Struggle

Being a woman is so goddamn hard. I bleed, I paint, I starve.

What the fuck is with this new female empowerment bullshit? Am I supposed to "splurge this summer!" on a fucking spa package and new wardrobe, scented fucking candles and bath salts because "I deserve it"? What is it, exactly, that I deserve? I deserve to be a slave to mainstream ideals? To the media? A slave to some rich white dude's selfish definitions of womanhood? A slave to being cool at a frat party, Instagram, nude lip gloss and high heels?

We follow your rules because we don't have a choice. Pretty people get the job. Pretty people make more money. Pretty people are happier, it's scientifically proven, i read an article about it once, they did a real study, and science proved it, so it's true. So why shouldn't we follow your rules?

Why shouldn't I spend two hours at the gym every night so I'm beach-ready with a hot bikini bod? Why shouldn't I obsess over the exact amount calories in eight ounces of coffee so I don't let myself go and end up with cellulite? Why shouldn't I paint my face with chemicals every day so I'm always dewy and fresh and hidden and noticeable? Why shouldn't I go into debt for a Himalayan yoga retreat because that's what Cosmo requires for bodymind renewal?

It just makes sense. So we all do it. It's way easier to just fucking comply. After all, to reject these rules is to turn around and flail your way upstream, alone.

While flailing, you might discover some other neat connections. Like, how senior care and baby care and family care and sick care are just, like, part of being a woman. You just kind of do it, because you have a vulva, damn thing. And dudes do construction work, or wear ties and carry briefcases. You get to have your tits sucked raw by a baby, clean up your mom and dad's shit when they're old, be naturally "good" with illness remedies, and then make dinner, look pretty, and be happy about your gross husband wanting to fuck you when he gets home. BUT hey, it's okay, because that's not really work, per se.

Or, like when you find yourself in a group of people, and the only people talking are the white dudes. Ladies don't really contribute too much. They're probably too busy not working at home anyway.

Or, how about when you have to pay more for health insurance because there is the mere existence of a biological possibility that you may potentially give birth to a human? I don't know about you, but that's pretty freaking awesome. Or, wait, wait! You still pay more for health insurance because you might have a baby, but now you have to pay for birth control pills too, to make sure you don't have a baby. Aw, you're poor because you can't make a living wage because you're a woman? Sorry, no birth control for you! You should just probably not have sex. Or have sex, get pregnant, and THEN get an abortion. Fuck, you live south of the Mason Dixon? Well, okay, have the baby, and then guess what! You get to take care of it for the REST OF ITS LIFE, or at least until it turns 15 and has a baby of it's own (assuming your child is a female, because if it's a dude you're all good) because you don't really have a choice, do you. No, you were never burdened with the crisis of choice. LUCKY YOU, MA'AM!

So why not buy a big ol' diamond ring for yourself? After all, you deserve it. You worked hard.

You could also not do that, too. You could choose to say FUCK OFF to those bullshit rules. Just fucking flail your informed ass all the way upstream until you reach the mouth, and then punch it. I'll be there too, with all the other decent fucking human beings who call themselves feminists.

Footnote about my use of the word feminist:

I know, I know. It's a dirty word. You're embarrassed to say it. I use it because it's a simple way to say that I want to smash the patriarchy like a piece of Woodland Culture pottery. And to say that I'm a reasonable fucking human being who thinks that all human beings should have a voice in the way their lives exist. I kinda am over the whole f-word debate thing. We've talked about it a million times. So as long as you agree with me that human life is an important thing, and that the pursuit of happiness is out of reach of a lot of fucking people because of unrealistic, hegemonic ideals constructed by the privileged few, we're good. (Except we're not really good, because, you know, the whole oppression thing, but yeah, figure of speech.)

It's a little problematic because I feel kinda guilty about identifying as a feminist. (Here I go having the f-word debate just when I finished telling you I'm over it. Classic me.) My idea of feminism somehow magically illustrates an animated movement of the oppressed, no, The Oppressed, the many, people pressing forward together without any regard to race, gender, class, age, sexuality. Because honestly, that's what a movement to combat immense power, wealth and violence requires. But, damn, what the hell was going on during the first wave? Women had all their necessities taken care of. Nothing to worry about. You're covered. Well, white women did, anyway. Black women were busy picking fucking cotton and watching their children be sold. It was illegal for black women to read, so what the fuck did they have to say about a ballot?

Second wave, too, for that matter. White women got bored with being housewives and taking amphetamines, and decided to get out the house and work, for equal pay too. And black women didn't really have a goddamn choice. They had been out the house working for free, basically, for a long ass time already.

This is such a fucked up racist society that it makes me sad, sick, angry and hot, but not in the sexy way, it's more like when you feel raw emotion and for a half second you're afraid your chest might explode or you'll burst into tears and snot will fly everywhere uncontrollably and you'll sob and sob until you look up and it's dark and you're lost. I'm frustrated by this chicken/egg scenario (sorry for the cliche) about human rights and civil rights and women's rights... They're the same, really, right? Combating oppression against women contributes positively to the larger struggle. Because women are crucial cultural gatekeepers, women raise children and teach dogmas and reinforce paradigms, and women are half the fucking population, women must be united regardless of race. Civil rights ARE human rights.

