s, but it probably just seems that way to me because I stay home most of the time and refrain from interacting with people who don’t support me and my beliefs. Don’t tell me I don’t have the right, because f&ck you, I have every right.

Staying home most of the time keeps me fairly sheltered from the world, which is probably just as well – if there were a pandemic, I’d be one of those people who didn’t even notice (unless my neighbors dropped dead on their lawns, I’d probably notice that eventually). Even I can’t help but notice that American society has become much more accepting of queer people, which is great. We still have a long way to go, of course, but fifteen years ago I never would have dreamed that we’d see the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. I’m so proud of us.

*sniff*

Sadly, I only have to turn to my hometown’s Topix forum to find a prime example of queer-bashing, in the form of this thread posted by a guy who’s losing sleep over the thought of a local resident using SSI benefits to pay for her gender reassignment surgery. Plenty of people stepped up to defend transgender rights in the thread, so don’t go feeling like you need to charge in there and teach the rednecks a lesson. We know how to type.

Of course, the only reason my hometown has a Topix forum at all, as far as I can tell, is so people can gossip about each other in the comfort of their homes, call each other names, and threaten to beat each other up. Caiden Cowger is from my hometown, and Jerry Falwell spoke at my high school graduation. That tells you all you need to know about why I no longer live in this place. There were plenty of twat waffles living there when I was growing up, and now they’ve bred.

I'm not sure what a twat waffle is, but it's not this.

P is for Paranoia

For me, the thing that sets America apart from other countries – at least the ones that I’ve visited and lived in – is the paranoia. Everything that's ever happened has been faked, and everyone thinks someone’s out to get them. 

Except, in most cases, no one is out to get anyone in particular. I figured this out when I was 15 years old and realized that I’m nowhere near important enough to get and neither is anyone I know. The government? It couldn’t give less of a damn, and it certainly doesn’t have the manpower or resources to watch everyone all the time. Hell, they’re having trouble keeping the roads paved. Sure, you might wind up as collateral damage, but that’s just your bad luck. It’s because you’ve gotten in the way of someone else’s efforts to make a profit, and not because a bunch of dudes sat down in a top-secret meeting and said, “Alright, let’s think of some ways to f&ck with [insert your name here.]”

If you start ranting about how some group or other is trying to destroy you or your way of life, or how the worst possible things are all going to happen in ascending order of badness, I’m going to find a way out of that conversation and out of all future conversations if I can help it. Because let’s be honest, excluding cases where genuine mental illness is involved, your paranoia is evidence of your massive ego. If you didn’t think you were somebody really special, you wouldn’t be worried about anyone coming to get you. Likewise, if you want to talk to me about a conspiracy theory, it'd better be the Lincoln assassination. 

Not to mention, it’s just plain exhausting to have to listen to that crap all the time. If you’re not rambling on about the bad things you’re certain are going to happen to you, you’re filling me in on how everything in my life is about to go horribly, irreparably wrong. I have a hard enough time maintaining a positive state of mind without that kind of drain on my energies. Don’t be the guy who lists all the things that could go wrong. Nobody likes that guy.

That guy does not get invited to the good parties.

O is for Old Men Hitting on Me

Hey, Old Dudes, I have a message for you: LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS. Seriously, your “dirty old man” sh&t is not cute. I know you don’t just start feeling attracted to older women just because you got older yourself. This does not mean you have the right to drool all over women half your age and then act offended if they don't strip all their clothes off that very moment. You may have the right to express interest in anyone you want, but you do not have the right to assume it will always be returned. There aren’t as many young women with “daddy issues” as you’d like to believe.

Yes, I know I’m THIRTY YEARS OLD NOW and I’m NO SPRING CHICKEN ANYMORE (Spring chicken? Who talks like that? OLD DUDES, THAT’S WHO.) It might shock you to know that I still get hit on by dudes in their twenties all the time. Hell, a couple of years ago, (before I was all old and dried up!) I actually went out with a 19-year-old. It was an accident. I didn’t realize he was a teenager and he didn’t realize I was ALMOST DEAD at the RIPE OLD AGE OF TWENTY-EIGHT, GOD FORBID, but he was sexually interested, is my point. The date actually ended on a super-awkward note when we both realized that we’d been born in different decades, because it took him like three hours of listening to me talk about my whole adult life before it occurred to him that maybe I was a lot older than him, because that’s how not old as hell I look, Old Dudes.

Of course, that was two years ago so I probably look like an alligator hatbox by now, right? Wrong. If you need further evidence that I'm still capable of attracting men my own age, on my 30th birthday I was out at the bar and some random chick asked me what grade I was in. So you can stop it with the “you’re not so young yourself, kiddo” sh&t. In fact, maybe if you find yourself calling the person you’re trying to sleep with “kiddo,” you should rethink whether or not that’s an age-appropriate pairing.

