Jezebel has an interview with Feministing.com's Jessica Valenti on her new book, The Purity Myth. It's fascinating, but I particularly like this bit:

JESSICA: Well I think the biggest difference is that the virginity movement denounces the sexualization of young women and girls, but fights back against it with more sexualization. After all, how is it not focusing on young women's sexuality by talking constantly about their virginity or bringing them to purity balls? If you are telling young women over and over that what's most important is their virginity, that what makes them valuable is their chastity – then you're sending the message that it's the body and sexuality that defines who they are.

With the consumer goods, I found it so, so telling that that abstinence educators and purity pushers would rail against sex, female sexuality in particular, and then sell "Virgins are hot" t-shirts! It's just too funny. Of course, folks could argue that third wave feminism does something similar in its adopting pin-up sexuality, etc, but the big difference of course is that with feminists we're choosing what kind of sexuality we'd like to put out there; with the virginity movement it's adults (and a lot of men) deciding what appropriate sexuality is for younger women. It's anyone and everyone except young women themselves defining young women's sexuality.
 

My site is really up! I work here http://mediamattersaction.org/ and I wrote this and this and some other stuff. So I am now technically a paid blogger I think? Also a research/writer. Also - exhausted. And looking forward to the weekend.

 

Crimeny. Suddenly life has no minutes. OK. I've worked the job, the gym, food and 7 hrs of a sleep a night into the daily routine.

Still to be worked in:
- WRITING - have awesome idea I really want to develop
- Reading - have wonderful books to finish
- STUDYING FOR GRE's - this is really not optional

aaaaaaaargh must get these things worked iiiiiiiiin

I've swung from what feels like the highest highs to the lowest lows on women's issues recently. Ruth Bader Ginsburg inspires me and makes me so damn proud of my gender, and then I read about how in Saudi Arabia a judge upheld a 47 yr old man's right to marry an 8 yr old girl, over the protests of the girl's mother, in exchange for knocking off $8000 from the debt the girl's father owed him. And then I think, fuck. We're all doomed.

That man sold his 8 yr old daughter for $8000.

I try to think about how that feels, and I can't even let myself get to a place that sick and twisted. I guess in a weird way this inspires me too - we are tough fucking bitches if you can pull this shit all over the world and any of us have survived it. I'm not that strong, but it's nice to know someone is.

In writing news, this:

In a small cape house down the road from Nantasket beach live three little old ladies known as The Aunties. Though they are old now, stooped with the passage of time and the simple tragedies that inevitably accompany long life, the girl driving up the road sees six of them on the porch; three old ladies and their younger selves sitting there, knitting and playing bridge.

The house is ever cool, top and bottom; there never seems to be any heat to rise. Years ago their nephews built a modern upper deck, but the rest of the house has remained unchanged since they purchased it over half a century ago. A large wrap-around porch overlooks the garden in the back. The small living room has the sterile formality they took as a keepsake from their childhood home, with porcelain figures lining the fireplace, crystal and gold candy bowls full of the same peppermints they put in them decades ago, velvet fabrics in muted reds, oranges and creams on the chairs and the single couch, from which the plastic was only recently removed, at the girl's insistence.

I am highly recommending that everyone go here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-gregory/naacp-national-chairman-j_b_178283.html?view=print and watch National NAACP Chairman Julian Bond give truly one of the best, most enjoyable speeches I have ever seen on any subject, but particularly on gay rights and gay marriage, which is the topic at hand. He's funny, sincere, forthright, speaks from decades of human experience, and comes to his conclusions and thoughts from an interesting place as an African-American civil rights leader and a member of the African-American church. If you can't watch all 25 minutes - and they go quick - skip to the 15 minute mark and just. wait for it. it's awesome.

Mild two days (thanks universe) with Eric out and David's assistant coming back tomorrow, so things have eased up a bit. Actually got back to the gym last night so I have the good kind of muscle pain. Being good about sleeping and, given the epic debauchery of last weekend, have been planning ahead for movies for Stipps and I since we are resoundingly Not Going Anywhere. I have visits planned, and people are coming to visit me! And it wants so badly to be nice out. It's trying. I've put the dark clothes away and switched to spring colors to encourage it but I still need cardigans all the time.

