The Question Guaranteed To Piss Off a Guy Who Approaches Women

On the 4th, I went to the Liberty Belle Spectacular again with my husband. This year, at the news of massively hot temperatures and a second venue falling through at the last minute, I chose to dress for my comfort vs. dressing in the desired dress code for the event. I had a cute dress I could have worn fitting the dress code but since I hate sweating like a pig & having it all ruin clothes I'd have to dry clean (not to mention causing painful zits on my person), I opted for a short skirt & this pink halter top I got from a relative who didn't want it.

Since my modeling debut, I've carried the idea of not letting society shame me for having a figure & remembered what my one "arrogant" friend said about having self-confidence. I'm sure people who know me well have picked up on it. For pure sport I've gotten on subways, looked around, sometimes noticed a particular guy and thought to myself "I could make that guy want me." For me, a lot of things have been more of a "because I can" instead of a "because I want to" thing.

I go to this event and the main MC actually called out my cuteness publicly (according to my husband, at least); note that I don't actually know this MC personally though I do know a producer of the show. I happened to be the redhead closest to his eye line, was near the bar & had on what I had on so my husband could very well be right about this; I saw a redhead behind me who was dressed vintage so I'm not 100% sure if he was speaking of her or me. I had to wear my hair massively up (as in, none of it hitting my back) so I wouldn't get a sweaty neck or scalp. Let me tell you, it stinks having to shake my hair out when I get someplace semi-cool so I don't feel like I'm dying & sticky.

Apparently, I'm still hot when my hair's way up in light of this & some guy approaching me last night at karaoke despite my husband walking up and talking to me. This other guy didn't move despite me talking to my husband; what the hell, huh?

However, that guy wasn't pissing me off or being crude toward me or I would have done something that seems to be the equivalent of throwing acid on a guy: asking him if he's gay.

No, shit! I do think asking a guy you don't know that question is the equivalent of throwing acid in the guy's face. While I was at the Liberty Belle Spectacular, I overheard this girl ask a guy this question. He had an accent & I also heard him talking about masturbation later on.

Just as what happened when I saw this in law school, that guy got really pissy and belligerent over that question. It also reminded me of a funny evening I had in law school.

It was the first year I lived in Connecticut and I was going out after class with my law school roommate & another classmate for my birthday (both female; it's relevant to this story). I was partially depressed since I figured I'd be all alone for it & likely heard my mom say "Well, if you were living down here we'd do stuff for you but you live up there so you're out of luck."

So we were driving into this bar to hang out & at one point, I was turning my car around to get a parking space further up. I was attempting to turn around on this hilled driveway.

Because it had been snowing a lot around that time (mid-January; I got a trial by fire that year in moving from Hotlanta to winter in Connecticut), there was snow and ice around. One of my back car tires got stuck as I was trying to do a 3 point turn to turn around. Freaking out, I start panicking since I'm blocking this roadway.

I was convinced I'd need to call a tow truck and pay money to get this car out when all of a sudden, this guy who was definitely older than us shows up and comes to the rescue. My car is out, I can park it, we go in and all hang out together that evening.

I had no romantic interest in this guy. Not exactly sure why but he wasn't really my type & I didn't feel any sparks. We were all single at that time but I likely was still adjusting to moving and life up there. I'd just moved into my apartment maybe a week before that & was gathering my bearings; I had my own flings and such later on.

However, it turns out my roommate & that classmate did have interest in this guy. I didn't learn about my roommate's interest until later but my classmate was a little more obvious that evening. In what I think was an attempt at gentle flirtation, she asks my rescuer if he's gay.

After this, you'd have thought someone threw acid at him or kicked him in the nuts with the way he answered that one. You could feel the air between them getting more hostile after that one. His tone was still a little light but I could tell that it wasn't a question he appreciated being asked.

When I heard this conversation on Thursday & saw that guy reacting in a similar fashion, it made me wonder if this is some universal response for straight men if they're talking to some woman for the first time and she asks that one. Granted, I don't know if this other woman & this guy knew each other already but if you're friends with someone you usually don't have to ask publicly like that. Or if you do, the guy knows you're fucking with him & will play along with you (or get pissed at you for ruining his opportunity with some woman he's trying to get with but that's another story). I asked my husband about that & he says it is indeed a universal response.