It's half your age plus seven, pervert.

N is for No, This Blog Isn’t Obscene

Those of you coming from the A to Z Challenge may be surprised to find that there isn’t any pornography on this blog. Well, there is that one post where I talk about dishwasher-safe dildos, but I can assure you that I discuss them in a thoroughly nonsexual manner. Of course, the mere mention of dildos is probably why Arlee Bird told me yesterday that my blog is obscene and labeled it “adult content” on the A to Z challenge sign-up list, removing my humor tag, which sucks, because, you know, it’s humor. Not porn. Big difference.

He did it because I keep using words like “fuck” and “shit” even though I have been told to clean up my act. Also, perhaps because he seems to have taken personal offense to my recent post, “K is for Keep Your Language Hang-Ups Off My Blog,” because he left me some wordy and downright condescending feedback in the comments, in which he let me know that my “obscenity” isn’t just harmful to the kiddies, but offensive to absolutely everyone who’s unfairly forced to read “a site they feel wastes their time.” He implied that my blog isn’t informational, insightful or inspiring at all, but is only interesting to those who “may want to be shocked or just entertained.”

Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

He accused me of “running bloggers off in droves due to [my] overly offensive blogging behavior.” (I assume he was talking about me, since he left this remark on my blog.) He also claims, “I am not a big fan of censorship, but likewise I think there’s a matter of decorum that should be in place and addressed by those who wish to resort to bawdiness.” (Yes, he actually said "bawdiness." I know.)

I let him know that I was feeling persecuted because it's unfair to make up arbitrary rules as you go along, not publicize them, and then only apply them to one person (again, other bloggers in this challenge are telling me that they've had no complaints about their use of language and have never heard of there being at rule about it). He let me know that "asking you or other bloggers to help us with cooperation" is not persecution, although he did seem unaware that I have, in fact, cooperated, in the form of the adult language header that you can see right at the top of every page of this blog, now and since before the challenge started. 

So, again, just to be super clear to everyone -- I feel persecuted because I was asked to clean up my language OR place an adult content warning on my blog. I chose to place the warning. After I placed the warning, I continued to receive requests to clean up my language, even though I had done as I was asked by placing the warning. Are we all on the same page now? Great. Moving on.

In answer to my claim that it's not fair to make up arbitrary rules as you go along, Arlee replied, “Yes, if we are doing a free thing that we're trying to do to enhance our image as bloggers and authors as well as helping others to enhance their images, then we have every right to make up arbitrary rules as we run into new problems and unforeseen situations.” 

You sure are enhancing your image by talking down to a 30-year-old blogger as if she’s your unruly teen-aged child. He's helping me, see, and I'm just being ungrateful, see. He then goes on to invite me to “express [my] concerns in a rational manner” – emphasis mine, must’ve been blogging on my period again, oops – as part of the A to Z Challenge Reflections event in May. Yes, because I’m 100% positive that he will allow me to express myself freely in that forum.

The funny part of all this is that Arlee dressed me down for not taking appropriate measures to comply with the arbitrary rules that he's allowed to make up IN THE COMMENTS OF A POST ABOUT MY EFFORTS TO COMPLY WITH THE ARBITRARY RULES THAT HE'S ALLOWED TO MAKE UP. I take this as evidence that he didn't actually read the post, but just read the title and then skipped straight to the comments. "A woman is talking, I must put her in her place!" Jeebus wept.

And yes, before you say anything, I know he’s the founder and I know it’s his challenge. This, however, is my blog.

UPDATE: Hey, everybody, Something Clever 2.0 has picked up this story and blogged about it for her readers! Hop on over there and take a look! Leave comments! Be nice! 

Aaaaaand, I've inspired a new blogging challenge!!!! Sorry for the multiple exclamation points, but I'm just too excited!!! The Insomniac's Dream is hosting the ABCs of Swearing next month! Don't worry, it's not as full-on as the A to Z Challenge. Go to her blog to read about it, and sign up!

M is for Men Telling Me How to Groom Myself

One of the many, many things I am no longer tolerating from the men in my life is this thing where they start telling me how to wear my hair, what parts of my body to shave or wax and how often to do it, or whether I should wear makeup and, if so, how often and how much. It is bewildering how often men weigh in on these things, just casually, like it’s totally the most natural thing in the world for them to tell you how to handle your own freakin’ hygiene and appearance.

I don’t think there’s a man in the world who doesn’t walk around with his nose stuck way up in the air, telling anyone who will listen about how his wife/mother/daughter/sister/friend/neighbor lady whose name he doesn’t even know just does not need to wear any makeup, ever, and how sad it is that these ladies hate themselves so much that they just need to slap all this colored powder on their faces to feel beautiful. “Oh,” the man exclaims, voice full of woe, “why can’t these women just see their own natural beauty and accept themselves for who they are?”