For me, the ultimate quality-of-life improvement is a whole freaking season of SPN at my fingertips. This is because I make enough money, I have plenty to eat, I generally get enough sleep and I have a gym membership - that's pretty much a perfect life for me. But a whole season of SPN, all new and shiny and, weirdly, winged? Half of which I get to watch on my giant TV and fast-forward through the commercials because I DVR'd them? That is whip cream on the sundae (I don't like fake cherries). It's granola on the fruit and yogurt. It's raspberries AND blackberries in my fruit and yogurt, even though they're expensive.

Yeah, I know, the dreams of a single assistant. Whatever. At any rate, it's a beautiful thing. And season 4 is promising to be amazing - I love this show.

I have figured out the trick, for now. These tricks have to be adjusted to the circumstances frequently, but the For Now Trick is, if I am home from work and the gym by 10, I get two hours. Watch an hour of TV, and then read for an hour. Then, even though only 2 hours of my day belong to me, it feels like a lot more. Sad? Maybe, but it's WORKING, For Now. So last night was nice. /trickytricky

Danno moves in TODAY and stays FOREVER, and tomorrow we're going to paint AdMo new shades of red in celebration. Vive called the other day to let me know she got an internship at NPR so she'll be here all summer. I might put my car back on the road so Stipps and I can do a TRULY epic road trip - all the way to Indiana and then back up to NH for 4th of July weekend. Marc's calling it "The Summer of Soli" and I do feel really lucky. So many people to foist alcohol and late nights and warm coffee-drinking afternoons upon.

In other weird things on my mind, I sometimes feel like a boy. I don't mean that in a gender-stereotyped way. I mean that I am sometimes, legitimately, surprised to find I'm a girl. It surprises me when I look at pictures. And I'm often astonished that men who are attracted to women are attracted to me - I feel like I LOOK like a boy. I realize this must not be true, but I feel like a boy. That's - how I feel. Now, I love being a woman, I love my body, I wouldn't trade it - but I feel I would have been every bit as happy to have born the other gender. I think I'd be more insecure as a guy; in my infrequent lesbian encounters I am very much "the guy", and I find myself endlessly awkward, fumbling, adolescent. I have always wanted to shave my head. Not "want" actually so much as "been inclined to". And I am well aware it would look atrocious. I am not one of those blessed women with the face to pull it off, and it would be very butch. I have just always felt like it's something I might do someday. But I'm every bit as happy playing with my hair long right now - what gives, genetic tendencies?

We are just so fucking lucky we live in America. We really, really are. Case in point:

http://jezebel.com/5167956/brazilian-abortion-case-continues-to-cause-controversy

A 9 year old girl was raped by her stepfather for years. Just - disgusting. I can't even imagine. I don't want to. Then she got pregnant with twins. Even though abortions are illegal in Brazil, a legal exception can be made for the health of the mother, which it was. So this poor little kid then has to undergo an abortion. When it was over, the Catholic church excommunicated everyone involved - her mother and the entire medical team. They did NOT excommunicate the FUCKING BASTARD WHO RAPED HER.

Quote: "A graver act than (rape) is abortion, to eliminate an innocent life." Because RAPE doesn't END AN INNOCENT LIFE.

I hope that bastard rots in hell. I really mean that.

The coverage has focused mainly on the Church's role, and I understand why. Their statements and actions have been despicable. But I kept thinking about this other point - that a legal case had to be made so this girl, this little kid, could have an abortion. If something so sick and awful were to happen here, it would be a private matter between the family and the doctor. This mother and her daughter would live with this forever, and if they were very unlucky it might make the news when the stepfather was prosecuted, but a modicum of privacy would be allowed for in regards to the medical procedure. And this family wasn't allowed that. That mother and that little girl had to get up in front a judge and JUSTIFY and ASK for that abortion. And that kills me on the inside. I can't imagine anything more awful.

On Gay Rights:

The Academy Awards were downright good last night in a way I don't ever remember them being. No speeches that were cringey-embarassing in a squirm-in-your-seat way, awesome opening number, a lot of very light, entertaining, and occasionally moving moments. But the big one was the bookend of Dustin Lance Black's early award for Best Original Screenplay for Milk, and Sean Penn's end of the night Best Actor award for the same. Black was sincere, beautiful, and mildly heartbreaking as he spoke of his living parents leaving their Mormon community because he was gay, and told gay and lesbian youth everywhere, "God loves you."

