Cats Enjoy People Who Hate Them

Today has been the Friday of the Blabbermouths.

I have spent the majority of my work day being forced to endure the flapping jaws of people whom I am convinced were put on this planet to talk my friggin' ear off about shit that has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

Why is it that some women only want to blab to you about their children when they decide that they actually have something to say to you, burning up valuable minutes of your life that you could be using to discuss things that actually matter in the world?

Do they do this with men too, or is it just with other women? Apparently since I was born with the same baby making machinery as these women, I am supposed to give a shit about everything that little Johnny or Jane does to make their mommies beam. I think that they forget that women without children will not fully appreciate the YAK YAK YAKKING of details concerning any real aspect of their children's existence.

Find another mother to go play stage hogging ping pong with, or call a friend who actually genuinely cares about what you have to say about your kid.

I must stress here that for friends, I have all the time in the world for rehashing childrens' stories- the key element of this statement is this: FRIENDS. Friends' children are interesting because not only do you know the children, but here there is usually a two-way conversation involved between friends.

For work acquaintances, I allow about 5 minutes of talk time to run your mouths about your kids, and after that, unless it's something of some sort of medical importance, my brain shuts off and I start to hate you a little more for every ten additional seconds that I have to hear your voice. In work acquaintance situations, the topic of children is always one person doing all of the talking for far longer than what is acceptably allowed.

This is particularly true with women whose children are in high school. Most kids in high school are either shithead brats or overachieving goody two-shoes, neither of which are terribly interesting to a woman in her twenties with no children.

In my book, if the kid can chew and swallow steak, nothing that they do can be considered cute and/or interesting anymore.

The funny thing is, is that when these women are talking about their children, they seem to feel as if you are obligated to fain interest. The regular universal "Omigod you are so boring to me right now that I could slap you- SHUT THE FUCK UP" more-than-obvious body language won't work on these women.

I don't think they even notice that you aren't really listening. They know that it would be incredibly rude to interrupt and cut off someone who is sharing stories about their CHILD with you. And they take advantage of this unspoken social rule.

This is because, years ago, some jerk off somewhere instilled into American society that anything and everything child-related is special and important to society in a whole.

This is a LIE. Anything and everything child-related is only special and important to the parents and immediate family and friends in any individual child's life.

No one else gives a crap.

A 4-year old who just LOVES Ariel, the Little Mermaid, is not special for being excited to meet her at Disney World this summer. This aspect of that kid's life is not worth a 20 minute marathon mouth session by her mother while I have important Internet surfing to do on the clock.

I myself am a fan of Ariel the Little Mermaid and would also be excited to meet her at Disney World. Does my age make that any less special? I don't think so.

Both mine and the 4-year olds fan power for the Little Mermaid is not special and important in any way, to any person, besides our parents.

NOTE TO SELF: Someday, when I am a mother, I promise that I will never be that person who bores the pants off of my co-workers with pointless information about my offspring.

Posted by Meika at 2:27 PM    

A detective came into my office today to inquire about a Japanese foreign exchange student he was working with on a case last fall. Before I got to hear the dish, my boss Charlie went into newsman mode and ushered him into his office.

Oh well. The two seconds of something interesting that raised its head for ten measly seconds at work today was better than nothing interesting at all. Which is where this day was headed.

Even the WORD detective is interesting. This guy wasn't so interesting when he first popped into our office. He looked pretty normal, like an I.T. guy poking around or an office peon from another department looking for one of our graphic designers to make him a poster for a weak math club fund raiser or something.

But, despite his shiny bald head (which should have given away that he was in some area of law enforcement, since Oklahoma law enforcers like to look like Skinhead Nazis) the instant the guy said, "I'm a detective..." and turned to the right, just so, to where his shiny badge flashed suddenly on his belt, he was interesting.

He was dressed in civilian clothing, and I was disappointed that he wasn't wearing one of those sweet tan trench coats and matching detective fedoras (hat). Where was his pipe and magnifying glass? What kind of Gumshoe wears a baby blue collared Polo shirt?

A detective badge and gun in holster just isn't as exciting when hanging off of a pair of Dockers next to a cell phone.