I don’t know – why can’t you just shut the f*ck up, you controlling prick?

All this, despite the fact that many men don’t know a damn thing about makeup and wouldn’t recognize a “natural look” if it walked up and slapped the f&cking stupid right out of their faces. More than once I’ve begun my morning grooming routine after having a new guy stay the night for the first time, only to have said new guy have a f&cking panic attack or something when he sees me put on makeup. “I didn’t know you wore makeup!!!!!” he says, in a strangled voice, with a stricken look on his bloodless face, because I’m just not the same woman now that he knows I wear face powder and mascara every day.

Or maybe he just says it as an observation, because dudes seem to have this obsession with the Low Maintenance Woman Who Doesn’t Need Makeup, but also I think that when men think of “makeup,” they picture this:

Image credit: Darwin Bell

But I digress. Every time a guy tells me I should wax my vagina, I tell him, “Adult women have pubic hair, get over it.”

One dude tried to get me to stop plucking my eyebrows, which, to this day, remains the weirdest reason that I have ever laughed right in someone’s face. The same guy once gave me a lecture on which menstrual products I should be using, because apparently regular old tampons just weren’t good enough in his opinion. In case you were wondering, yes, he had been born a male and had zero hands-on experience with menstruation, but he did have another girlfriend before so he knew all about it. This was, as you can imagine, a very short-lived relationship.

L is for Look It Up for a Change Instead of Just Believing Whatever

I’ve already discussed to some extent how irritating it is when people repost things that aren’t true, without bothering to fact-check them. For better or for worse (mostly worse), people are simply inclined to believe whatever they hear or read. That’s how your Facebook feed got filled with posts about how rapists are using kids to lure in their victims, Barack Obama is gay for David Cameron, and you can get a letter mailed for free by writing “Frank” on it where the stamp is supposed to go. If you don’t feel like following links, none of those things are true.

Naturally, this kind of thing isn’t limited to the Internet – it’s as old as time itself. Last summer, some of you may have noticed a slight blackout that left about four million of us on the East Coast without power. I was living in a rural location at the time – well, more rural than my present location – and my neighborhood was without power for a couple of weeks. The nearest town, which has about 5,000 residents, was without power for a few days. Early on in the blackout, someone called to let us know that the fire department would be shutting off the town’s water supply and that we should all fill up our bathtubs and containers to prepare. Panicking and bathtub filling commenced.

I, however, was suspicious. We had been listening for public service announcements on the battery-operated radio and this is the kind of thing you’d think they would include in such an announcement.

“Who did you hear this from?” I asked. “Has anyone called the fire department to confirm that it’s true?”

Everyone gawked at me like I’d grown a second head because, of course, no one had thought to call the fire department and ask if they were really planning to cut off fresh water to thousands of people who were already in a crisis situation. This is just one of many examples of how you shouldn't just go around blindly believing everything you hear, because, as it turned out, the fire department planned no such thing. 

And we all lived happily ever after and drank lots of water, the end.

K is for Keep Your Language Hang-Ups Off My Blog

As some of you will be aware, I have come under fire recently for my use of language. No one seemed to notice or care about my use of language until I signed up for the A to Z Challenge this year, which I am still, doing, even though the other members of the Bitchery Triad quit on the first day. But what can you expect from a couple of b*&ches.

All for one my ass.

After I signed up for the A to Z Challenge, I was asked to watch my language even though there’s nothing about that in the official rules (I checked) and I appear to be the only one who was asked (and I know I’m not the only one who drops an occasional f-bomb online). 

I wasn’t keen on the thought of putting an adult content warning on my blog – I’ve had one in the past and it freaks people out. They hunt me down and say things like “I tried to read your blog post but when I clicked on the link it sent me to a porn site,” and stuff like that. Not everyone is as familiar with the blogosphere as we are. So, instead, I put in place this nifty header that you see above. I also reverted back to my old habit of inserting symbols (*&^%&) instead of letters in the middle of dirty words because, as we all know, that changes their meaning.

Even after I put in the header I still got comments about how I need to watch my language because THERE ARE CHILDREN ON THIS INTERNET. As my brilliant friend Kelly pointed out, “You know somewhere out there in cyberspace there is an orgy featuring dwarves and a guy in a unicorn costume getting busy in a vat of creamed corn, but it’s your swear words that are going to ruin the children.”

I’m not trying to be insensitive to little people by including that remark – I’m pretty sure that in this scenario, the dwarves in question are the ones from Snow White. In other words, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I’m not here to parent other peoples’ children. If your kids are getting on the Internet, you should be right there watching everything they do, not depending on content creators to keep the interwebs family-friendly for your benefit. 