Honestly, I haven't seen men asking women if they're gay in casual conversation. None ever asked me anyway & I'm sure if my friends had gotten that one, I'd have heard about it. Never saw any of my sorority sisters get that one either.

I'm not sure how a woman would react if you asked if she was gay. I don't feel like it would be the equivalent of throwing acid on one if you did, though. I think a woman you talked to for the first time would be more upset if you called her fat (though some of us are self-aware) or started obviously leering at some other girl while you talked to her (though if it were me & I was single, I would find a better looking guy & start checking him out so I could beat you at your own game) or told her you required all your women to engage in threesomes with other girls.

I've still not really figured out exactly what is the verbal equivalent of throwing acid on us that holds true for all straight women just like asking a random guy if he's gay seems to be. Does anyone have ideas?

It's Definitely NYC or Bust for Me

I had the misfortune to read this today.

Since I used to live there many years ago & still have family living there (including my soon to be 1 year old niece), I definitely have some opinions on the matter. For those who aren't familiar with North Carolina, I think some background is necessary.

First off, there are liberals in North Carolina. You could credibly say NC is not really "the South" & not just because of this. It's also because Southern hospitality and some of the conventions associated with Southernism aren't part of NC. Some of them definitely weren't part of my upbringing or experience living or going to school there. If Southern hospitality existed, I wouldn't have gotten the hell I did growing up.

Second, there are people with functioning brains in North Carolina. Save for that Virginia Foxx airhead, you don't see a consistent mob of old white men trying to slam down on women's rights like you do in Texas or Arizona. There are people in North Carolina who aren't racist or ignorant cretins.

Third, not everyone in North Carolina is a God bothering fundamentalist Christian. There are plenty of people who aren't Southern Baptists or even follow the Baptist faith.

I actually know someone who is in public office in my hometown. I don't know his reaction to this but I would hope that he would not be in favor of telling me & every other grown woman what to do with her uterus or making family planning decisions for us. No right minded person is in favor of such things. I really wish the people who were would be tried for treason & removed from public office for violating the basic duties of such. It also makes me think my cats could be better politicians than such asswipes. Even they wouldn't have the gall to create legislation that would have the effect of outlawing abortion & you know cats feel superior to humans. Remember, most cats don't like little babies invading their spaces & taking attention away from them. That whole "cute" competition & all.

If this legislation passes, then trying to send me back to NC or suggesting I go live there again would be in effect imposing a death sentence on me. Remember, I had a tubal so if I got pregnant that pregnancy wouldn't be viable. I guarantee those shitheads would make certain that there was no exception for life of the mother considering they're trying to force rape victims to carry a rapist's child & also give the rapist parental rights once that baby is born in many of these states.

I hope my brother in law gets that vasectomy soon, especially if this garbage passes. I'm sure he'll still get editorialization and whining from providers even with having 3 kids already. Considering that experience with my sister's friend, I don't put it past any doctor down there to ask "What if you want another baby?" even if you've got 6 at home. Nice questions from people who will never take any financial responsibility for those choices.

Recently, I realized that this December will mark 10 years since I escaped from the South. Yes, it WAS an "escape." I got to leave since I got accepted to law school in Connecticut; if I hadn't, I'd have been stuck there at least a few more months & have far less certainty in getting to stay once I moved away since I wouldn't have a law degree to back me up.

I also felt like I was in prison everyday I lived in the South. Atlanta was a little better since it was a major city and I didn't have to hang out with people I knew in middle school (who almost all went to my high school) but there was still that whole Southern thing I didn't like (mostly the racism). In Atlanta, at least, it wasn't the norm to be a single mother living with your parents or married & living in a trailer park with no college education in your early 20s. Not the life I wanted or aspired to; some of us are different & have different ambitions in life. North Carolina was not a place where I felt my ambitions and goals were the norm, at least not in circles I had access to.

Who doesn't feel this recent push on outlawing abortion is an attempt to shove Christian mores down our collective throats? I see it for what it is. Oh, and you are NOT "pro-life" when you think it's a-okay for people with no money, maturity or basic brain functioning to breed. You are a fascist asshole. You are a closet rapist since you think babies are a punishment for having sex. You are a sexist who thinks all women are good for is breeding & raising children, even if some woman hates her kids and resents the entire enterprise. In short, you're a dumbass. Just admit it & stop wasting time coloring this as any more than what it is.

