commentary – hellsfunnybelle

Staying safe in Dangerous Times: A Primer for boys and sexual assault

October 4, 2018October 4, 2018 by lizcarey2014, posted in commentary, the girl with the inner purple hair

kavanaugh trump President Trump put it all too well – “It’s a very scary time for young men in America.”

And he’s right. He’s so right. How frightening it must be to know that you could be sitting there at a party, chilling with your best buds, having a large time, and then, the next thing you know, some 20 or 30 years later, that errant hug, friendly wrestling match or slipping kiss will turn out to have offended someone.

Go figure.

And it is a scary thing to know that you could be on the top of your game and have something innocuous take you down, just like the President said. “”You could be somebody that was perfect your entire life and somebody could accuse you of something.” You know… like Brett Kavanaugh.

We women fell for you. Honestly, we know where you’re coming from… we’ve been there. And now that all of our sexual assault worries are over, we thought we’d give you a few tips on how to survive these dangerous times.

Be careful how much you drink. You know, we know that EVERYONE drinks in high school and college, but really, when you put yourself in a situation and you have more than a drink or, at the outset, two, you put yourself at risk of making it look like you were asking for it. If you’re not completely in control of yourself, then you probably deserved whatever you got.
Think about what you’re wearing. Do you really need to look THAT cool? Would it hurt you to maybe not look so cute? You really don’t want anyone to notice you, let alone think you’re attractive. They might remember you and even step over to talk to you. That’s step one in identifying someone as a possible sexual assault perpetrator.
Don’t flirt too much. Again, you don’t want anyone to think that you might even have been thinking about sex. Flirting with women is like putting a target on your back that says “I’m a sexual predator!”
Make sure someone knows where you are; travel in twos and threes; don’t go to the bathroom alone. If you’re alone, a woman can just pop out of nowhere and say you were somewhere doing something you shouldn’t have been doing. saults happen in private. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you don’t have someone else there to have your back or protect you.
Pay close attention to your surroundings. Look around you. Is someone paying too much attention to you? Could that person potentially have not so innocent thoughts about you? Better not risk embarrassment years from now. Ensure you know who you’re with and whether or not you’re safe.
Designate a party dad or a sober party goer. When you go out in a group, take turns being the designated party dad. Someone really needs to be sober, so they can keep everyone else out of trouble, or come up with the alibi that will stand up in court.
Carry your cell phone with you always, and make sure you can contact your friends in case of an emergency. If you’re ever faced with a situation where you don’t trust yourself, or the person you’re with, make sure you can call a friend to come help you. Whether it’s getting you out of potentially assault-y type scenario, or you just don’t feel like you’re with someone you can trust, have someone who’s got your back on speed dial.
Stay away from those parties in the first place. Let’s be honest. Nice guys don’t really go to parties like that in the first place. The kind of guys who aren’t going to get accused of sexual assault are the kind of guys who aren’t putting themselves in harm’s way by going to those types of parties. You really can do yourself a huge favor by just keeping yourself out of those kinds of get-togethers. It’s just safer for you, you know?

It may seem like a lot to think about just to protect yourself from being accused of sexual assault, but an ounce of prevention goes a long way in ensuring your credibility and preventing anyone from being able to permanently damage your reputation. We know. We’ve been doing these same things for decades, all in the name of protecting ourselves.

But enough about us. It’s a dangerous time out there for guys. We women have literally hundreds of thousands of stories we’ve stored up about men behaving badly, and all because those guys didn’t take the time to protect themselves. What were we thinking, being so narrow minded and obtuse? It’s time we step up and do what we can to protect men. We’re glad to help.

If it will keep just one guy safe from a decades old accusation someday in the future, well… then… it’s worth it, isn’t it?

An accidental pussy grabber

March 3, 2017 by lizcarey2014, posted in commentary, southern life, the girl with the inner purple hair

So, I was on my way to a meeting the other day, when I inadvertently kidnapped a neighbors’ cat.

Really… it wasn’t my fault.

louis See, we have this big black cat named Oliver. And Oliver has gotten it into his head lately that he should be able to roam about his domain, namely everything he can see from the window behind my work chair, any time he wants.

Sometimes, the boys let him out in the morning.

And sometimes, he slips out when no one is looking.

A cat-on-a-keyboard nd there are those days when he sits on someone’s keyboard or climbs on the back of their chair in order to attack their hair while they’re typing forcing someone to decide to actually throw him out… but, I digress.

Any who, I was just driving down the street, sort of patting myself on the back for being on time for a change, when I see a couple of guys in a state vehicle, standing on the side of the street with this black cat.

Immediately, it registered with me that it looked like Oliver.

Almost simultaneously, it registered that even government employees don’t deserve that kind of torture.

When I was three blocks away it also registered – “Holy monkey pee, they might actually take the cat with them!”