It may also shock you to know that if your kids are under 13, they aren’t allowed to make accounts on Facebook or Blogger or almost any other website not specifically aimed at children, because compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 is so difficult. Keep that in mind the next time you feel the itch to correct someone’s language “for the sake of the children.”

Oh crap, I just did research at you.

J is for Jealousy

Jealousy is a no good, horrible, very bad thing. It will turn you into the worst person ever in no time at all. Some people say jealousy is a healthy thing. I say those people are stupid.

I get jealous sometimes, just like everyone else. When I feel jealousy coming on, I try to remind myself that the grass is always greener over the septic tank. As long as I’m pontificating on the subject, I might as well go ahead and point out that while you’re busy being jealous of someone else’s great hair or new car or go-go-Gadget arms or whatever, they are almost always jealous of your amazing breasts, horticulture skills, or laser vision. It’s a universal constant.

Can you tell I'm just making things up.

Even worse than the effect your jealousy has on you is the effect it has on other people. It will make them avoid you. No one has time for your unpleasantness. 

When I was a little girl and got picked on in school – usually for being a genius – my grandmother used to say, “It’s just because they’re jealous.” That’s why I think that anyone who leaves me negative blog comments or sends me hate mail is jealous – and why wouldn’t they be, because I am awesome.

Sexual jealousy is the worst. Being smoking hot like I am gets you a lot of that. The unpleasant ex Toad Blowhard was madly jealous, because deep down in his reptilian brain he understood that literally any man, even a comatose one, would be better for me than he was. Needless to say, I am no longer dating jealous types. That isn’t to say I’m not still on the wrong end of some sexual jealousy. I know a lot of dudes who are jealous because I had sex with some other dude instead of having sex with them, and God forbid they should let me just get away with the crime of making my own choices. I swear, I must be part of some top-secret government crazy-magnet-implant experiment. There’s just no other explanation.

I will pry that thing out with a fork if it comes to it.

I is for Ignorance

When I was growing up, and I’d get angry about someone’s stupidity, my mother used to say, “Now, don’t blame them, it’s not their fault they’re stupid.”

When I was older, I asked her, “Well, what about ignorant people? Am I allowed to blame them?”

“Yep,” she said. 

So, there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. If you are an ignorant monucka, I will kick your ass.

Now, I know nobody’s born knowing everything and I’m not without a sense of fairness. So, if there’s something you don’t know about, fair enough. I’m not going to kick your ass just for not knowing things. Hell, there are things I don’t know, like how to speak Spanish or travel in time.

It’s willful ignorance that gets me polishin’ up my ass-kickin’ boots. We’ve all met someone who doesn’t know and refuses to learn. Even worse is the person who doesn’t know, but insists that they do know and blows a gasket at any suggestion that maybe they don’t. Remember how, back during the election, all of your Facebook friends became instant constitutional scholars? That’s what I’m talking about.

I actually saw a great demonstration of this on a friend’s Facebook page last week. My friend had shared a meme about how the AP is going to stop using the term “illegal immigrants.” There were a few comments about how great it is that the Associated Press is making a change that will help writers to more correctly use English. Then some blowhard chimed in with his half-educated opinions about how it’s his right to call them “illegals” because “freedom of speech lol.” If there’s one thing I’m sick of, it’s jerks misinterpreting the First Amendment.

There's nothing in here about me not slapping you.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Freedom of Speech espoused his view that all “illegals” should be put to death if they’re caught being illegally in the country for a second time! Hold the phone, buddy, crossing a border without papers is akin to first-degree murder? But they don’t pay taxes at all, and they have no rights here, so we can kill them and there’s nothing anyone can do about it (his words, not mine. I’m paraphrasing though because he didn’t spell too good.)

He supported his argument with quotes from Starship Troopers and anecdotal evidence from his mother, and who am I to call his mother a liar? When presented with actual research to the contrary, he pronounced it all “incorrect,” and declared, “I’m rather bored of this conversation, though.”

Ah, the classic “I don’t wanna talk it anymore” defense! He explained, “I’ve had [this conversation] plenty of times and no matter what it’s always the same story.”

Yeah, but in the sequel, you get your ass kicked.

G is for Guilt Trips

Guilt trips. We’ve all taken them, and most of us have sold tickets for them as well. There’s nothing like harnessing the power of guilt to really manipulate someone. I mean, you can’t force other people to live their whole lives according to what pleases you, but you can sure make them feel pretty sh*tty for pursuing their own happiness instead of yours. Life’s too short to not spend it twisting yourself into knots trying to please others, right?