I think detectives should be required to dress in appropriate detective uniform at all times (unless undercover of course- the outfit could possibly give him away and blow his cover). We would all take them just that much more seriously.

Thoughts of McGruff the Crime Dog came to mind. I wonder whatever happened to him.

Surely he's retired by now.

Posted by Meika at 2:44 PM    

Thinking about love relationships today.

Now that I am married and have been living with Taylor for 6+ years (whoa! my how time flies!), talking with my friends who are in newer relationships and/or are preparing for marriage makes me reflect on T and I's experience as a couple.

Not to say that we are the all-knowing duo of relationship expertise, but I must give us credit for how far we've come and all the bullshit we have managed to conquer. Let it be known- there has been PLENTY of bullshit. Awful, toxic, gut wrenching bullshit. By the metric ton.

One conversation I had with a friend today brought to mind some of the paranoid shit I used to do when I first starting dating Taylor- paranoid because finding love like this scared the beJesus out of me and made me a complete psychotic freak for a stint.

When you feel as though you've found the end all of loves, the most terrifying thing in the world is the thought of losing it and being without it. Love truly can make a semi-stable person lose their fucking mind.

And if you are the kind of person like I am, and you are already a little out of your mind in the first place, love can easily drive you to do things that surely might get you hauled off to the Funny Farm...maybe not literally, but you can quickly be metaphorically committed by your boyfriend after he discovers you rifling through his shit and turning all Super Sleuth Private Investigator/Head Hunter on ex-girlfriends.

When curiosity mutates into obsession, and obsession mutates into paranoia and paranoia mutates into hysteria...and most of this is the product of our own creation as a result of too much crazy over-analyzing and snooping with no real reasonable basis for doing so in the first place.

Love makes people crazy. I think that the people who try the hardest to resist the crazy, or the ones who embrace the crazy full force, are the craziest of the love crazed.

That happy gray area of crazy is the best place to be, it's just getting there and staying there that's the hard part.

We women get a bad rap with the whole "crazy psycho" label, but I don't think that women are crazy. I think that men can make us that way. They make us that way with their ability to exist in states of indifference and calmness and "What's the big deal?" attitude.

I've learned that, for the most part, men aren't really as deep as we want to give them credit for ("What??? What do you mean you can't read my mind? How can you NOT know how big of a deal this is? You're supposed to KNOW me!")...but at the same time, they'll shock you with weird, random senses of profound insightful deepness that leaves you dumbfounded and silent with amazement at how deep they are actually capable of being...when they feel like it.

Or after you've poked and prodded and forced them to be because they just can't handle your mouth moving for one more second.

:)

Posted by Meika at 12:21 PM    

Babies and small children are taking over Myspace.

I am noticing more and more that photographs of people I know are disappearing, and they are getting replaced by pictures of their infants and little kids. The more of these default image replacements that occur, the more it appears as if babies and children are taking over myspace, see?

Upon investigating this phenomena and digging around on peoples' myspace profiles, I am seeing that many newborns and kids have all but entire communities of other infants and tykes in their myspace networking circles, particularly in their "Top Friend" areas.

This makes it appear that there is a growing number of wee ones getting savvy with the Internet and they are creating their own myspace profiles to communicate with one another...as if they are uniting and plotting their world domination, starting with the Internet.

Sometimes I get a comment from a friend whose default image is their baby and it appears as if the baby is sending me the comment. Or when I see someone with their baby's picture as their myspace default image comment another friend with THEIR baby's picture as their myspace default image, it looks as if the two babies are having a conversation.

BABY NUMBER ONE: "It was so good to see you the other day!"
BABY NUMBER TWO: "I know! We definitely need to do that again sometime, I had so much fun!"

?????

One baby sent me a comment last week asking me if I was going to go to an art fusion show, where he was going to be a tattoo model.

Another baby told me how funny a Youtube video was that I had sent her and mentioned how yummy David Beckham is (in reference to his package).

One baby posts a "party pic" of herself with her baby friend as a comment on that baby friend's page and the two of them share a good laugh over it.

I'll get messages from pre-schoolers photographed at the zoo, telling me that they enjoyed my political rant on a blog I posted about Sally Kern.

I find these situations to be hilarious.

If aliens were to tap into our Internet systems and discover the Myspace social networking site, they would discover what would appear to be an alarming development within our race.

