Rather have AIDS

How I really feel about kids:

Best History EVAR

For your enjoyment, the best history lesson EVAR:

Julie D’Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and bang a nun.

Ehmagerd, puppeh!

We (my roommates) rescued a dog that some people in the neighborhood were just going to set loose. It was a snap decision, "Just give us the freaking dog; we can put him in the backyard until we can take him to a shelter."

But then we fell in love. And the typically allergic roommate didn't have a reaction. The dog was quiet and well-behaved, if a bit too jumpy and nippy and in possession of un-filed raptor claws. He rarely barked and never reacted to the adjacent neighbors' ape-shit dogs who bark incessantly.

So we (my roommate) took him to the vet yesterday to get him checked out. He's about 6 months old and pretty healthy except for hookworms, which takes a three-day prescription. He was abused by previous owners but is young enough that we can love him to pieces all better.

He was very nervous Sunday when we first brought him inside and stood ready to go back out for several seconds before cautiously and unenthusiastically sniffing around the living room at our encouragement. He delighted only in finding a cat toy to nom. But when I got home last night, I saw a HUGE difference in how relaxed and well-adjusted he was after spending the day at home with the roommate. That made me happiest of all.

Roommate wanted to call him Pax, like peace, but his wife called him Paxil, like the antidepressant, and that was that. He's a pit mix and very sweet and mellow, as eager puppies in a loving new home go, but the vet was happy to declare him boxer/collie so that our landlord will allow it.

Auntie Moniqa gets to start taking him for morning walks. :)

Music is Awesome

And how have you survived all this time without these artists in your life?

Oh. the things I would do to this man . . .

And suddenly I'm not sick of this song anymore.

One life is enough

There is no blackboard in the sky on which God has written your purpose, your mission in life. There's no blackboard in the sky that says, Neil Donald Walsch... handsome guy... who lived in the first part of the twenty-first century who, colon... and then there's a blank, you know. And all I have to do to really understand what I'm doing here, why I'm here, is to find that blackboard and find out what God really has in mind for me. But the blackboard doesn't exist. 

So your purpose is what you say it is. 

Your mission is the mission you give yourself. 

Your life will be what you create it as, and no-one will stand in judgement of it, now or ever. - Neale Donald Walsch

Even when I did believe, faith was never what gave my life meaning. Life is about making it meaningful for yourself. Even when I did believe, I was a skeptic and couldn’t be certain I would get into Heaven, or that there was an afterlife at all, so it made little sense to shun worldly pleasures for a life of austere piety, gambling everything on a promise of a reward someday in eternity, easily 60, 70 years away. And, really, why would God give us this precious gift of life and expect us not to make the most of it? Perhaps I’ve always been a hedonist.

So here I find myself, an agnostic atheist. I can acknowledge that It’s entirely possible God does exist, but I just don’t care because it obviously doesn’t care about me or this planet, and I’m definitely not going to believe in an almighty creator petty enough to require the worship and adoration of its creation.

I can honestly say I’m not afraid of death. (Pain and suffering are another matter entirely.) I’ve lived a damn cool life: traveled the world, fallen in love, enjoyed fabulous food, swum with sharks, finished a half marathon, created art and learned many things. Sure, there’s more awesome stuff I’d like to see and do, but this life really is good enough. It’s unfortunate that people who care for me will miss me, but I’ll be dead so I can’t really care. Living forever doesn’t appeal to me.

"Do you believe in immortality? No, and one life is enough for me." -Einstein

Roger Ebert voices my feelings best:

“Kindness” covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

And Shel Silverstein:

“Draw a crazy picture,

Write a nutty poem,

Sing a mumble-gumble song,

Whistle through your comb.

Do a loony-goony dance

'Cross the kitchen floor,

Put something silly in the world

That ain't been there before.”

I’ve made some people happy and made some people think. And that is definitely enough. I’ve seen beautiful sights and that is a bonus, more than most can hope for.

Boston

I was surprised how close Monday's events struck home for me, since I have no ties to Boston, and I don't think I've even ever been there. But as a runner, the attack on MY community hurt me deeply, and I cried most of the long drive home.

Blogger Elyse Anders expressed my feelings best in her post here.

"But the scar. The trust that the finish line will be a place of glory and celebration, that’s marred. The finish line is now a place where our brothers and sisters and allies were brutally attacked. That scar… that’s not going away. 

I’m still crying. I don’t know when I’ll be able to stop."

Real Beauty isn't just for Pretty, White Women

Dove's Real Beauty Sketches is a touching project about dispelling individual beliefs in perceived appearance flaws.

It is an example of how the impossible media ideal of beauty affects everyone. As much as I like this idea, I couldn't get over the use of predominantly white, conventionally attractive women in the video (and neither could this writer who goes further in-depth on the issue). Sure, it's easy for strangers to describe pretty, white women as pretty, white women; big surprise. And I get that everyone has issues, and that these women's issues are real, but they (we/I) have SO much privilege in this arena. 

Without some old ladies and fat ladies and disabled ladies and ethnically diverse ladies, it comes across as insincere to me. (I’ve only watched the first video in the series.)

Related: I'm trying and failing to formulate a cohesive thought regarding the value of sincere compliments versus the rage-inducing nature of intentional external validation (especially from men). But Alexandra says it better:

"Dove’s version of beauty, however, is more than skin-deep…but not necessarily in a good way. In addition to confirming that ladies should want certain physical traits like “nice thin jaws,” the video also promotes what I’ll call the One Direction Theory of Unknown Beauty (ODTUB). As those little boys sing, “You don’t know you’re beautiful, oh oh, that’s what makes you beautiful.” Part of the allure of the Dove women, similarly, is that they’re unaware of their loveliness: dressed to attract little attention, they don’t tell the artist about their beautiful eyes. As he sketches them, they are the very picture of feminine humility and thus, according to the ODTUB, feminine beauty."

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We all need a broader definition of beauty to help us love ourselves and each other in order to live and thrive.

Leonard Nimoy (yes) shot a beautiful, joyful, inspirational photo essay of a full-figured burlesque troupe.

Adipositivity Project (NSFW)

The BMI project

Fit Fatties photos