Now, I expect this sort of thing from mothers, grandmothers, and older female relatives who, let’s face it, probably mean well when they give you condescending lectures about how if you keep on not being married at this rate, you’ll just never have time to birth the seventeen babies you’re so clearly intended to spawn. That’s not to say it doesn’t piss me off, just that you’ve got to see it coming. I’m sure they see handing out guilt trips as part of their time-honored role of making sure I don’t f*&k up my life.

Too late, auntie.

I don’t care who you are, I don’t give a damn if my life choices make you happy. The minute I sense someone using guilt to influence my actions, I back away. If I wanted to live my life worrying about how my decisions affect other people, I’d have kids. I did not, as you may have noticed, have kids.

Here’s a tip: When someone talks about the things she wants to do with her life, a good friend does NOT start whining about how sad, lost and lonely he’d be if she did those things. That is the opposite of supportive. Oh, so you say you’ll miss me terribly if I go backpacking across Asia? It’ll hurt you so much that you won’t be able to stand it? Has it crossed your mind that I don’t give a f*&k? What am I supposed to do, hang my head and say, “Oh well, I guess I won’t do all the things I’ve been dreaming of then. I guess I shouldn’t worry about my own happiness at all. Silly, selfish me, I’ll stop right away! How else can I be of service?”

Let’s dispense with this “You’ve got to grow up sometime” business as well. I’m a 30-year-old, college-educated homeowner. I run a copywriting business. How much more grown-up do you want me to get? Did someone tell you that “growing up” and “enjoying yourself” are mutually exclusive? Because – and you might want to sit down for this one – they’re not. You can do both at the same time. Unbelievable, I know.

If you want me to care about how happy you are, don’t try to force me to care about how happy you are. I know that sounds counterintuitive and it might not work because I am kind of a hard-ass, but it’s your best shot.

F is for Facebook Shenanigans

I am well past the point in my Facebooking career when I will de-friend your ass without a moment’s notice or a second thought the minute you throw something into my News Feed that irritates, angers, disgusts or annoys me. I don’t even feel bad about it unless you’re one of the zero Facebook friends I speak to regularly in my daily life…oh wait, ha ha.

I figure we went for years without speaking before being reunited on Facebook; or our real-life acquaintanceship is just that, an acquaintanceship, casual at best; or, in some cases, we’ve never even met in real life at all, and, contrary to what some people seem to think these days, an online friendship is NOT the same as an IRL friendship. Even if it were, I have the right to end either relationship whenever I want and I don’t need a reason, other than “I want to.”

So watch yourselves.

So. I am so. Frocking. SICK. Of your Facebook shenanigans. All you mommies are up on my feed making slut-shaming remarks about how only total whores would even want to hire a babysitter to go out for drinks on New Year’s Eve, and all you dudes are passing around your whiny “My girlfriend takes too long to get ready!” memes and everyone seems to agree that a woman who complains about how “all men” are sleazebags shouldn’t have tried them all! Har har! Gimme a break. We all know you're just jealous.

And while you’re at it, quit b*tching about Obama like it’s your job. I live in West Virginia, so I don’t even get intelligent complaints about the man’s policies or anything like that. Even the semi-intelligent, not-totally-racist complaints about the Obama administration that I see in my News Feed are so riddled with paranoia that I just can’t. If you’re going to throw around racial slurs about the President, at least admit that you’re racist and don’t try to act like racial slurs are a fair way to express your disappointment with his policies. If you’re going to denigrate the man’s intelligence, please make sure to spell check and use proper grammar. He went to Harvard; you have a GED. He’s not the one with something to prove.

There, I’ve done it, and now this blog post will inspire plenty of passive-aggressive Facebook statuses about what “some people” ought to do, say, think, feel, believe, or write in their blogs. Guess what -- the   unnamed person you’re directing that status to knows who they are and what you’re talking about, and you're not getting away with anything. Unless they’re not on Facebook, in which case, post away.

This brings me to my all-time biggest pet Facebook peeve: THE FREAKING SICK KID POSTS. “Facebook will donate two dollars for every time you share or like this photo of this miserable dying kid!” No they won’t. In some cases, the kids are already dead and the poor parents are tortured by having to see these photos reproduced, often without their permission, all over the Internet. I know you have the best intentions, but I seem to recall a wise proverb about good intentions and where they lead. I hate to piss on your fireworks, sweetheart, but if you want to do some good in the world, you’re going to have to put forth a little more effort than it takes to press a mouse button. And if that really is all the energy you can muster, go to one of those “click for charity” websites instead.

You're welcome.

E is for Elitism

By “elitism,” I mean thinking you’re better than other people – for whatever reason. You could call it snobbery, but then I’d have to shove it more than halfway down the alphabet and I’ve already got a topic for “S” anyway. Bet you just can’t wait to find out what it is.

I'll give you a hint, it starts with S.