Wow, I feel so empowered! And a little guilty for calling myself a feminist now that I've worked that whole white guilt thing out, but still. Empowered! After all, I'm a reasonable fucking human being who thinks that all human beings should have a voice in the way their lives exist.

Adventures with Marxist Boyfriend, Part I

MB: Yo wanna get coffee before we head to the airport?

Catwoman: Sure, I have this starbucks gift card.

MB: *scowl* Starbucks supports Israel.

Catwoman: Shoot. Let's go to the locally-owned fair trade organic place instead.

MB: No it's fine, it's not like using your gift card will make any impact on their annual profits anyway.

Catwoman: k.

Dirt bag

I am the girl with the dark eyes and long black hair that's soft and curly and neat. I am the badass ninja girl with tattoos and knee high black boots. I am the cute pink-cheek girl with the flower headband and sweetheart neckline. I am the intellectual girl who has read the classics and can talk about things like objectivity and subjectivity and Ayn Rand. I am the super nerd girl with wire-rim frames who can kick your ass in anything Nintendo. I am the girl with the shaved head. I am the short girl who needs help getting sugar from the top shelf. I am the bitch who will tell you your hair looks fugly and don't ever talk to me again. I am the blonde girl at the mall with the short skirt. I am the bartender with the french cuffs and ratty blue jeans who has the answers to all your problems. I am the girl who flirts with you when your girlfriend leaves the room. I am the girl who puts out on the first date. I am the insomniac girl who is good at Scrabble and has a pen pal in Ireland. I am the girl whose belly you stare at when she lifts up her arms to fix her hair. I am the girl on whose number you pause when you scroll through your address book.

xoxo

pem

Musket

I had a dream and it was all shades of gray. There was an assembly line and there were whirring noises and the belt was tattered and the edges frayed. A man with a tattoo had his cuffs rolled up and hanging from his dry cracked lip was a flaccid cigarette that was stuck there by a bit of moisture. His tongue sounded like sandpaper and his fingernails were dirty and cracked and there were bits of cuticle in pretty little curls at the end of each finger and it looked painful but I kept looking. He stared at me sideways and pretty soon his eyes were in his temples like a human in utero but I didn't look at his face, I just stared at the grooves where the filth accumulated in his thick fingernails.

His sandpaper tongue moved past the opening of his mouth and back in again like a robot. the deep valleys in his face collected sweat that collected dust and his nostrils flared up. pretty soon his neck got tired like an old toy that was played with too hard and synapses started to misfire and he drooped down a little more each time the belt brought a new hunk of metal and wire.

Then a cartoon whistle exhaled some steam with such force that the whole room bellowed up and everyone collapsed, but the belt kept whirring and machines were clanking and parts of car were piling up and overflowing out of sagging cardboard boxes. A girl in a dirty dress sat crumpled up in the corner and then a stampede of rats flurried over her and then she was gone, like in the jungle.

This is disturbing. I thought about it and decided that my corporate job is the soft core version of Fordism because it's easy and streamlined and every day is a cookie cutter and you actually think hey this isn't half bad and you get fooled into believing it. A sugar cookie that somebody's grandma's hands set gingerly on a cookie sheet and slid into the oven and frosted perfectly with a gob of pink buttercream balanced on the end of an angled spatula. Then we all fucking binged and touched our fingers to the backs of our throats and called it Christmas, because you could still see the deep red dragées and the pastel sparkles and the yellow nonpareils, all swimming in glittering swirls of diet coke and pink buttercream, except now you're not sure about all of this because are those deep red dragées and the yellow nonpareils food coloring or blood and bile?

Fucking capitalism.

Because it wouldn't be a drunk blog without drunk.

tomorrow I have to wake up, put on the pants and the little socks and flatten my hair, and paint my face with a cacophony of noxious chemicals. then I drive in the Big Car and arrive at the Big Building where I scurry in to sit at a cube. I stare at a screen and then come home to stare at a screen some more. lather. rinse. repeat.

WTF! What the hell is this. I work enough to sustain myself to continue working the next day. what the fuck happened to my LIFE and fucking FREE TIME. oh right. my life pretty much exists so i can go to work and come home from work and go to work. this is fucking wrong and i know im lucky and other people are way worse off. but in the meantime we are all so brainwashed by tv and by the mall and by commercials that nobody knows which end is up and dont think you are exempt. seriously get ready for a big ass garage sale cuz im selling all this shit and moving to the third world. it's like 3d but dirtier and you might get kidnapped and you get to be the one white person who saves the brown women from sex work or child labor or domestic abuse.

this is what im saying. the fucking revolution is near tipping point and capitalism is pert near critical mass. come on guys! momentum! this shit is happening now and it's going to be written in the history books of our children and you can say YOU WERE THERE

i'm way too overwhelmed by environmental side effects of consumerism to even write a first sentence of an introductory paragraph about it. i cant even believe people still use plastic baggies WTF PEOPLE YOU KNOW BETTER come on.

whatever. im just gonna go throw away AN ENTIRE BOX of plastic baggies just to spite you.

honestly though its not like one dude using a plastic baggie for his fucking sandwich that he eats on his lunch break while working at the PLASTIC FACTORY makes any speck of difference. 