I mean, it is my youngest son Max’s cat, and for some bizarre reason he actually likes the furry little asshole, despite his tendency to attack Max when he’s trying to sleep.

So, I doubled back and pulled up behind their truck.

“Did I see y’all with a black cat earlier?” I asked them. “I think that’s ours. He likes to get out in the morning and terrorize the neighborhood.”

black-cat-pink-collar They pointed to the other side of their truck where a black cat with a pink ribbon around its neck was standing.

Naturally, since I was now running late, I grabbed the cat, threw it in the van, thanked the guys for their help and took off.

It wasn’t until I was halfway to the highway that I realized…Oliver doesn’t have a collar.

Looking a little closer at the cat, I realized Oliver doesn’t have as round of a face or such a small body.

Then it hit me – I’d grabbed the wrong cat!

Apparently, you really CAN just grab ‘em, even if you’re not a celebrity. Some of them really do just let you.

There were other indications this wasn’t Oliver, as well… for instance, this cat was nice.

This cat would let you pet it more than three times in a row without feeling the need to attack your hand like it was a mouse bathed in tuna juice.

This cat looked up at you with eyes that said “Love me please!” instead of glaring “Are you planning on feeding me anytime soon, or do you get the claws again?”

This cat was also a girl.

Clearly, I’d made a huge mistake.

I decided to name her LaLa Land.

img_0356-1 Barreling down the highway, late to my appointment and talking to LaLa, I tried to figure out what I to do. In response, LaLa decided to curl up in my lap, rest her head on my arm and fall asleep.

Who can resist that?

I briefly considered taking off the collar, putting it on Oliver and switching them out when no one was looking. Hey, if it worked for Patty Duke…

For the next four hours, I talked to LaLa as we ran errands and ate lunch. She curled up in my arm while I was driving and wandered the car when I wasn’t. I shared a bit of my chicken caesar salad with her, and poured her a cupful of water. She purred in contentment and never once nipped at my fingers to protest anything.

Finally, I stopped in front where I’d snatched her from and put her back where she belonged. She alternately clung to me and scrabbled to get away as I took put her on the sidewalk.

I swear she looked back at me with the melancholy gaze of a hostage with Stockholm syndrome.

cat-tongue-cat And although I briefly thought about grabbing her back up and whisking her away to our house where she could live as my special cuddle cat for the rest of our days… I resisted. Two cats are enough, my husband says. Anything more than that borders on hoarding.

Or so I’m told.

I’m not sure I believe that.

LaLa was a pretty good listener, despite being a catnapping victim, and she was much nicer than Oliver ever had been. She didn’t even mind being in a minivan – which is more than I can say for my other son.

But still, kidnapping someone else’s cat, no matter how nice and accommodating the cat is, is no way to acquire a new pet.

Again, I’ve heard this, but I’m not quite sure I believe it. Surely there are exceptions … like when a cat really likes you, right?

And even though she was in my life for only a short time, I like to think she was happy… and that she taught me a life lesson I’m not soon to forget – namely, that I am seriously just one bad relationship away from becoming a crazy cat lady…

No, really, call me nasty

February 23, 2017February 23, 2017 by lizcarey2014, posted in commentary, the girl with the inner purple hair

A lot of words have been hurled at angry women voters lately.

My particular favorite is “Nasty Bitch.”

In the words of Inigio Montoya…”You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.”

I was in a meeting a few weeks ago with a woman who was discussing complaining to your congressman.

“You have to be polite to them and deal with them with respect,” she said. “But, the minute you lose your temper or start to get upset, the first thing those guys do is start talking about how you’re a ‘nasty bitch.’”

Nasty. Bitch.

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, and I guess that’s one of them.

Especially lately.

But I don’t think it has the effect on women that men think it does.

When I was a kid, being called a bitch was far from a compliment. It wasn’t even something you heard everyday.

My first recollection was probably from “Dynasty” or an old Bette Davis movie.

It was, at the time, something slung at a woman to diminish her femininity and effectiveness. It meant they were an evil-scheming woman who was willing to do whatever necessary to get what they wanted.

And it was a pretty big blow back then.

One could spit out that word like it was some flaming epithet that could be hurled at someone like an atom bomb, decimating them at the end of an argument, or even the beginning of one.

There was even a time when I think being called a bitch hurt my feelings. It was one of my first jobs, and I was in sales, and I was arguing about whether or not a client was mine instead of another salesperson’s. I was told to stop being such a bitch.

It hurt. It really hurt.

But somewhere along the way, the meaning for that word changed.

At some point, there was a shift and being a bitch stopped being a bad thing. It meant a woman who was willing to stand up for themselves and to fight for what they wanted. It started to mean someone who didn’t care if they made other people uncomfortable with their actions.

It began to be looked at like a compliment.

It started to mean someone who was willing to stand up and take charge.