I’ve met my share of entitled people who never had the same kindergarten class I had about how you’re not better than anyone else. I remember when I lived in Chamonix, where everyone is wealthy whether they know it or not, I was not-really-dating-just-sort-of-hanging-out-with this guy there, and then one day he was telling me about his father’s factory and how his dad kept having problems with the working class people who, you know, worked in his factory. I can’t remember the details of the story, something about how they weren’t working hard enough and appreciating the opportunities his dad had given them or something. I wasn’t really listening because who f*^kin’ would. But I clearly remember him saying, “I keep telling Dad those kinds of people are no good, but he just won’t listen.”

“What kinds of people?” I asked.

“Well, the people who work in his factory.”

“What kinds of people are those?”

“Well, you know, the kinds of people who work in factories.”

“And what kinds of people are those?”

“Well, you know.”

“No, I don’t know, please elaborate.” (I’m the sort of person who says things like “please elaborate.” That’s who I am. Deal with it.)

He didn’t elaborate, he just frowned like I was making some kind of impossible request, so I still don’t know for sure what it was he was getting at, but it really sounded like he was getting at “Dad shouldn’t hire working class people to work in his factory because they don’t work very hard because they’re only working class,” which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as a theory, because if they didn’t work they wouldn’t be called “working class,” but whatevs. Suffice it to say I stopped sort-of-dating the guy at that point and started not-dating-the-guy-at-all instead.

But I told you that story so I could tell you this one. I also knew a woman (I’ll call her Pizza because she worked in a pizza shop), and she was utterly obsessed with Daddy’s Factory, to the point where every time I saw Pizza I’d have to listen to her talk about Daddy’s Factory for at least ten minutes. They were friends and she seemed to think that was just the best, EVAR. 

So, one day not long after I’d stopped sort-of-dating Daddy’s Factory, we were all over at his place – me, Pizza, some of his other friends, him – and it came out that Pizza had used to work in a factory when she was young and living in North America. (He was still going on about the factory thing.) To Pizza's credit, she stood up for the factory workers, announcing that, yes, she had been wary of them at first, but after she got to know some of them, it turned out they were regular people, with homes and families and plans for their holidays, just like you and me!

And everyone just kind of looked at her. Speaking for myself, I was baffled because I couldn’t imagine not knowing that the factory workers were regular people. Who knows about some of the others, but at least one of the people in the room that day was wondering if his new friend might need some medication. 

If she had said she'd found out they were  trolls who lived under bridges, she might have gotten a warmer reception.

D is for Don’t Need a Dang Reason

I went ahead and kept it clean in the title of this post because I know a lot of my Triberr peeps want to keep their Twitter feeds Safe For Work, which is something I keep thinking I ought to do, but then never actually do. Don’t let it be said I wasn’t thinking of your needs.

I am so considerate.

Ever since I quit smoking, I’ve been having anger management problems. A few months into my new, smoke-free life, it became obvious that my irritability and strong feelings of rage were not withdrawal symptoms, as I had previously thought, but part of the reason – nay, the whole reason – I was smoking in the first place. I used tobacco as an unhealthy means of coping with my anger, instead of implementing a healthy means of coping with my anger, such as, for example, not hanging around with a**holes.

I’ve stopped hanging out with a**holes as much as possible, which is harder than I would have thought. I’d like to not hang out with a**holes at all, period – I mean gee, anyone would – but it turns out that’s impossible. Society is just chock-full of a**holes. That should have been obvious from the outset, but, my friends, I was young and naïve, and bore a young, naïve person’s innocent faith in the inherent goodness of humanity.

Nevermore.

Since I blew it and spent too much time hanging around with a**holes and smoking to deal with their connerie as we say in French, I now have years and years worth of pent-up rage that I didn’t deal with at the time. It turns out that when you suppress your feelings, they don’t go away; they just get worse.

Oops.

You’d think that after fourteen-plus months of not smoking, I’d have developed some new coping skills. I have developed some new coping skills, sure, but I’m still the cross, fiery, ill-tempered, irate, offended, exasperated person I always was, and now I don’t even have a reason to go outside and get away from you for ten minutes every time you piss me off. There’s just no amount of intense cardio or guided meditation that can make up for that. Since I’m in one of my Don’t Give a Sh&t Years (that’s years divisible by six or nine, in case you’re wondering), it really just takes all I’ve got to keep from slapping the stupid right out of your face.

Most people keep their stupid here, in the nasal sinus cavities.

I can’t afford therapy, but I’ve got a whole bunch of books saved on my Amazon Wishlist. It’ll be knotty around here until I’ve finished reading them all, and probably also after that, because self-help books are full of it.

So, watch yourselves.

C is for Cat Neglect

I have a soft spot for cats, which is a lucky thing for at least one cat that isn’t even chewing on my feet right now. He is remiss in his responsibilities.