I'm actually about to cry as I write that.

And it was a fiercely, unapologetically political speech, centered on how he dreamed of the right to marry and he believe the government will one day recognize that right. He's a baby - I doubt he's older than I am - and his was the perfect reflection of our generation's struggle with so many implications of social judgments, from your church to your town hall. It was perfect, and Stipps and I will now watch every movie he ever writes, amen.

Then Sean Penn called everyone homo-loving commie sons of guns, which was indescribably awesome, and endearingly admitted that he makes it difficult to appreciate him, often. And then he brought it back around, by coming to the same topic as Black but from the direction of a straight man, and told everyone standing outside protesting the gays that their shame will leave their grandchildren unable to look them in the eye.

aFUCKINGmen

On the Economy:

Um, it does not look good. Current projections are, ultimately, 10% unemployment. That's a horrifying, overwhelming number; it means 1 out of every 10 people will be unable to find work. Really not good. Great time to go back to school though. Seriously. Ride out this depression (using the deeeeeee word) within the ivory tower of academia while the interest rates are low. I was actually somewhat relieved to hear they think the worst of it will be 2009 with slow improvement starting in 2010, but I'm still prepared for 5 bad years. Honestly I would be thrilled if things started to improve as soon as 2010. Boston is getting hit hard.

What with Everyone Worth Knowing being in DC this weekend (except you people who weren't there - you were both Not There and Worth Knowing, way to throw off the curve) here is the Worth Seeing tally:

- Kevin Neillon at the Mayflower
- Jamie Lee Curtis at the Willard (STUNNING, ps)
- The girl who plays the daughter, Karen, on Dirty Sexy Money
- The woman who played one of Sabrina's aunts on Sabrina the Teenage Witch (very nice, I think a lesbian, hot tattoo on shoulder)
- Arianna Huffington
- Paul Begala - saw him speak at MMFA event
- Senator-elect Al Franken - saw him speak at MMFA event
- Congressman Barney Frank, who understandably did NOT remember me. seemed to prefer Marc, not surprisingly.

Miles walked over Inauguration Day: 17 (DC, ps, not even 17 miles wide)
Miles walked over 4 days my city was brought to it's knees by tourists: oh god, many
Money spent on cabs: oh god, a lot

I am just so. so tired. I am looking forward to next Wednesday. That is when Inauguration will be over. All of this will be over. All of these people will leave. I will read the emails I have been ignoring, clean the desk now piled high with paperwork, maybe even look back fondly. Right now I'm just tired.

Went to the Mayflower last night (best known as the posh DC locale where Eliot Spitzer had his publicly-financed liasons with four whore-diamond call girl "Kristy") to split a bottle of wine with Stipps and had my first ever real celebrity citing! This guy:



He is on Weeds, which I love, and used to be on SNL. I waved at him and he waved back. Possibly he thought we were prostitutes? Whatever. Good wine list.

For better or worse, I was largely without internet access over my two-week break. I composed the occasional entry in my head, but like the shirt you don't buy and go back to look at later, most of them lose the importance that urgency bestowed upon them with a little distance. I only posted once in December, and I would like to get it all on paper - or electronic medium, as it were - more often, if only for myself. Who was it who said, "Diaries are letters we write to ourselves", or something like that?

I've always loved new beginnings and things that neatly symbolize them - New Year's Eve, birthdays - but 2008 was just a lot to take in. Really, really a lot. And I'm in the middle of so many things that have only just gotten started, it seemed far too early to celebrate. I just wanted to retreat, and I did, and it was lovely. Usually I retreat to think, but this year the whole point was to avoid contemplation, and the obligatory thought-provoking questions of the holiday (what was your greatest accomplishment of 2008? etc. oh god, really, even the thought of that question is still giving me hives) which I'm sure next year I will once again enjoy, and for which I hope to have optimistic and witty responses.