When will these fossils die & burn in Hell, I wonder? That's where those types are certainly going considering they run around judging others & desperately need to get lives. Not to mention some of these legislators have plenty of skeletons in their closets, as plenty of Internet commenters will point out.

Not to mention NC has enough problems with the recent cut to unemployment benefits to not be dealing with this crap. Wake up, morons! The 1950s have long since passed. We live in the age of online porn, gay marriage and sexting. Join us or go to the Middle East where they live in the Dark Ages. I'm sure they'll welcome your attitude there along with your fundamentalist Christianity.

I think I'll have to have a celebration to commemorate 10 years out of the South. Or maybe we should rename some states & regions to the American Middle East.

Road Trips: The Surefire Way to Get to Know Someone & Have an Adventure

Growing up, my family didn't have the money to do things like fly to far off destinations for vacation. In fact, we didn't really have money to go on vacation. We were doing the staycation long before that term ever existed. For the record, I HATE the term "staycation"; it's just a fancy & very pretentious way to say you're too broke or have too stingy a work schedule to take a vacation.

So when we actually got to go anywhere later on (mostly due to my desire to look at schools for undergrad before spending time and money on applications), we would take a road trip.

Personally, I love road trips though you have to do them right. You don't want to travel with anyone who has to stop every 5 seconds to use the bathroom or without clearly established rules on music, driving labor, food, etc. Nor do you want to travel with anyone who's going to deviate from the pre-established route like in the last episode of Nickelodeon's Doug. Go here for a reference to what I'm talking about. Believe me, if I'm driving there's no way in hell we're going out of the way like that. I don't care if Jesus and Santa Claus are appearing at the bug ranch & handing out bags of cash to everyone who shows up. Everyone I know who has driven or navigated road trips is the same way.

Now why are road trips so great? First off, if you take the right route (not overly scenic & not a massive toll plaza) you get a lot of room for exploration.

Second, they are a great test of a relationship. After a few hours, the veneer of politeness & reserve vanishes and you'll see people's true natures. Annoying personality quirks, crazy behavior, all that stuff comes out. Sometimes you're riding with the sleep deprived; just make sure they aren't the ones driving. I went on a road trip with my husband's family early in our relationship & I had the pleasure of dealing with the guy I was dating in a sleep deprived state. He gets looney & wacky. We were in the back seat. I think a road trip is much like an extended stay at the person's house; it will either tell you it's time to dump your significant other or that you should marry the person since you don't have the urge to kill him/her after it's all said & done. My husband was the first guy I spent an extended amount of time with & didn't want to kill after it was all over. If I couldn't handle being around him in a road trip, I wouldn't have married him since I'd have wanted to leave him at some restaurant in Fair Play, South Carolina (that is a real place where a family friend of ours once had car trouble when he was driving to Atlanta).

The same goes for friendships but I think going on a road trip that is at least 4-5 hours is a good test of a relationship since you'll either never want to see your significant other again or have overcome so much in the trip that you're bonded forever. I'd totally recommend doing that before ever getting married to someone. Flying, though it's a hassle, just isn't the same since you don't have to worry about anyone navigating or doing the driving. People in the car with you can actually screw that stuff up. If you can't stand being in a car with your significant other for at least 4 hours, you will never be able to live with him/her without being seriously tempted to commit murder.

Third, it's a bonding experience. You get shared experiences & stories about things you might never see at home. For instance, condom machines in the bathrooms were a big deal when we drove to Atlanta and stopped at gas stations in South Carolina to use the bathroom. There was also that weird gas station next to the video store my husband & I went to in Georgia when driving back from Florida. This place was legendary & it's something we know about but no one else would unless we told them (or they happened to get off that exit on 95). There's also being able to manage a crisis like bad weather or road closures. Those are always fun, especially if you don't have a GPS system or a phone app to help you reroute.