At least he helped me make the bed this morning.

I’ve been volunteering with a local cat rescue for the past few months, which has been a refresher course on how stupid some people are. One girl, after watching a cat roll around on the floor of its cage for a few minutes, insisted that the cat was obviously crippled and could not walk. She had me trying to coax the cat to stand up for like five minutes, a mission that was doomed to failure from the moment the cat sensed I was trying to get it to do something. She left still convinced that the cat wasn’t standing up because it couldn’t stand up, and giving me the side-eye like I was some kind of dodgy used car salesman trying to fob off defective cats on an unwary public.

Mwahaha.

It’s always pissed me off when people neglect their cats. I’m pretty sure most people who aren’t sociopaths get pissed off when people straight up torture cats, or drop them into garbage bins like that one sad excuse for a British human did. I mean, that’s somebody’s pet, you know? It could be some little girl’s pet, or some old lady who hasn’t a soul in the world’s pet.

I’d kick your ass if I caught you mistreating a cat. I’d be pretty upset if I found out you were one of those butt nuts who moves house and leaves the poor cat behind. “Well, cats can take care of themselves,” you say, as if that were some kind of excuse. I hope someday you go on vacation and your spouse leaves you sitting at a rest stop in the desert so you know how it feels. You can take care of yourself, right?

You shouldn’t be putting your cat outside anyway. You might as well put it in the oven. There are cars, dogs, rednecks with guns, hawks and cat-torturing kids and middle-aged ladies out there just waiting to get their hands on Muffins and put him in a world of pain.

Even if your cold, black, selfish heart doesn’t care about any of that, do it for the greater good, because today you have the chance to be a better person, loser. Did you know that domestic cats kill up to 3.7 BILLION birds and up to 20.7 BILLION mammals every year, in the United States alone? And that domestic cats are implicated in the extinction of 33 native bird species worldwide? Keep your cat indoors! For the birds! Because we’re all in this together and some of us like birds, and I will kick you right in your bung hole!

Yeah!

Image credit: Heather Katsoulis

While you’re at it, get your cat neutered, if it isn’t already, because we don’t need more of them. We’re full up on cats already. Not getting your cat neutered makes the Baby Jesus cry. Take your cat to the freakin’ vet when it gets sick. It’s not like it can take itself. How’d you like it if every time you got sick, the brutish giant who controls your life just shrugged and muttered something about how the kids’ll be sad if you die. Oh wait, that’s the American health care system. But seriously, don’t let your sick cat suffer.

Also, if I find out that you have declawed your cat, you’re planning to declaw your cat, or you’re one of those people who think declawing is a necessary part of cat ownership, then there is a 99.999% chance I will think you are a subhuman monster. I’m leaving that 0.001% window open because you never know, maaaaybe you managed to come up with a legitimate reason to declaw your cat, and I will do you the courtesy of not kicking your ass until I’ve heard you out. But, for the most part, I’ve found that people declaw their cats because they’re scratching the furniture, and I think if you’re so concerned about your furniture that you’re going to chop a cat’s toes off over it, just don’t have the cat.

Or sit on the floor, with the rest of the vermin.

B is for Being a Creep

Why, exactly, do I hate creeps? Well, because they’re so freakin’ creepy, that’s why. They make you want to unzip your skin, step out of it, dip it in hot f*&king bleach and then dry it on double-high heat before you can finally feel comfortable putting it back on. It’s the worst.

For me, the worst kind of creepiness is stalking/pseudo-stalking/clinginess, because I went through a full-on stalking experience myself with the ex, Toad Blowhard, who just keeps getting mentioned around here, for some reason. The different between pseudo-stalking and full-on stalking is that pseudo-stalking only lasts for a couple of weeks, whereas stalking tends to go on and on and on. Pseudo-stalking seems to be borne out of a person’s more-or-less well-intentioned effort to show you that they like you. Because showing up outside someone’s apartment, drunk at four in the morning, and throwing snowballs at their window until they wake up is the best way to say “I really think we have something special and I would like to see you again.”

Not.

Other forms of creepery for which I will kick your ass include:

Staring. Most women would specify “staring at my boobs,” but I do not appreciate any form of staring at all. I had a flatmate in Paris who would sit on the loft bed and stare down at me like a gargoyle. Yes, I realize I’m beautiful, take a picture, except DON’T TAKE MY F*&KING PICTURE YOU STUPID CREEP.

Propositioning me via social media or email. There’s a reason you’re not asking me for sex face-to-face, and it’s because you don’t think I’ll give you any or because you’re married, or because you haven’t figured out how to ask someone for sex face-to-face without getting slapped.