What’s wrong with that?

I’ve been called a bitch for standing up for myself, for standing up for my family, for standing up for the things that I believe in. I’ve been called a bitch because I argue with people when I think they are wrong. I’ve been called a bitch when I did what I needed to do in order to get things done. I’ve been called a bitch when I didn’t give in to pressure to do something I knew was wrong.

As if any of those are bad things…

After Donald Trump called Hillary Clinton a nasty woman, we all became “nasty women.” And now, as people hurl more insults, we WANT to be “nasty bitches” – because that means we’re being listened to and getting under people’s skin.

The lady at the meeting was in her 70s, I think. I sat there and watched while she discussed her call. You could tell from the twinkle in her eye, this wasn’t her first rodeo as an activist.

You could tell this wasn’t her first fight.

And you could tell, just by looking, that she wasn’t used to backing down.

And then, she said the one thing you probably wouldn’t expect to hear.

“If they think I’m a bitch now, they haven’t seen anything yet,” she said.

That’s the thing, I think.

Some women aren’t up for being shrinking violets anymore, or afraid of being seen in a negative light. They’re ready to take on actions that will help them to fight for what they think is right.

Being called a nasty bitch, just doesn’t mean what you think it means.

It’s a compliment. It’s a motivator. It’s a goal, in some ways.

And calling us that definitely isn’t going to stop us.

10 Things I Learned About the Old West from Gunsmoke

November 16, 2016November 16, 2016 by lizcarey2014, posted in commentary, the girl with the inner purple hair

For the last few months, I’ve been watching a lot of Gunsmoke.

It’s on in the afternoons, and as things begin to wind down, I find myself relaxing in the company of Marshall Matt Dillon, Miss Kitty and Festus.

Secretly, Festus is my favorite.

But, I’ve learned a lot of things I didn’t know about the Old West from Gunsmoke. It wasn’t all wagon trains and cattle rustling you know.

Marshall Matt Dillon was the tallest man in the world. No one was ever taller than Matt Dillon in Dodge City. And since, apparently, Dodge City was the center of the known world, it only stands to reason there wasn’t a taller person anywhere out there. There certainly wasn’t in the Old West. I think there was one guy, a bad guy named Deke, who could possibly have been as tall if not taller than Marshall Dillon, but he died inside the first four minutes of the episode, so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t count.

No one had spurs that jingle jangle jingled except Festus. The song was wrong. There was only one set of jingly jangly spurs in Dodge City, and Festus wore them. You can hear them jingle jangle every time he walks. And he’s the only one. I don’t know why he needs them – what with him riding a mule and all – but he’s got ‘em and his are the only ones that make a lick of noise.

There was a dearth of jobs in the Old West. From the looks of it, no one had anything to do. Every day, there were tons of people just milling about, waiting for something to happen and gawking when a stranger or the stagecoach came in to town. Now you can tell there are stores, and black smith shops and the many saloons, but … there doesn’t seem to be anyone actually doing anything. They sure as heck have a lot of money to eat and drink though.

Speaking of which, it’s never too early to drink in the Old West. Breakfast, lunch, dinner – it’s always time for a drink. Beer before breakfast? No problem. Whiskey before 10 a.m.? Why not? Want something to drink with your lunch or dinner? I’ve got two choices for you and neither of them are tea or milk.

Yep, not a drop of blood…

No one ever bled. Gunshot wound to the neck? Just a schmear of red here and there. Gunshot wound to the gut? Barely a blood stain the size of a hockey puck. The alcohol must have served as a blood blocker. Regardless, a gunshot wound, no matter where, was almost instantaneously fatal. Unless you were one of the main characters. The main characters had the best aim ever and if they shot you from 300 yards away, you would fall down dead where you stood. The plains of Kansas apparently are littered with the bones of dead bad guys and innocent by-standers. And if you were a main character, you would be able to survive a gunshot wound to the spine and not only not be paralyzed, but also be able to fight through the pain to reach a gun, just in the nick of time. Just saying. If you’re gonna be in the Old West, make your way to the inner circle. All those guys wandering around Dodge City might as well have been the guys wearing red shirts on Star Trek.

Marshall Dillon, Newly and Festus were the only people in the entirety of the Old West who knew how to use a karate chop on bad guys. They were also the only ones capable of sneaking up on bad guys ninja style to attack them from behind just in the nick of time to save the day. Similarly, Matt Dillon had the ability to ride a horse into the millions of acres of open desert and grassland there in Kansas and be able to stumble across the one person he was looking for right before they stumbled into a heat-stroke induced death. Astounding.