They would see all of these infants communicating and believe that humans are beginning to evolve at lightening speed- with our "hatchlings" and young ones intellectually progressing at a rate that could mean serious trouble to the rest for the universe- what with newborn humans learning how to communicate and operate the World Wide Web right out of the womb and before they are even completely potty trained and all.

Posted by Meika at 9:44 AM    

Taylor and I tested out different Posturepedic mattresses last night...making us both officially boring and old.

While testing one we liked called the Posturepedic "Blissville," Taylor thought it would be helpful to fart into the $1300 pillow top mattress to test out its resilience... Not too shabby. No vibrations that might disturb my sleep and it absorbed any smell that might have resulted quite effectively.

What a considerate husband I have, to make my personal comfort such a priority.

Thankfully, there wasn't a helpful salesperson within miles of assisting us in sight, so the entire experience was pretty entertaining.

It's an interesting phenomena to pick out your very first, brand new mattress as a newly wedded young couple. It's not like picking out kitchen appliances or a new sofa.

I think it's a combination of suddenly being concerned about the firmness of your mattress and the quality of sleep you are getting. Suddenly noticing that a newly aching back won't allow you to simply pass out peacefully anymore when it's time for bed and that you are willing to fork out a ridiculous amount of money to do so again.

You slowly begin to realize that the thrill you feel while testing out those new mattresses bumps you into that once foreign realm of the square and married adult- where you can recognize that the coolness you once believed you possessed while simply dating is rapidly depleting with every "Honey, come try this one. It's SO amazing," (bounce, bounce on the bed) "It's firm, but not TOO firm. WOW."

This being said with the same kind of enthusiasm once reserved for big nights out on the town or scoring some sort of fabulously potent illicit party drug to tweak out on until the sun comes up.

But at the same time, mattress shopping sparks thoughts of what kinds of things can be done in beds besides sleeping...and the smell of newly, uncharted territory like a room full of expensive virgin mattresses with high quality springs and coils can be oddly enticing.

Scoping out a new bed brought back memories of our 21 year-old sex lives from 6 and half years ago when we first started dating and couldn't keep our hands off one another. "Hmmmm. A new bed to do it on! Sweet!"

Since no one wanted to help us, we probably could have gone at it right there and gotten away with it- you know, to test it out and make sure it was juuuuuuust right. We didn't, but discussing doing so made the shopping more fun.

The fart helped too. I can always count on Taylor to break the ice. Nothing like giggling hysterically at immature shit with your husband while immersed in Old People Land. Keeps you young.

Posted by Meika at 1:18 PM    

Sometimes I am so disgusted with the Republican politics in my state that I find myself dry heaving and turning green when I read what they not only try to enforce, but are actually successful in achieving.

Rep. Oklahoma Senator Todd Lamb is in the process of trying to get a bill passed that will require abortion practitioners to give women seeking to terminate their pregnancies ultrasounds so that they may bear witness to their "sins." The bill is now in its final phase, at the hands of Gov. Henry.

This is a thousand invisible hands of a thousand invisible preachers playing God, when the bottom line is that it isn't their right to meddle in any woman's medical business.

I am wondering if Senator Tom Lamb has ever been required to have an over-sized, dildo-shaped foreign object stuck up in his private parts so he can take a first hand look at his internal baby making machinery. Does he have any idea how unpleasant that experience can be?

How could any man possibly understand and even fathom any remote physical or spiritual aspect of a woman's pregnancy whatsoever? Despite what they DO know, everything they actually know is second hand information- because they themselves will never be pregnant. Everything they have experienced is second hand experience. Until they themselves have gotten pregnant and have had something growing inside of their nonexistent wombs, male lawmakers need to BUTT OUT.

What gives any man, outside of the man who conceived the baby, the right to dictate anything that has anything to do with a woman's pregnancy?

Be religious and Pro-Life all you want, that's your choice. But we are all individuals and we all have our own lives and choices to consider. And those lives and choices are no one else's business.

I personally wouldn't be able to go through with an abortion, but I don't believe that any institution or establishment or ANYONE should have the right to govern what I do with my body or any other females body. It's our choice.