Again, that veneer of politeness comes down sooner or later so you're dealing with the real person; if you manage to travel with someone who can maintain that veneer for 10+ hours in a car (the distance to drive from NYC to my hometown in NC), that person should probably be awarded sainthood. There's no way a normal person could do that unless (s)he was asleep or passed out for at least half that time. Obviously, you don't get sainthood unless you were asleep or passed out for less than a couple hours of that 10+ hours.

Finally, you figure out your roles. Some of us are good drivers, some of us are awesome navigators, some are good at entertaining everyone even if there's no radio reception or great music to play. I think romantic relationships work better if you've got a good driver & a good navigator.

Another type of person you don't want in the car? A backseat driver. I discovered my husband was one when I had to drive part of the route to NC last Thanksgiving. As a rule, I always insist that the driver gets to play the music (s)he wants; after all, you don't want the driver getting into an accident or getting pissed off and doing stupid stuff that risks everyone's lives. I switched to my CDs. Having driven from Atlanta to NC many times by myself, I made sure to create a good mix of music for my CDs. In a 5 hour drive one way, you need to have some loud music with a beat so you don't cave in to being tired or have your trip last longer because you got drowsy and had to pull over. This is especially true if you're doing night driving, as I'd had to do pretty often.

My husband, a man who hadn't done that or even made late night drives to my home like I did to his when we dated & I was leaving from my last law school class on Thursday evenings to see him, even commented on that. Then, he yelled at me for doing 70 miles per hour in a 70 mile per hour speed zone. Considering my father taught me how to drive & he was extremely good at it, I got quite upset. I also consider driving semi-relaxing if I have the right music on. I view it as akin to mastering a dance routine. You have to make sure you have the right steps & if you misstep, that's when you have accidents. That analogy is probably how I'm able to drive in construction areas and narrow spaces instead of being terrified like I was when I was first learning.

I also come from a family that prides itself on not driving like arthritic grandmothers. My mother regularly complains about slow drivers & she lives out in the country. My husband's family is the opposite & I did tell him he was acting like his mother, who will do the same thing when my husband is driving.

It seems if you're married & a straight woman, your husband will insist on driving the entire 14 hour trip himself. My mom had this happen to her & it's happened to me. I've offered to drive & my husband usually tells me no. When we were coming back from Florida, he later complained to people about driving the entire way from Florida to North Carolina even though I offered to take over anytime he wanted me to.

Are all men that stubborn? I say don't bitch about driving once you've turned down someone's offer to give you a break. When I traveled with my family, we shared driving responsibilities so no one would feel like they drove the entire way all alone.

At least I'm a good navigator so my husband doing the driving works for us. It's got to be worse if you're a driver and your significant other can't navigate for shit. I was the one who got my family out of NYC and back to Nanuet without the benefit of GPS back in 2002. I figured out the direction we needed to go & used the One Way streets to get us back where we needed to be. Guess my driving in Atlanta helped there. I'm also the one everyone goes to when they got off the wrong exit and have to get back on the interstate.

As a rule, I never rely solely on GPS for directions. We always used MapQuest directions and would learn the routes enough to see where alternate ways might be easier. I still do that today, in fact since GPS wasn't part of my life experience until more recently and I feel like you don't really learn how to get someplace unless you have the directions on your own. Just relying on GPS makes you too mindless and doesn't really allow you to recognize landmarks, exit numbers and things that would help you acquaint yourself with a route. Suppose I'm also speaking partially as a former courier since I also got directions when needed while doing that job.

Though eating is more of a challenge on a road trip if you don't eat fast food or at most chain restaurants, I still enjoy road trips. If you're smart, you research where the restaurants are on the route. This is something I've done when going near restaurants I'd never get to eat at in NYC or even where I'm going to visit. Unlike in New York and New Jersey, there are signs along the interstate in the South that will tell you what's off a particular exit. Even then, though, you sometimes can find a place is hidden. I once found a Chick-Fil-A in my route that wasn't listed on one of these signs. I joke with my husband that up here, it's "If you don't know what's off this exit, then fuck you! We're not telling you. Figure it out yourself, jerk!"