Someday I might want to write a book about Buffalo, New York. Someday I would like to set a novel in New Hampshire in January. Probably a murder mystery. I read a book over break, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, that I spent the whole first 800 pages thinking was a book about magicians and then at the very last page it turned out to have been a love story all along. I read a book called Sunshine about vampires and cinnamon buns that should have a million sequels for me to devour but doesn't - a curious lot of that has been happening lately, don't know if I'm annoyed. Stipps read the four-book Twilight series in five days. The books aren't short by any stretch of the imagination but they're candy-ish. I saved a lot of entertaining text messages on the subject which I will not include here because of spoilers, but there was a lot "Girl!!!!!!!" and "Seriously???!~!!!!!"

I contemplated the subject of motherhood A LOT and came to, for the time being, several conclusions for myself. Just because you would be a good mother doesn't mean you should be one. Adoring children doesn't mean you're meant to have them even if you're physically capable. You can be a mother, or you can be ANYTHING ELSE, but you can't really mix the two. If you do, you gyp the kids.

Again, these are conclusions for me, not other people; please don't derive judgments from them. Although people were judged in the making of these conclusions. But not you.

My first vacation home since April starts FRIDAY, and it promises to be epic. Agenda below.

Friday
Drive to Long Island to stay at the vineyard with Meryl, which I haven't gotten to do yet and am super excited about.

Saturday
Long Island and wine.

Sunday
Get up and drive to Western Mass.

Monday
Western Mass type things. Jessu? Wanna grab dinner and let me meet the new puppy? Drink? etc?

Tuesday
See Monday

Wednesday
Drive over to Eastern Mass, go do my Salem shopping. Wednesday night - takers? Will? Movie?

Thursday
Family and food

Friday
Takers?

Saturday
Family

Sunday
Drive back and unpack my whole life, fun, new apartment, shoot me.

And then it's just three weeks until I get to come back again. I think I can live with this.

OK. Today - NOT THE ELECTION THE ELECTION IS A WIN DEAR GOD I FERVENTLY HOPE - but the day itself is a loss. I'm just hitting refresh on fivethirtyeight (for the reassurance), Perez (he' s watching Prop 8), Wonkette and CNN. Also running around putting together our election night party, sending interns for booze etc. Looking at my pretty pretty roses. In a tshirt and jeans, not so much getting work done or focusing on anything. As interesting things happen today I will update this entry.

I voted this morning - hour and a half wait, amazing, so many people. Bridget and Ben took Nadia with them - baby's first vote! Her fairy godmother is super proud.


GO VOTE

OMG do eeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

Update 4:12 pm
We have more beer and liquor for my office election party than I have ever seen in my life. Oh, and wine. And champagne. Oy. I am taking pictures. Also collecting pictures of people with their "I voted" stickers - Carly sent one to my phone with it on her forehead, she wins.

The interns have taken Mandy's truck to get ice, God help us all.

Update 8:17 pm
Hitting refresh on fivethirtyeight like it's my job. Jesus. Fuck. yay Pennsylvania, FUCK YOU INDIANA,  omfg go NH!!!! go Kels!!!! Georgia was my dark horse in the race and with 0% reporting this shit does not look good.

Update 9:08 pm
"Why is the word booze not programmed into my phone??!! Oh wait. There it is." - Stipps

They called Ohio for Obama and then THEY TOOK IT BACK. Bitches!!!!!! can they DO that??!!! Apparently, yes. Bullshit I call bullshit. We lost Georgia - ok whatevz - but Virginia??!! Really?? If we lose VA it will KILL me. Seriously. I worked that shit. I need us to take VA.

Update 10:05 pm
Chris Shayes just conceeded in Connecticut. There are no more Republican Reps in New England

Update - many hours, many glasses of wine, many tears and much dancing in the streets later
Yes, we can.

Zak had two-dozen Hello, Cupcake cupcakes delivered to me at work this morning. The cupcake lady asked me not to cry. I cried.

This morning I have had two cupcakes, a cigarette and some coffee.

It's really happening tomorrow and I can't breathe.

I also have a dozen fucking cider donuts good lord I am going to be so fat and sugary.

Edit: OH MY GOD HE ALSO SENT ME ROSES. One dozen. They are PINK. They are gorgeous. Everyone is jealous. I got two dozen cupcakes and a dozen roses what am I going to tell people is going on here!@!!!!!!!