Speaking of heat stroke, everyone wore the same thing every day, all three or four
layers of it, except Miss Kitty. Even the women wore long skirts with petticoats and pantaloons and tops with at least two or three layers. Crazy. No telling when they washed them, or if they even did, but it’s the same outfit, with the same shoes and the same hats every single gosh blamed day. I don’t know how they stood it. The smell in the summer must have been overwhelming… if you could discern it from the horses in the streets and the dead bodies everywhere.

Miss Kitty

No matter what happened, nothing could damage Miss Kitty’s Old West make-up and eyeliner. Fall into a stream after being thrown from a stagecoach? Wet clothes, but perfect face and smile. Beaten and bruised by bad guys gunning for Marshall Dillon? Dresses and hair may be messed up and torn, but the eyeliner would be perfect. It didn’t even run when she cried. God, what I wouldn’t give for make-up like that. I wonder if she had some Indian princess tattoo it on her or something….

yep…that’s Leonard Nimoy

If you had the right nose and skin color, you could be any one of sever different ethnicities. It was only through stereotypical clothing and accents that you could tell if someone was American Indian or Jewish. And all the bad guys were easy to identify because they all looked the same. In fact, some of them looked so much alike, you would swear they were twins, if not the exact same person.

Everyone in the Old West was concerned with lots of social justice issues. Discrimination, rape, domestic violence, gambling addiction, alcoholism – you name it, they were worried about it. And all of the issues they talked about we’re still talking about now. Have we really not come that far in that long? Course, no one ever brought up Festus’ inability to read, but … there are people in America now who are in positions of power who haven’t the brain of a turnip, so… I guess things haven’t changed much.

I guess there are deeper messages that I could learn about life from Gunsmoke, but… I was a child of the 70s. Nothing really gets much deeper than Steve Austin fighting Bigfoot and realizing he was never the real enemy after all. What can Gunsmoke possibly say to top that?

One holiday at a time, please

November 1, 2016November 1, 2016 by lizcarey2014, posted in commentary, parent life, the girl with the inner purple hair

It’s Halloween night; so naturally, I find I’m a little sick of Christmas commercials.

Not even lying.

This weekend, in the midst of a marathon horror movie session, I got just a bit tired of watching Best Buy’s Christmas commercials. Apparently, nothing says Christmas like going into debt to buy another meaningless gadget.

Unless it’s Rent-A-Center’s new living room or dining room ensemble. God knows your family will look down their nose at you if you don’t have the newest sofa, or the perfect dining room table with that extendable leaf.

And major retailers weren’t the only ones in on the Holiday Cheer. Cable channels got their Ho Ho Ho on too… The Food Network was already promoting its Christmas baking competitions – the ones where you too can feel inadequate over brownies, cookies and themed cakes you never knew anyone wanted or needed.

And The Hallmark Channel was gleefully showing “Love’s Christmas Journey” and “Hitched for the Holidays,” among about a million other sappy syrupy sweet movies where everything ends happily in a quiet snowfall that makes you want to curl up in your snuggy with hot chocolate and a peppermint stick.

Bleah.

IT’S HALLOWEEN FOR CRIPES SAKE!!!!

This is not the time for glittery white snow or elaborately decorated cakes or even sappy feel-good movies.

This is the time for scare-me-out-of-my-pants horror movies, binge eating trick or treat candy and dressing up like something other than yourself. This is the time to be lost in the crisp cool air hitting your face while leaves crunch underfoot and the smell of burnt pumpkins as candles sear the insides of jack o’lanterns permeates the air. That’s my kind of pumpkin spice.

This is the time for fake blood, pasty grey skin and fake teeth that mimic anything from a witch, to a zombie to a dead illegal voter.

Can we not, for once, just celebrate one holiday at a time though?

I went to the store on the way home this afternoon and all the Halloween candy was gone.

All.

Gone.

Okay, there were some orange pumpkin peeps and blackberry cobbler candy corn, but who wants to hand that out to a trick or treater? Can you say “Egg me, please!”???

In its place was an aisle of candy canes, egg nog, gingerbread flavored biscotti and snowmen Tic Tac dispensers.

I preferred the Halloween themed orange monster Tic Tac holder. But then again, Trump was probably still on the campaign trail…

At least the guys at the cable channel El Rey got it right by running “Gingerdead Man III, Saturday Night Cleaver” a horror movie about a killer cookie come to life who travels back in time to the 1970s to wreak havoc at a roller skating rink.

I’m not sure whether I’m impressed by the melding of the two holidays, or of the fact that more than one of these movies was actually made. There were four in fact. Proof positive that people will watch anything…even Christmas commercials in July.

Why, I have to ask retailers, do you insist on putting out Christmas decorations in August? Do you think we don’t KNOW Christmas is coming? Do you think we’ve somehow forgotten that we’re supposed to be budgeting to spend a small fortune on presents that will be forgotten, broken or out of fashion come February?