Road trips also work better if you don't have young kids, a small bladder, a hatred of adventure & novelty or fears of other people driving. Those people make the road trip much longer or more horrendous in some way. Fortunately, I don't have any of that stuff so I'm much more apt to go on one if given an opportunity. Being able to entertain yourself also helps sometimes. I also don't get car sick so I'm probably the perfect road trip companion if I've had enough sleep. I like evening trips better. Not sure why, I just do.

However, I'm not sure if you could call me a morning or a night person since my sleep schedule has varied so many times over the years that I didn't feel a difference when I was used to whatever schedule I had to follow at the time for work or school. As long as we're not leaving at 6 am & I have to drive first, I'm fine.

Man, I miss going on road trips. We're going to have to go someplace where we can do a road trip. I wouldn't mind doing one cross country as long as the proper planning happened & I got to travel with people I didn't want to strangle. I also wondered when someone mentioned a need for the means to have one to an event she was trying to get to whether there's a company that does that for you. Hires people to go on a road trip with you or use their car to make it happen? I think that kind of company would be interesting, don't you? Screen out the people so you don't get whiners and backseat drivers. If you could make it happen, I think it would be cool.

Severely Delusional People & Why Unconditional Love is a Myth

I'm amazed at the completely delusional nature of some people. For some reason, the last people I'd expect to want to deal with me have been sending me LinkedIn connection requests. One came from someone I filed a lawsuit against in small claims court. In fact, I could have appeared on TV if I'd kept that case going & not gotten my money; I did get a call from The People's Court over it.

Yesterday's was a doozy, though. It came from someone who headed an enterprise I later learned was illegal to engage in in one of the states where I have a law license.

I told the grievance committee of that state the owner's name & offered to give them whatever they wanted to keep this guy from getting another attorney there to violate ethics rules. Why on earth would he want to have me as a LinkedIn connection?

Who does this to people? What would possess you to be a LinkedIn connection with someone who disapproves of you, sued you, or did something heinous to you or your business? I refuse all these since there's that saying "Birds of a feather flock together." Why would I let you be my connection & fuck up MY reputation with your general fuckery?

I'm sure people get these requests on Facebook as well. Again, I ask why. Plus, I'm pretty direct when I don't want to deal with someone. I don't leave that stuff in the air or make you think things could be cool between us someday after the tempest has passed. If you've done something truly awful to me, I'll tell you. I will also tell you that you're dead to me or not to bother contacting me ever again. It takes real effort to make me feel that way but once you do, there's no turning back. My dislike & general hatred on someone who's wronged me is legendary: you can ask around. In fact, I'm so direct with people on that stuff precisely so I don't have to get their Facebook friend request or their LinkedIn connection request. LinkedIn really needs a block button, I swear. Situations like this are why we need block buttons; there are some severely delusional people on this planet.

Today, I actually went to my first 2 social events since my father died. Something told me to go to the second one even though I found out about it hours before the other one. The subway schedule told me to go to that one first so I did. Turned out to be a good move on my part. Did have some good conversations & hopefully will have new contacts from it. Got home really late & I'm sure to be fucking up my sleep before going to the doctor who handles girly parts tomorrow.

I've not had a check-up in years since my last one dropped off the face of the earth, literally. His number was disconnected, his website vanished, all trace of him was gone (which sucked). A childfree person like me doesn't have an easy time getting one & even though I already had a tubal, I don't need anyone foisting the Church of Baby on me. Spare me! I've got a total of 6 nieces & nephews. More kids is the last thing my family needs; I also have zero patience so maybe not such a good idea to tell me about the joys of motherhood & how I'm incomplete as a person unless I breed. I only look at providers in Manhattan since the jerks in my area kept telling me they were going to talk me out of getting a tubal like I was 15 years old; it's weird that there are people in Queens who act like they live in rural Kentucky or something. That bothers me on multiple levels & makes me feel isolated from it.

The office I called was able to see me tomorrow so I was like "Okay." I also got my assurance I wouldn't be getting harassed on that issue. I think if I did, I would have to point out the latest attempts to turn women into barefoot, pregnant baby factories with no brains or ambitions of their own. Sorry but I'd have to kill myself in that world or become a prostitute/comfort girl. I'm sure those who know me could totally see me being a hooker in that society. Maybe I'd become the hooker who killed the biggest offenders of sexism in her off time using creative methods.