If they are so hell bent on reducing the number of abortions, how about they start with working on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies by enforcing more effective sex education in schools? Preaching abstinence is obviously not an effective method here, you know, considering that Oklahoma has one of the top highest teen pregnancy rates in the entire country.

Maybe Lamb the boy genius should consider that and concentrate on that kind of prevention before advocating laws intrusive medical laws on pregnant women. This law to me is taking 10 steps back from any progress that the sexual revolution fought so hard to accomplish back in the day.

Everyone is entitled to their personal beliefs and opinions, but I am sick of Republican politicians forcing their religious bullshit agenda on those of us who don't agree and don't follow their faith.

Here are a couple of articles about the Oklahoma ultrasound law:

Bible Beating Politicians Continue to Play God

Democrats Argue that Bill will Demean and Humiliate Women

As for Sally Kern...tell me that this woman isn't just BEGGING for a shitpie in the face. Seriously.




On April 2, a huge flock of sheep gathered at our Capitol to bleat in support of their martyr. Check out the article below:

(and p.s. I guarantee you that the "reformed" gay man Stephen Black still likes men).

Sally Kern Continues to Be a Prejudice Asshole

Posted by Meika at 9:25 AM    

I am thinking that students who are majoring in design should probably dress more like they have a clue about what looks good on themselves before they decide what looks good in anyone else's physical space.

I was in a meeting today where some students from the College of Arts, Media & Design presented their ideas for our office's design/architectural remodel, and I'll just say that for someone who was trying to convince us to let her fashion a new look for our office, one particular girlfriend's outfit was not good.

Two things come to mind: Muffin Top and the bottom of a bargain bin.

Don't get me wrong-I am all for bargain shopping. Bargain shopping is one of my special super powers. What's better than finding clothing for a great deal? Pretty much everything I buy is on sale.

But I do believe that there is a particular art to bargain shopping...and it doesn't involve constructing an entire outfit out of frocks that are unfashionably too small, too "square," in colors that should be banned, and just don't "go" if you catch my drift.

Mixing and matching is one thing- when different items go together in a way that makes them interesting or unique. But to simply throw together an entire collection of conservatively flavored, triple-marked down clearance clothing...that lack of consideration to detail does not scream "I'm a designer!" to me.

I think it's also important to understand that Muffin Tops do not make good accessories. I have some jeans that could bake Muffin Tops on my waistline, but I don't wear them. Because they obviously no longer friggin' fit.

Having a Muffin Top is one thing, but there are ways to tuck it away and make your ensemble more flattering. I mean, not just for the sake of hiding it, if you don't care what you look like, but come on. It just looks SO uncomfortable, what with your pant button hanging on for dear life and your extra baggage overflowing all over the place.

When you are wanting to be taken seriously as a person with an eye for style, your bodily baked goods are just too distracting when they are leaking out of your clothing.

I don't know if I could take seriously the design advice of a chick wearing badly faded black slacks so tight that an unacceptably prominent Muffin Top is spilling out the top, scuffed black orthopedic shoes, a too-small/too short white collared button down shirt with a Little House on the Prairie collar under an electric peach quarter sleeved cardigan and a strangely curled loopy hairdo.

I would be worried that she would make my space look as tacky as her outfit.

This chick is a DESIGN student. I don't find any excuse for someone choosing a professional career in interior design to walk around looking like an eyesore. It's like a hairstylist with a perm or a tone-deaf musician.

Here is a little for clarification on Muffin Top 101 for those not in the know:

Posted by Meika at 8:47 AM    

I have this thing with Queens in European history who got their heads chopped off. There is something fascinating to me about it. I don't know what it is, but it is so horrifying and grotesque that I've always found myself absolutely mesmerized by the whole idea.

Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots...all lost their royal heads to the sheer delight of angry mobs. Lots of people were beheaded back in medieval times, but it's crazy to me that they would do it to a Queen.

I've recently become obsessed with the Tudors...and just to make this clear, I'm talking about the actual history of the Tudors (King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, etc. NOT the Showtime series, "The Tudors.").

Now THAT was a disfuncational royal family.

To think of all that resulted from the horny King Henry VIII, a ruler who took to chopping off the heads of his wives who didn't either die after childbirth or become exiled so that he could screw his newest mistress...a man who broke an entire country free from the Catholic Church so that he could wed a new piece of ass (Anne Boleyn, the original Monica Lewinski of sorts).