Asking me for naked photos. I don’t mean if we’re in a relationship together, I mean if you’re some rando I talked to for five minutes at a party the night before and you have the stone-cold balls to friend me on Facebook and then message me asking for pics of my tits. It’s not just that you asked for pictures of my tits, but that you think you deserve to look at my tits every day for the rest of your life, long after the tits in question have become mere shriveled sacks of old-lady flesh.

I relish the thought that even after I'm dead, you'll still be wanking it to pictures of my tits.

Rubbing your genitals on me. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST WALK UP AND HUMP SOMEBODY AND THAT’S OKAY. I mean, this isn’t even as bad as walking up to me in the bar or club (people never do these things when they are sober) and telling me how you’d “split me in half” as one guy put it. (Seriously? That’s supposed to be sexy?) Although, still, that’s pretty bad. If you’re about to ask someone for sex, stop and ask yourself if that person has any reason to expect you to ask them for sex. If the answer is no, remember that tact, like kindness and manners, is free.

But I digress. I was telling you a story about this time when some guy humped me. I was sitting in my favorite bar in France, the Monkey Bar, where I was a regular, and some grody stranger who appeared to know everyone was in there, and he was talking to my friend, who was sitting next to me, and who apparently knew the dude, whose name escapes me at the moment. Well, after he’d been talking to my friend for a few minutes, he turned around and introduced himself to me, and as he was doing so, he straight up started humping my leg. I’m not even joking. I was sitting on a bar stool and he was about the right height so that his crotch came up just level with my knee, and he straight up started humping my leg. Real slow and subtle, like, so no one else in the bar would notice. And as he was doing so he said, I sh8t you not, he actually said, “I can tell you and I are gonna get along real well.”

So I kneed him in the junk.

Real slow and subtle, like, so no one else in the bar would notice.

A is for Advice, Unsolicited

I recently saw a guy on Twitter moaning about how frustrating it is that no one ever takes his unsolicited advice. I’m pretty sure he was joking but it’s hard to tell because we don’t have the sarcasm font yet. Somebody needs to get on that – open source coders, I’m looking at you.

Nobody likes unsolicited advice. I know I’ve annoyed plenty of people in the past with my own unsolicited advice, and even a couple of times with too much solicited advice. A wiser person than I once said, “Unsolicited advice often comes across as criticism.” That’s true. It also often comes across as ridiculous. My ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend has taken to giving me relationship advice, for example. Let that sink in for a minute.

I'll be here when you're ready. ~Photo credit: ColKorn1982

This is ridiculous on more than the obvious level. Of course the obvious level is obvious, so I shouldn’t have to explain it, but as my mother used to say  I saw on a bumper sticker once, “No matter how good he looks, somebody somewhere is sick of his sh*t.” I dated the same dude and I could tell you some things that would curl your hair, if I thought it would do any good, but I’m old enough to know better.

That’s the other thing – I’m old enough to know better. As a general rule of thumb, if you’re significantly younger than the person you’re giving unsolicited advice to, you might just want to shut it.

Believe it or not, I've been in a relationship or two before.

When you’re giving unsolicited advice, it’s all too likely that you lack a full understanding of the problem. The person you’re regaling with your wisdom may be facing challenges of which you’re unaware. He or she (okay, me, we’re still talking about me) may have gone so far as to consult professionals and trust me, that is not you. If it were you’d have a business card or something; check your wallet. No? That’s what I thought.

It’s also possible that the recipient of your sage counsel doesn’t think they have a problem at all. Sometimes people aren’t asking for help; sometimes they’re just talking. Not every remark is an opportunity for you to leap to the rescue. I’m a person, not a dilapidated house. Put down the hammer.

This is especially true of blog comments, where I seem to get the most unsolicited advice. That’s not a surprise, since some people DO NOT have a sense of humor. I got lots of unsolicited advice on my post “9 Reasons I Hate Being Smart,” for example. Here’s some unsolicited advice from a reader who remained anonymous:

There's something to be said for being humble. I appreciate you probably have a higher level of intelligence than the majority of your company but you need to understand you're not alone. Ever heard of Mensa? Find other so-called 'smart' people and talk about stuff that interests you. Try and get some exercise rather than having a smoke or necking a bottle of booze. It’ll help with the sleep and the ongoing inner monologue you seem to have.

I get the whole ‘smarter than most and feeling out of sorts’ thing but you have an immature way of dealing with it. Like I said, go on a walk, meet some people and get some perspective. 

“Gee, you really put me in my place, random person on the Internet! Gosh, my life will never be the same now that you’ve shown me the error of my ways! I’m going to run right out and do all those things you said, and then I’m going to write you a nice calligraphy letter on scented stationery, apologizing for the trouble I put you through with my shameful creativity, and promising never to do it again!” said no blogger ever, I should bloody well hope.

For the record, I told him he was stuck up. There was no response.