So, why is unconditional love a myth? I was telling this to a friend of mine today in describing something personal about me I was pretty sure he didn't know. Not sure if he agreed with me on it but if you disagree, I'm going to break it down for you if you hear me out.

I was telling him of my long established policy of telling any guy who wanted to be serious with me that I wasn't going to relive my childhood of living with an alcoholic & that it would be unfair to ask me to do so. Selfish, cruel, those words could fit as well. If you lived through things in your childhood or a prior relationship, there's no way you'd regress to that experience if you'd fully made it out.

"Unconditional" means you take someone regardless, no matter what. But most of us wouldn't say that means you have to stay with a domestic abuser. Well, living with an alcoholic or a drug dealer would be for me the equivalent of suffering domestic violence except you're living that mentally & emotionally. If you haven't lived it, you can't really grasp what it's like.

To avoid worrying about anyone I cared about becoming an alcoholic, my policy was not to marry a drinker. My mom even told us not to do that & used her own story as proof of what happens if you do. She didn't marry him as an asshole drunk who had blackouts, damaged her property & made her fear for her personal safety. He progressed to that. I live my life with passion & if you're my friend, I care a lot about you. Imagine how I feel about my husband. Luckily, he's not given me that fear.

I think everyone's got a breaking point, an area where they'd say "Enough is enough! I'm out of here." To love unconditionally would be irrational in my book since that means you're taking the domestic abuser for life, you're giving up everything for someone (including your identity, your friends, your interests, anything you hold dear) & you become a doormat. Maybe I'm just not as good a person or am more selfish but I think people shouldn't be condemned or punished for refusing to give up who they are or let their "love" abuse them, whether it's physically, mentally, sexually, whatever. For me, that's not love. It wouldn't be love for me if my husband ignored me on that whole alcohol thing & started acting just like my father did when I was younger.

I tolerated much more from guys I simply dated than anyone I wanted a future with. Drinking wasn't a big deal to me from dates since I didn't have to live with them or deal with shared finances. I also avoided asshole drunks & only went out with social drinkers. A big difference but when you go through something like that, you feel like you've survived a long battle. I definitely did and freedom was (and still is) a huge thing for me. When you haven't had it, you cherish it when you get it.

Find me someone who's got unconditional love for someone & I'll show you how it isn't unconditional. I'd definitely put you in the severely delusional category if you in fact had unconditional love for someone; it would mean you have no personal identity or only have it at your spouse's leisure.

Why My Autobiography Just Begs to Be Written Someday

Among the other things I've done in my life, I learned more information amidst the death of my father that just screams "writing inspiration."

First off, my former friend who showed her ass at my sister's wedding chose the day after my father collapsed & was in the hospital to try apologizing for it and shoving her way back into my life. Real fucking nice there, huh? My husband went to his Other inbox to find the date on this little message. She told my sister she'd sent it weeks before; ha!

Doesn't that sound ghoulish to you? I really think it does. While I was in town, she kept calling my sister & trying to come over. Christ, what the fuck is that about? She probably figured I was staying there or spending time there. Exactly what would she hope to accomplish by talking to someone whose father has just died? That sounds to me like trying to prey on someone's vulnerability. I made it crystal clear that I didn't want to deal with her so injecting herself where I don't want her is the emotional equivalent of punching me in the face.

What sane person would do that to someone? If you're so hellbent on talking to someone, send a Sympathy card. Talk to the people who want to talk to you! Don't inject yourself into someone else's grieving experience!

I had to play "dodge the ex-friend" at the wake since I figured she'd have zero respect or regard even if my mother & sister told her not to speak to me. Though I think she could firebomb a church & my sister would still be friends with her. Meanwhile, had I pulled the shit this ex-friend did at my sister's wedding my sister would have cut me off completely & I'd have never seen my niece or nephews again.

My husband thinks I did this to get my mind off the whole wake experience. Looking at my father in the casket, he didn't look the same. He was chalk white & looked old. Even in the hospital he had more color though that wasn't him either. I have a nasty Yelp review to write very soon about the doctor who tried to deprive me of saying goodbye.