For Meryl! An Ode on This, the Day of Her Birth

Oh! Meryl of Sunshine and Light
of Glorious Laughter and Delicious Dishes.
What could I write of your beauty, your
ways?
This, the Ode
probably there are rules.
Will would know them.

What could I write of your
Many Talents? Your
Joyous Giggles and your Nonsensical Impulses -
remember the time you babbled about the squirrel because you went biking with Jaime and got a runner's high?

I could write Volumes on your Saucy Skills, and the
Sauce, which you make so well.
Better than others, for
how it does get one Drunk, and yet taste of Sweetest Nectar.

Meryl May, you are a woman of Surpassing Beauty and
Lasting Grace, a woman whom
the Godesses themselves are Pleased to call Their Own.

And you are loved.




Happy Birthday, Happy Halloween, xoxoxoxox

Dearest Friends,

This Yom Kippur, like this year, has been rushed, but today is slow and easy the way days sometimes are - probably mostly because the hunger is blocking out any work-related annoyances.

You all mean the world to me. You are my family and you are my life. I am sorry I have been so hurried this year. I am sorry I have not called more. I am sorry if I ever made you feel you were anything less than incredibly important to me. I think of you every day. Please forgive me - I will try harder next year.

All my love,
Kaitlyn

Last week a co-worker sent around an invite for free tickets to the Children's Defense Fund's 35th Anniversary Gala, so I scored two for me and Stipps. We got all gussied up in our little cocktail dressed and throws (Rei, I wore the purple silk one you got me from Thailand - big hit :)), hopped in the car and went. It was at the Kennedy Center, I'd never been there before and it was amazing, so beautiful and overwhelming. So we get there and I hand the lady our tickets and I start to head to the nosebleeds but no we're not going up we're going... down. down. down. and then she shows us our seats. We were third row orchestra on the left, about 5 feet from the stage and about 10 from the podium. Awesome. So we saw George Stephanopolis and his wife speak, Holly Robinson Peete, Susan Taylor, who was editor of Essence magazine for about 15 years, and in between every speaker they had kids performing, including Peng Peng Gong, an 11 year old piano prodigy, and Sweet Honey in the Rock did two songs from their new kid's album. It was so cool. And then I looked backstage and almost choked.

"Stipps! Stipps!!!!"
"What?"
"Pantsuit!!!!"

And there, backstage, was freaking Hillary Clinton pacing around in a red pantsuit. I died. She was the surprise guest and I was 10 feet from the podium, watching her speak for the first time. She was warm and funny, it was great. And the Children's Defense Fund actually started as a census data collecting project in Cambridge Mass, go figure, so that was cool. She said, "I told Marianne (Marianne Edelstein founded CDF 35 years ago, kick-ass woman) that I wanted her to give me a job. And she gave a very Marianne answer. She said, well of course you can have a job, but I cannot pay you." The last performance was the Katrina Children's Gospel Choir, made up of kids who were displaced by Hurrican Katrina, and they were great.

So all in all, pretty spectacular evening. I was like, Stipps, you know those times it doesn't suck to be us? Tonight is those times.

I got SPN Season 3, first disc, in the mail last week. I miss SPN and I look forward to having it once again as a major part of my life.

Perfect city Sunday. Slept in late and walked up to AdMo to read at Tryst and sample Brody's chili at the chili cook-off at Grand Central - it turns out the three judges were Media Matters people (all of them from Texas. we call them the Texas mafia. they are staging a totally unsubtle take-over, it's alarming). Brody was disgruntled that I couldn't have shown up sooner and rigged put in a good word for him, but his team got first runner-up anyway and their chili was spectacular (team name: Wok of Shame, and now you know everything you need to know about Brody).