(Note to friends who don’t follow the news – Pokemon Go is dead and a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 should only be given to those you really want to burn your bridges with… literally)

According to the National Retail Federation, consumers are expected to spend on average more than $935 this holiday season. In their opinions, we (the public) need holiday commercials because our minds are way too concerned with the election to pay any attention to the holidays right now.
“Everywhere you turn — whether you’re picking up a newspaper or watching television — political advertisements are taking up ad space that retailers typically use to get holiday shopping on the minds of consumers across the country,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “Once the election has passed, we anticipate consumers will pull themselves out of the election doldrums and into the holiday spirit.”

REALLY????

Do you think we’ve forgotten that there are major holidays that don’t revolve around this fiasco of an election? Do you honestly think we’re all not frantically looking for an excuse to NOT think about who is running for President?

I think that’s what Halloween is FOR!

I mean, sure… getting scared by a flesh-craving zombie may be scary, but not half as much as the idea that one of these people will actually become president on Nov. 9.

We need scary movies and cute trick or treaters and eerie music to take our minds off of the horrors that the first post-election days will surely bring. Subconsciously, I think, scares remind us what we’re all really thankful for – family, friends, full-sized Snickers bars from the good neighborhoods and clown-proof security systems.

But NO! You all have to fill your shelves with sugarplums and wreaths and jingle bells.

My husband went into Party City and Michael’s on Oct. 21 to buy Halloween decorations for our Zombie Pub Crawl.

There weren’t any.

They had all been replaced by Christmas decorations and craft supplies.

Then again, we bought some of our Halloween decorations in August, right around the time we should have been shopping for back-to-school, so we should have been prepared.

But aren’t we missing something?

It’s bad enough that we’re practically skipping Halloween to market Christmas, but have we all forgotten there’s another holiday in there that needs attention too?

What the heck happened to Thanksgiving?

You know, turkey, family, football – all the good stuff that we really need now more than ever? I haven’t even started to stress that my house won’t look like a Norman Rockwell picture after I spend six hours in the kitchen to make a dinner that will last about 15 minutes before everyone goes back to video games and football yet and you want me to fret over $75 full-action Barbie Doll Commandos? Whatevs!

Sure, it’s hard to make a buck off of Thanksgiving if you’re not a grocery store, but it’s still an important holiday. It’s the one where we’re all grateful for all the things we have.

Maybe that’s why they want us to overlook it… if we’re thankful for the things we have, perhaps we won’t be as inclined to go out and buy more.

Seriously, retailers, you all have come together and realized we don’t like the idea that you’re open on Thanksgiving and more than 40 of the big chain stores have decided that they won’t be taking part in Black Friday on Turkey Thursday.

Now, do you all think you can get together and make a pact to not put up Christmas decorations and sale items until the Christmas music starts?

Which, of course, will commence first thing in the morning on November 1.

Horror movie quandries

January 21, 2016January 21, 2016 by lizcarey2014, posted in commentary, the girl with the inner purple hair

I’ve never really understood a few things about horror movies.

Really.

falling victim I mean, why is it that there is always a stupid girl who tries to run away and then falls? Obviously, it’s because they’re wearing heels while running, but who goes into the woods wearing high-heeled shoes?

Not a smart girl.

We don’t go into the woods. Period.

And why do these stupid girls always make the worst possible decisions when faced with a life threatening situations?

It’s like they are begging to be a victim.

“Oh, wow. I heard a weird noise in this crazy, desolate house we just happened to find on a rainy night… I think I’ll go in the basement and check it out.”

Who actually does that?

No one with a brain, that’s who.

When my husband and I got married, we honeymooned across the Southeast. We spent our first night in a bed and breakfast in Lexington, Ky., then hit the Chattanooga Choo Choo to stay in one of their railroad cars. After that, we headed south through Huntsville, Alabama and stopped at Space Camp before hitting the local Piggly Wiggly and to grab something for dinner that night.

After that, we realized that our car’s taillights were out while driving to New Orleans on the Natchez Trace. At that moment, it really made sense to camp out and cook out.

Really.

It wasn’t until after we set up the tent, put our sleeping bag in place and organized all of the camping equipment that we got around to eating our crawfish dinner. It was dark. The sky was filled with stars and no sound. It was heaven.

Until we realized we were the only ones in the campground.

As the campfire started to ebb, I heard weird sounds. Surely, whatever was in the woods right behind us had caught the scent of our crawfish cooked over the open flame and wanted a little taste.

Apparently, the carcasses and shells of the little critters we had flung into the forest weren’t enough for them.

Which led me to announce to my new husband the only thing I knew to say.

“Honey, this is how people die,” I said. “This is the type of setting where the serial killer comes out of the woods and slaughters the unsuspecting couple and they don’t find their body for forever. I don’t want to rot away in a swamp somewhere and have no one finde us for decades ’til some kid decides to take a leak.”

So, we did what any sane couple would do – we up and moved.