Before that wake, I did get in a fight with my mother over the same old clothing battle again. Even in death, she felt she had the right to tell me what to wear & had all this objection over my shirt that says "Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go to New York." She thought that the pastor they had doing the service would get a laugh from it but claimed "that's not appropriate to wear." I refused to budge on that issue & opted to stay home. At least one friend agreed with me on this; I couldn't see her ever letting anyone censor her style so I figured I shouldn't do it either. Gee, I don't live there, don't go to that church, am not even in that religion & am a grown woman!

Sooner or later you have to say "Enough is enough." Just because my sister asks my mother's approval on clothing doesn't mean I should have to. Plus, I'm a model & live in NYC; I know more about fashion than they do. Nor should they get any right to try shaming me into being a frump. I knew my father wouldn't care & was never obsessed with trying to infantalize me. Maybe to piss my mom off if she dies before me, I should really wear a stripper like outfit to the funeral (in black, of course)!

On Wednesday, the funeral, I opted not to wear makeup. While I was soaking my eyes, my father's cat Layla jumped onto the bed. My mom was saying she missed her Daddy; it made me cry since I knew this cat wasn't going to get the same affection from anyone that she got from him. I thought about how my cats would feel if my husband or I died, especially my Russian Blue since his breed gets super attached to their humans. Considering I was barely able to get my contacts in from drying out my eyes with tears, I figured eye makeup would be a bad idea. Plus if I'm wearing it I get very conscientious about not messing it up.

I got to wear my black silk dress that I'd gotten ages ago & felt would be the perfect funeral dress. It was sporadically raining outside & I was worried I'd be getting it soaked i.e. ruining it. I was assured I looked gorgeous in it; if you saw it & already think I am even in my worst times, you'd have probably thought so as well.

We got a family car from the funeral home at my sister's request so I rode in that with even the driver holding an umbrella to protect my dress while I traipsed the muddy driveway to the limo. In so many ways it was a tight squeeze and as someone who both isn't a "believer" + is childfree, it was not pleasant for me. I couldn't help but cry at parts of the service & when they played "Taps" as part of the military portion of the funeral. My father really didn't know a stranger; as part of his being gone, I'm trying to be less closed off on the unpleasant stuff.

I've still felt compelled to cry at times. Sometimes little things triggered it like seeing Layla and petting her. For some reason, she wasn't nearly as skittish as she was in the past. I sure don't want to hear about Father's Day shit; in fact, I'd rather not celebrate it at all. Can't even imagine how Thanksgiving or Christmas will be; they feel a million miles away right now.

I did write a letter to say the things I never got to say. Writing that also made me teary eyed. I'm sure it had to be fun for my seatmate on Amtrak but at least he was respectful & didn't pry into my private affairs.

Death makes you see who your real friends are & who they aren't. Some haven't even mustered a "That sucks" & I do know one thing for certain: my future isn't going to be with City Bar's Entertainment Committee. I've seen all kinds of things about their loved one's funerals but no one's bothered posting about my father's. Out of state or not, that's still an immediate family member of mine & I know if it was certain people's parents, they'd get an announcement & information on it. I did my part by alerting the Committee President on it. If I can't even get that, I shouldn't have to announce it myself. This isn't an IndieGoGo campaign or my modeling debut. I feel quite betrayed & insulted here.

Nor should a woman ever have to tell her husband she needs comforting. My husband ticked me off a few times by not getting that & just hanging out with my nephew or brother in law instead of doing the very thing he was supposed to be in NC doing in the first place: comforting me. Is this a guy thing? Do we women actually have to tell our romantic partners "Hey, I'm upset here! I'd like a hug (or grief nookie or whatever.)"

I got back home Friday night amidst pouring rain. It rained in NC much more than I expected during the week so it was a good thing I took my hoodie & waterproof jacket. Made sure to wear them on Friday since they called for rain from NC to where I had to go. My train was delayed by 2 hours but I still beat my husband back to NY state. He flew since he opted to fly later & couldn't cancel the return trip without paying a ton of money for the cancellation fee. I refuse to fly for various reasons, particularly the whole being treated like a criminal thing & the sexism against women with baggage policies (yes, it's totally sexist to women considering we usually have to pack more & are expected by conventional society to care more about our appearance). I figured I didn't need more bullshit when it's already a pain in the ass to get to NC from where I live & vice versa. Unless you drive yourself (which has its own hassles & challenge), it's literally a pain to deal with transit to get to the area. I also expected delays & wasn't sure my husband would be able to fly out, especially since he was flying US Airways (one of the worst airlines in existence).