I've been trying to explain to my boss why I'm a football fan, why football is totally worth obsessing over, what it means to love football, and I fear I've failed to convey the passion, but today the city answered the question for me, as it sometimes does when the karma's good and the weather's right. I stopped and Dunkin Donuts on my way uptown and the same guy was there who's there every day, high out of his mind as usual. He and a co-worker were rigging up a tiny TV, twisting cables, cutting wires, standing on their left legs whilst doing jumping jacks and facing the rising sun etc. Every now and then they would find the right spot and the familiar sounds of a football announcer would come blaring through and they looked utterly triumphant. When they finally found decent reception the screen was in black and white and fuzzy, but the sound was clear and the picture was - well, it had a picture. Everyone who wandered in stopped for at least a few minutes to watch the game, and a couple of people pulled up chairs. And sitting there, in a city that is in many ways a microcosm of my country's worst problems, of the barely suppressed racial tensions and the growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots, of the undue influence of those with money and the increasing anger and powerlessness of those without, everyone in that place was friends. It didn't matter that the men were black and poor and getting paid less than I did to work harder, didn't matter that I was 23 and they were between 40 and 50, didn't matter that the women and men who stopped to watch and chat with us were hispanic, or white soccer moms, or black professionals - no one could have cared less.

Sunday football is the great equalizer. A bigger or better TV doesn't give you any more influence on the outcome of that game than an ancient fuzzy set in a basement Dunkin Donuts. The draft keeps everything on an even keel; every season is surprising. I got to watch the Pats dominate for years, and now the Bills are 4-0, and I don't care; we'll be back on top. All football fans are created equal. Money won't help your team win or lose. But money will buy you a few hours of a candidate's time, allow you to talk policy and bend their ear in a way that broke kid in Dunkin Donuts will never have the privilege of doing. And yeah, in the end, everybody gets one vote, and there's something to be said for that, but the inevitable disappointment goes one of two ways. Maybe your candidate loses and you're devastated, thinking all that work had no impact, and now the country's going to go to shit. And maybe your candidate WINS, and the economy still goes down the tubes, and you still lose your job and end up on welfare, and you know your vote counted, but it didn't matter. Football will never let you down that way. Football is a break, not an investment in your future, and every Sunday it's a break you share with half the country.

I was reading one of the magazines I like and I'm wondering how you get an article published that way. Do you need to know someone? I'm going to look into it. I have a few ideas shooting around I want to try.

I'm not ready to contemplate the sheer volume of tequila that needs to be consumed tomorrow night in order to get through the Palin/Biden debate with my soul intact. Sufficed to say Friday morning will in no way be pretty.

Had the DC family over for dinner last night (Marc and Stipps). I made latkes for the first time and they weren't half bad - and yes I realize they're a mix from a box but whatevz, I fear new things in the kitchen. Also made salmon and got challah, I had forgotten how much I love that stuff. Senior year of college I did seder dinner every Friday with Ryan's housemates and it was this close, pleasant, calming experience. Maybe when I'm back in Mass when we gather more regularly.

No resolutions yet except the same daily one: breathe deep, girl, it'll all be over soon.

I always strangely look forward to Yom Kippur. I like the cleansing. Catholics can do it any time they want, there must be some relief in that.

I finally went running, and I never plan to be away from the gym that long ever again if it can be helped, but my thoughts are still this scattered, up and down thing. I'm going through the A Softer World archives today, though, and smiling a lot.

Meanwhile, I am obsessed with The Office in general and Pam and Jim in particular (it is my happy place), am rapidly adopting Lipstick Jungle so i have something to watch with Stipps (she is my mainstream Rei that way), and I wait every week for True Blood like it's my job. And thus we pass the time here.

Nadia cut her first tooth.

Sugarland's first album, "Twice the Speed of Life", is my perfect fall backroads of Western Mass driving album, and it is fixing everything wrong with my soul right now, and it is amazing. I feel so good.

Tonight I begin the quest for the perfect apple cider in this city - starting with Busboys and then maybe Tryst and Kramerbooks and after that I'm just guessing.

you just might make me believe....

God I feel so fucking good and stupidly sappy right now. And I'm wearing the boots - the ones that I couldn't afford when I bought them in college that make me feel sexy as fuck (remember <lj-user="suikavanishes">?).

This morning I got locked in my bathroom.

This is true. This really happened.

To me.

But let me begin at the beginning! last night I got home around midnight after Marc was kind of an ass, I was tired and dirty and I had had a long, long, long ass day. You know what fixes that shit? Showers. I decide to take a shower, go to bed, get up at 10, pick Marc up at 11, and we'll go watch the Pats and the Bills and the Buffalo Bill's bar, McFaddens, where Marc always goes. I figure we'll get there early enough that I can get a seat by the one TV showing my game.