I mean, we packed up everything, tent and all, and we got the HELL out of there.

If we hadn’t, we’d have been the anonymous couple in the horror movie that gets killed before the real cast shows up.

Isn’t that what anyone would do?

haunted disposal Which leads me to my other horror movie question – why do movie producers continue to create this sense of foreboding and terror when people in an obviously haunted house reach into a kitchen drain with a garbage disposal in it?

Usually, up until that point, there hasn’t been a time when the ghosts have done anything physically threatening, but still the scene will cut away from a close-up on the distracted Mom, to a shot of her reaching into the drain to get a spoon or fallen wedding ring or whatever is making that unnatural sound, and then immediately the scene cuts to an even closer shot of the gears of the disposal ready to spring to life and tear her hand to shreds, ostensibly pulling the her hand and the rest of her body into the great unknown.

Has this ever happened before?

Seriously, is there some supernatural phenomenon that I’m not aware of that helps ghost make disposals spring to life when they can’t even move a chair on command or be in the same room with more than one person?

It’s not a fear I understand completely.

Yesterday, I was quietly washing the dishes while everyone else in the house played video games or watched TV. When it finally came time to clear out the sink, like any other Mom, I shoved everything into the drain, turned on the water and flipped the disposal switch on with my foot (since it’s located under the sink).

For a few seconds, that disposal grinded and cranked and did whatever it is that disposals do.

Then, all of a sudden, it started making this weird clunking noise – like there was a spoon in it or something.

And, of course, I did what any other sane Mom would do, I leaned back and started to lift my foot to turn off the switch and see what was wrong. About that same time, something shot out of the disposal and landed about where my head would have been if I hadn’t.

It was a penny.

A mangled, sharp-edged, chewed up penny that had all the harbingers of death via copper. One cent of shrapnel delivered via electronic gears.

That thing could’ve sliced my ear off, or worse, taken an eye out!

And my house isn’t even haunted!!!

But did I peer into the disposal and see what was wrong? NO! Did I reach into it to investigate? NO? Did I hang around when it was making weird noises and wait for something ominous to happen? Uhm, NO!

I got the hell out of the way!!!

CorrodedGarbageDisposalWikimediaCommons I’m still not sure how anyone can think of disposals as gears of death via spirits from the great beyond. Heck, they could be deadly without the help of electromagnetic frequencies and Great Aunt Tilda holding a grudge against your redecorating the house.

But just like the camp ground, if that thing starts making noises, I’m getting the heck out of Dodge.

Let the plumber get hacked to pieces for a change.

It’s what a smart girl would do.

Not so “Gaga” over the Golden Globes

January 12, 2016January 12, 2016 by lizcarey2014, posted in commentary, the girl with the inner purple hair

Yesterday, my topic of choice for my blog was my family’s unnatural obsession with hoodies.

But then the Golden Globes happened.

Or rather, Gaga happened.

It’s no coincidence that Gaga sounds a lot like “caca” in my mind.

Really.

As I normally do when I wake up on a Monday morning and don’t want to work, I was browsing through Facebook and saw people commenting on Lady Gaga winning the Golden Globe for “Best Actress in a Limited Series or Miniseries.”

Initially, I figured it was a joke and someone was pulling the Onion over our eyes.

But no, it was true… the Golden Globe went to a woman who destroyed a series.

Let me explain…. I am an American Horror Story fan. I love horror and I love the idea of something for grown ups on television that isn’t sappy, sarcastic or insipid.

But, this season’s American Horror Story? Not so much. In fact, I’m really looking forward to the finale this week just so I don’t feel compelled to spend any more time on it.

The first season of American Horror Story, I was hooked. I loved it. Wouldn’t miss a minute of it. Evan Peters, Jessica Lange and Zachary Quinto? Yes, please! Throw in some of that McDermott guy and I could sit there transfixed all day. With all the plot twists, shadowy figures, ghosts, suspicions and blackmail, I couldn’t wait for more.

But when the second season came around? Ehhhh. Not so much. Once we got to the sadist with mommy issues and the serial killing Santa Claus, I was pretty much done.

When the third season started, I was skeptical, but the coven, the New Orleans location, Delphine LaLaurie and Stevie Nicks pulled me back in. So too did season four, where I simultaneously felt sorry for killer clowns while finding my irrational clown heebee jeebies suddenly justified.

But this season?

Gaga me with a spoon.

Between the gratuitous sex and graphic drug use, the proliferation of blood during sex, the confusing and uninteresting plot line and the lack of any chemistry/dynamic tension/range of emotion from Gaga, Wes Bentley or Chloe Sivigny, I really didn’t want to watch it.

However, my 15-year-old son was watching it and I wanted to make sure that I was okay with him seeing whatever they decided to show.