All for the sake of ensuring that a penis would continue to rule the land. And what's funny is that when it was all said and done, his daughter Elizabeth, whom was the product of his decision to split from the church and marry his mistress, wound up becoming one of the greatest rulers the country would ever have.

All of that drama and beheading and religious turmoil...6 wives (two beheaded, one exiled, one dead from childbirth, one annulled, and the last one whom I will just assume was simply one lucky bitch), a country in ruins and the only male heir dead...all of that fuss and a woman was still destined to rule England.

PHENOMENAL irony. Bravo.

That's some pretty heavy shit. Henry VIII! What a pig! But oh what a fascinating pig he was.

Since I am voluntarily ignorant when it comes to most things religious, I had no idea that England broke from the Catholic Church so that King Henry VIII could divorce his first wife and marry his whore.

Can you imagine having that kind of power? The man named himself the head of his own Church, unscathed by having the Catholic Church on his bad side. That's craziness. The Catholic Church is one big scary intimidating entity.

Even Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light on out of fear of the Catholic Church hiding under his bed.

~shudder~

Henry VIII's influence marches on to this day, having followed English settlers overseas to America. It makes sense. From what I've witnessed here in the US of A, many Protestants continue to find no problem in divorcing their spouses to be with their whores. It's very educational to finally understand where the root of that American classic came from.

Ol' Henry was the original religious rule-bending hypocrite. The OG Bible Abuser.

Who needs reality television when there are real-life stories like THAT to read about?

I find myself hungry for more information on the whole mad Tudor dynasty.

About a year or so ago, a sudden interest in European royalty also happened to me with Austrian born, one-time French Queen Marie Antoinette, after I saw Sofia Coppola's film "Marie Antoinette" with Kirsten Dunst.

I remember being a kid and watching the cartoon "Beetlejuice," which was a spin-off from the movie. In an episode, one of the dead characters was Marie Antoinette. She walked around carrying her head tucked under her arm. The head talked and had a French accent and everything.

I thought that to be mind boggling and morbidly amusing and it has always stuck with me, so years later, when Coppola put out her film, I was intrigued.

Initially I was annoyed with ending of the film, "Marie Antoinette." The movie ended with Antoinette looking back wistfully at Versailles, while being hauled away to be imprisoned...then...NOTHING.

("Whaaa? Wait- that's IT? I sat through this whole fucking movie and I don't even get to see her get her head cut off? What a gip!")

After watching it again, reading up on the history, and better understanding the artistic direction Coppola was coming from in making the movie, the lack of blood and gore started to make sense and became a just choice, but still. It would have given me some sort of closure.

I was pleased to see that "The Other Boleyn Girl" made up for what "Marie Antoinette" lacked in that department- where Queen Anne Boleyn and her brother George lost their heads in gruesome public executions.

In "The Other Boleyn Girl" axes fell, heads rolled, and I got that odd feeling of repulsion/satisfaction that must have come with someone getting their head cut off back in the day. It's disgusting I know, but I am one of those people who are inherently interested in the dark and disturbing.

Mildly disturbing at least~ not disturbing just for the sake of shock value.

The stories that back those medieval executions are what make them so interesting. It's not just for the sake of seeing someone get their head cut off.
You go through the entire journey of a story- especially in visual media- and there is all this building up and climaxing...especially when you know the fate of the doomed.

I mean, mobs of people would gather and cheer with their children in tow when someone was sent to the block. They would rejoice and scream and hoot and hollar while a person was executed. Like jackals.

That's just pure insanity.

I personally would never want to actually see someone get their head cut off in real-life (GOD no), but when it comes to historical execution, one has to wonder just what was so sick about human nature back then to make some sort of celebrated social event out of it.

Beheading was the real deal. To leave it out of a movie just depletes a big chunk of what was interesting about the entire story in the first place. Had Marie Antoinette and Anne Boleyn had NOT been beheaded, would modern day film makers be making movies about them?

Sometimes the way someone leaves this world, or the fact that they left the world earlier than they should have at all, is mostly of what makes them so interesting.

Posted by Meika at 12:22 PM