And please listen to kreayshawn and lil wayne, even though he is sexist as hell; you're welcome.

Views from my bedroom window

1. I was 12 years old and my room was perfectly square and my bed was perfectly aligned on the south wall so my body would be directly under the perfectly square window with the dirty screen. It was fucking hot and I needed to be as close to the fresh air as possible to temper my suffering through an infestation of lady bugs and humidity.

There was absolutely no wind the night the horse got out so I could hear the gravel in the driveway crunching under his heavy hooves. That's the sound that roused me from sleep and caused me to shoot up out of bed and run into my Mom and Dad's room to share the Important News.

He was just having some driveway weeds and grass for a midnight snack. I knew he'd bolt as soon as he saw us coming to rally him back into his pen, so the Metcalf family had to have a strategic plan of action. It felt special and secretive and cunning, sitting around the table under a dim light while we schemed about how to get the horse back in a delicate manner.

2. Three years ago my bedroom window looked out to the neighbor's brick wall just a few feet away but separated by a deep ugly trench that had fallen prey to rain storms and College Ghetto trash: a broken lawn chair, someone's sock, a soggy empty case of beer. The porch to the left must have been no bigger than about four square feet, but somehow all three neighbor boys managed to fit on it at once.

They usually went on their "porch" to smoke cigarettes and either simultaneously call home or laugh about something apparently hilarious consistently at 3:00 a.m. The smoke would waft into my room where its bony claw crept around and through my nostrils and into my lungs, poisoning me while I slept.

3. The next window overlooked a grassy courtyard bound by an uneven sidewalk and hedges too nicely pruned for the neighborhood which was comprised mainly of bro dudes. In the backyard was a hidden gem where someone spent a lot of time manicuring a tidy and lush flower garden. The grass grew long in some corners and it smelled like wet wood and dirt.

I don't really have any real memories of that window though. What I do have is a wince and a belly twinge when I think about how long I stared out that window waiting for him to innocently come home from work while I sat there with my hand on my face and pushed myself further and further into denial about what I knew was happening to me.

4. Now my bedroom window is made of new clean plastic and it has two locks on the top. I push the levers closed when I leave for the weekend and sometimes in the morning before I go to work. The neighbors tilled a strip of ground that happens to be in the direct center of my view out the window, and they took a long thin branch and stuck it smack dab in the middle of the plot.

The next day, I looked out my bedroom window to see that the plot was penned in by tall chicken wire.

The plot quickly became completely overwhelmed with weeds.

Things I have learned

1. Drinking is fun but you HAVE TO remember to brush your teeth before you pass out

2. Guys are fucking dense

3. Argan oil = life oil

4. Sephora addiction = credit card bills

5. Veganism is the way to fucking go in terms of cellulite problems (blaming it on your thyroid is a sad fucking excuse; you're fat because you're lazy)

6. No one likes going to work

7. Make out while you still can

8. Learn some outdoor survival skills including how to pee in the woods so you can go hiking by your lonesome because you don't have a boyfriend to go with you.

9. The art of manliness is a joke except when dudes are sexy and being all masculine and stuff

10. Weird dudes are either prolific or extremely self-confident at asking girls out

11. K-pop is the new black (t.o.p. yes please)

12. Go to south america and help poor brown children and get an amazing tan (i know)

13. Get the fuck over it

14. embrace top 40 cuz you're just going to end up liking it ironically in 10 years (thank you AW)

15. Realize that you are vain and shallow, then move on

16. vicarious = word of the day

17. Mazo beach... who will come with me? Please? Just for an hour?

18. Before Mazo beach or ANY beach you need to lose like 20 lbs. Just sayin'.

19. Best friends are fucking timeless even if you haven't seen each other since 1998

20. I need to move to denver like soon

21. Play it fucking loud


Call me!

xoxo

PEM

New math

I just got called a cunt for real for the first time in my life

I'm not sure how I feel

about that


p.s. prior to being called a cunt i got yelled at for playing dubstep too loud

wtf is this

fucking rapture

i'm a grown up adult woman lady and can listen to loud dubstep if i fucking want to

p.p.s. I should probably do laundry tomorrow by myself....fucking depressing

everyone else does laundry with their stupid boyfriends

god

Thank you

OMFG YES

Tags: Teen Mom (Season 3), MTV Shows

What gym membership?