To be completely honest, I almost didn’t let him watch it. The graphic drug use and sex were a little over the top for me. But he pointed out that everyone who did drugs died, so I relented.

Every week I slogged through it, waiting for it to get better.

But every week, it just got worse. Gaga awful, in fact.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Let’s see if I can wrap up the plot in less than a 40-page dissertation….

“Recovering alcoholic cop John stumbles into the Hotel Cortez while working diligently to solve a serial killer case and has a complete mental and emotional breakdown when he develops a relationship with a dead drug addict hooker with an insatiable desire for eternal love, Sally, who, in turn, introduces him to the true evil behind the hotel, a glamorous movie starlet turned vampire, the Countess, who has a love/hate relationship with clothing (on, off, on, off, on, off and covered in blood, on, off, on and covered in blood, off), and the sadistic murdering hotel owner and builder, J. P. March, who is madly in love with her. Along the way, the cop finds his missing six-year-old son, and when his soon-to-be-ex-wife finds out, she abandons John and her other child to be a vampire buffet for a flock of night-crawler Stepford children whose lives revolve around intravenous blood infusions, candy and video games, but not before she, a pediatric doctor, manages to infect an entire classroom of pre-teens and create a “lost boys meets lord of the flies” band of merciless killers.

Meanwhile, a black-plotation actress decides to seek her revenge on the Countess for something that happened 30 years before and finds herself locked in an abandoned area of the hotel waiting for the day she can attack her nemesis, while a cross-dressing receptionist and an aging female hotel manager (who gives new meaning to the term helicopter parent) join forces with her to rid the hotel of the Countess. Somewhere along the way, John has a complete break with reality and realizes he is the serial killer he sought and falls into the clutches of Sally, whose solution to her abandonment issues looks like something akin to the Human Centipede, only vertical.”

Whew…. And that’s just the highlights… seriously.

Again, here we go with the mommy issues with the over-protective mother, and the love triangles – only this time, we get to see the love triangles up close and personal-like in what I assume is the first graphic threesome ever broadcast in a limited run television series that involved a sewing needle. There were times I wasn’t sure if I was watching a television series or soft-core porn on Skin-emax.

And we got to see Lady Gaga.

gaga sad — “Look! I’m almost naked without my make-up” Gaga”

A lot of Lady Gaga… a lot of Lady Gaga covered with blood, with pasties, with long blonde hair… More of Lady Gaga than I personally ever wanted to see.

If her acting had been good, I probably wouldn’t have minded. But her onscreen emoting reminded me of lawn furniture in winter – the dressing may change, but it’s still the same uncomfortable chairs.

And, since her expression is the same whether she’s happy or sad, or excited, or mad, really it was kind of difficult to figure out why she was undressed in the first place. Did she think her hair was going to do her acting for her?

I finally realized that when she opened her mouth it was a sign she was really happy or really sad. It’s when her mouth was closed that she was pouty, promiscuous or petulant.

So, we’ve got a bad plot line, bad story and bad acting all of which left a bad taste in my mouth, and you’re going to give the worst actor in it a Golden Globe? What the ever-loving heck?

And I’m not the only one, I promise. Just a quick perusal of the web and Facebook and you can see, a lot of people weren’t happy with her getting the award.

None of us, of course, reacted like Leonardo DiCaprio, but then again, not many of us could pull off a cringe like that in a tux and still look dashing and debonair.

A lot of people that I saw weren’t happy that she was in American Horror Story in the first place. I can’t say I blame them.

I don’t watch a lot of television – shows with seasons like this are one of the reasons why – so I don’t have any clue whether any of the other nominees were any good. I’ve seen Kirsten Dunst in other things though and I know that she can at least act. I can’t imagine that all four of the rest of them were so bad that Gaga was the best of the crop.

Gaga said she always wanted to be an actress… as far as I can tell, she’s still wanting… in a lot of ways.

I hear she’s been asked to be in Season 6 of the series. I sure hope she figures out how to say “No.” Or if she can’t and ends up in the cast, at least maybe she can get some acting lessons from Jessica Lange. Are you listening Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk? Are you paying attention to the falling ratings – this season’s ratings looking worse than those of season one, and only doing marginally better than the dismal season two… trust me, it’s all Gaga-induced.

One thing’s for sure, if she’s a part of it, I doubt I’ll be watching… once you’ve found yourself watching a really beautiful train wreck, you find it’s a lot easier than you thought to look away from the next one.

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So Bruce wants to be Caitlyn… So what?

June 2, 2015June 2, 2015 by lizcarey2014, posted in commentary, the girl with the inner purple hair

This morning, like practically everyone else on the planet, I awoke to the news that Bruce Jenner now wanted to be called Caitlyn and was gorgeous.

The only thing I could think to myself was … So?