10 minutes into my amazing, hot shower, the fucking water just stops working.

I am now wet, naked, and still dirty, and it is 12:30 in the morning.

So I called emergency maintenance and I will admit, for a girl who's worked in the field, I was not using my most polite tone. They said the would send someone up. Needless to say, no one showed. So at 1:30am I called and told them I was going to bed, and I wanted them to send someone to fix my shower at 10am. Not 9:30. Not 10:30. 10am. They assured me they have no control whatsoever over anything but they will certainly write down my message, use the piece of paper to wipe their ass, and then light it on fire. I went to bed.

I was awakened this morning at 8:30am by a tiny hispanic man banging insistently on the door of my apartment. Great. I let him in, he takes about 30 seconds to fix my shower, I see him out the door, go to pee and go back to bed to get another hour and a half of sleep before I get up and get ready.

Except that I am now trapped in my bathroom.

The door will not open.

The door does not have a lock.

This is not possible.

I am seriously trapped in the bathroom.

I start jiggling the door, looking for the puzzle key, and there it is. A screw is loose and jammed between the door and the frame. I try slamming it, yanking on it, kicking it. I break things and try to jam stuff in there, pull hard enough to break the screw, try to take the hinges out of the door - nothing. Fuck.

I am trapped in the bathroom.

This is when I realize that no one is going to look for me. Marc and Stipps will not realize anything is amiss until tonight, and they will not realize anything is seriously wrong until tomorrow. In fact, actually, no one is going to come looking for me until tomorrow. This is amazing. I am trapped in my bathroom.

It is at this point that I started screaming "HEEELLLLLLLLLLP" at the top of my lungs.

And it actually works. OMG. Holy shit. Someone hears me. They call maintenance.

Maintenance cannot enter my apartment on someone else's request. They need me to come to the door and let them in.

IF I COULD COME TO THE DOOR AND LET YOU IN I WOULD NOT BE SCREAMING IN THE FIRST PLACE WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE HOLY SHIT. I am in hell.

At the point it is 10am and I have been trapped in my bathroom for an hour and a half. I know this because my alarm, set for 10am, goes off. And as the beeping begins and gets progressively louder, I realize: I am trapped in my bathroom, no  one is coming to let me out, my alarm is going off and I cannot make it stop. Ok. NOW I am in hell.

At the point the same little hispanic man comes to the door and asks for verbal permission to enter. I give this, to say the least, enthusiastically. When he comes in I immediately ask him to shut off the alarm. He agrees to do so, then starts taking the door handle off. I explain to him that the door HANDLE is not the problem, and this is not going to work. He agrees, and continues to work the door handle. The beeping continues unabated. This is when I realize the man cannot understand one word I am saying, and I am doomed. "Beeping? Do you understand beeping? BEEP BEEP BEEP. Can you please make the beeping stop before I use one of my makeshift tools to kill myself? Please? Please?" At this point the man looks mildly alarmed, but no more aware of my intent than before.

Finally, my nice hispanic friend realizes what the actual problem is. He leaves and returns with a SECOND hispanic man, who speaks better English but is no more moved than the first man by my pleas to save what remains of my sanity. The beeping does not stop.

The door, however, does open.

It now 11am. I have been trapped in my own bathroom for 2 and a half hours. I am dirty, damp, shaking and terrified. At this point, of course, my alarm shuts itself off, because it will beep for one hour exactly before it gives up,. convinced you either do not give a shit, or are not at home. I had never had occasion to test this before! EXCELLENT LET'S ALL DO THIS AGAIN SOMETIME PLEASE I HAVE LEARNED SO MUCH.


Ways it could have been worse:
1) when the shower went off, i could have had soap or shampoo in unfortunate places. but i did not. it could have been worse.
2) when i went to to the bathroom i could have been naked. but i was not! when the two hispanic men found me i was wearing a robe.
3) i could have cancer

In other news, Zak got me a present. He had this made for me. If you want to know more about it, wiki "challenge coins". If you want to know even more about it, wait til Zak gets home, buy the man a much-deserved drink, and then keep buying him drinks until he agrees to explain to you what it means to be "three-hole qualified", or for a girl to receive a unit's coin.





BWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I win :)