I remember Bruce Jenner as the athlete of my youth. And I vaguely connected him to the Kardashians about a year after they squirmed out from whatever ooze they had been living in and thought “Surely, that can’t be the same guy.” And I read something one day in the grocery check-out line about him wanting to become a woman.

I thought then, as I do now, so what?

Honestly, it’s a pretty good name, Caitlyn… I guess if I wanted to be a guy, I’d go with something totally unlike my name, like Jackson or James or Todd. And she is really attractive, as any woman photographed by Annie Leibowitz with enough make-up on likely would be.

But I still don’t think any of that is news.

Whether a person identifies themselves as a man, a woman, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual or whatever, just really isn’t news. It’s not something anyone chooses to be, it’s who they are. Since when is being who one really is newsworthy?

Maybe it’s because of the way I grew up, or the people I was around, or the beliefs I’ve come to hold dear, but I just don’t think that a person’s sexuality, sexual orientation or sexual preference is worthy of a cover spread on an international magazine.

When I was in my 20s, I spent a good deal of time at a pretty out there bar in Cincinnati called The Warehouse. My then boyfriend, and now husband, was a bouncer; the owner was a good friend and frankly, it was among the coolest places to be in the Tri-state area. Mummies hung from the ceilings. Girls danced in cages. Sofas lined the back wall. The bar from “A Rage in Harlem” ran the length of one part of the dance floor. It was loud with technopop blaring from 9 at night until 3 in the morning, and as the crowd surged with the pulsing beats, everyone got to know each other well.

There were hipsters, and emos, and preppies. There were gay men, lesbians and drag queens. And there were girls like me – non-descript blondes with a tendency toward shyness and a few wild hairs up her sleeve now and then.

So when I went in one night in a fitted black dress with a big skirt and a fake white lace collar, it wasn’t really that much of a shock to me that the person who said I looked like Lara Ingels was a drag queen.

Shirocco was a 6-foot tall, black drag queen with legs like Tina Turner and a face like Diana Ross. She was beautiful. She danced in cages with reckless abandon. She wore short skirts and figure hugging tops. She had a quick wit and even quicker tongue. She had men buying her drinks and women asking for beauty tips. She was your typical drag queen in the middle of 1990s Cincinnati.

And she nailed it. I looked like someone had picked me up out of my Little Home in the Prairie and deposited me in the Land of Oz. She just happened to point it out to me.

Did it bother me that she was prettier than me? Heck no. I hated make up back then. Did it bother me that she was built better than me? Not so much. I knew mine were real. Was it any of my business that she was anatomically a he? No. None at all.

And more to the point, was the fact that she was a drag queen newsworthy? Was it something that as a young reporter I felt compelled to share with the world? “Drag queen seduces young men in local bar – film at 11!”

No. It wasn’t.

It was her choice to be who she wanted to be. It was her choice how far she wanted to go to be a woman. And it was her choice how far she could go and still be a man. It wasn’t up to me to tell anyone who didn’t need to know. It’s just who she was.

The same is true of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner. It’s his, now her, life. It has nothing to do with us. And it’s nothing that should be blasted all over the headlines – unless, of course, that’s what she wants to happen.

I watched as some of the comments about the Vogue magazine spread riddled across the Internet this morning. It really made me stop and think. What business is it of ours?

If Bruce Jenner had stayed a man and decided to finally smack the stupid out of his daughters and tell them all to grow up and get real jobs, would that be newsworthy? No, that would be his choice… and a damn good one too. And that certainly wouldn’t keep the tabloids from making a buck off of it. If he decided to put on lime and orange colored pants and challenge John Daly to a game of golf, would that be news? Not really. Might be a bad life decision if he put money on it, but still…

And this is no different. A person’s LGBT status shouldn’t be any more important to anyone than my hetero status. It’s just who I am.

One little twit – a washed up, has-been teen star who never really made it off Nickelodeon fandom – decided to make a name for himself by saying he’d still call her Bruce. Really? How disrespectful and rude. As if a celebrity like Jenner would ever come calling on him for anything… and as if any of the rest of us cared. Granted, a few thousand people did care enough to give him crap about it on Twitter, but still…. Jenner’s decision has nothing to do with any of us and none of us have any right to say diddly poop about any of it.

In today’s news, Lindsey Graham dubbed social security an “entitlement program,” while saying it supported him and his sister when they needed it; researchers believe they may have found a way to unlock the body’s immune system to fight cancer; reports surfaced that the TSA missed 95% of the explosives they were supposed to find in a drill and in my hometown, a bear was spotted roaming around an elementary school…

Do we not have more important things to worry about than whether Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner wants to be a man or a woman? Do we really have so little going on in our lives that we need to voice our opinions about someone else’s life, especially someone we don’t even know?

One thing I do have an opinion on though is about Vogue – they certainly got a few million people to do their advertising for them today, didn’t they?

And for that privilege, the choice was all ours.

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