Only since I've gotten home do I feel that I've gotten any respite from this. We had no rental car or privacy from all of it. No grief nookie or even grief making out, no feeling I was at home or real way to feel comfortable. I feel like a prisoner when I'm in NC, at least when I'm not hanging out with people like those I associate with on my own in NYC. After that sweaty, rain soaked walk home, I hugged my babies (the cats), made the calls I needed to including some to friends & contemplated what I was going to do at 10:40 at night when I woke up at 5:15 that morning. I don't sleep outside of a bed or couch at where I'm supposed to be staying for the night unless I'm really out of it. That takes a lot from me since I'm paranoid about theft while I sleep.

I also learned a few other revealing facts on this trip: my parents did have sex after having my sister & Psycho Boy, the guy I lost my virginity to, now has a boyfriend.

The Psycho Boy thing is interesting for a few reasons. First off, if I were a size queen I'd have just let him move to Marietta & planned a future with him. Let me tell you right now that size is nothing when it's attached to a guy who is mentally unstable & has an unhealthy obsession with you. Not to mention someone who loudly announces the nudity in artwork & raves about how hot your boss is at your work study job (while she's in earshot, by the way).

Second, I'm not sure I had major clues on this one since he just seemed to me to be the type who really wasn't ready for sex at the time while I was. Everyone around me had done it & I didn't want my first time to be with a rapist. I wanted to choose my experience & start living as an adult having those college experiences. Perhaps I was trying to break from the puritanical chains I got stuck in from childhood & embrace my new life. He made some peculiar requests later on but to me, it seemed to come from the lens of "This is new for me & I'm going to jump right in."

Third, he was the kind of guy to sway more into homophobia than tolerance. He didn't seem to be particularly sympathetic to gay issues; in fact, he wasn't the type to even know enough about politics or social issues to have an opinion much less debate me on them. In short, there was not that intellectual satisfaction that I thought I didn't need but in fact a person does need. My mother intimated this with her remark about our relationship not being sustainable since he didn't even have a GED & I was going into my second year of college.

After hearing this, I'm wondering what his father said or did. Psycho Boy told me about his father finding a sex toy of ours & assuming his son was gay instead of going to where most of us might logically go first: he's using it on this girlfriend he's been spending all this time with recently. Needless to say, his father was angry & perhaps a tad paranoid about the possibility of his son deviating from the Christian holy roller tradition of marrying a girl, having babies with her & all that noise. Psycho Boy told me about how pissed his parents were at his older brother for getting a girl pregnant outside of marriage.

I think I get a pass on not marrying this guy or staying in a long term relationship like my family would have wanted, don't you? My mother & sister were always sympathetic to him; even my sister made cracks about how I messed him up by being the first girl he slept with & broke his heart. I think I'd have been really pissed about being in a sham marriage & would demand a divorce.

These days, you can go to my home state or a few others in this country & marry your homosexual lover if you want to. You can get insurance & all sorts of stuff you couldn't in the past; all you have to do is go to one of those states and not live in the crappy redneck parts of this country where people love to impose their way of life onto everyone else instead of actually LIVING a life of their own. From what I hear, this would have been a relationship entered into under false pretenses. You have to at least inform someone if you want them to be in a sham marriage & give them permission to have an open relationship so they can get their sexual needs met elsewhere. I wouldn't do a sexless marriage, as should be obvious.

It was something of a shock but also a relief for me. Psycho Boy finding happiness with the other team means he's no longer obsessed with me or someone I have to worry about becoming obsessed with me again (at least if he's full on gay & not just bi). This was a guy who'd hated natural redheads before dating me & hasn't been the first to react in some strong way towards me that made me feel claustrophobic or trapped. It means I could see him at some event & not have to worry that he's going to do something to make me uncomfortable or prompt my husband's attention.

Maybe I also helped him get to that point or made him presentable to gay men; I would consider it a point of pride to have inspired someone to have the courage to be themselves without worrying about what anyone else thought. Apparently I was the one who motivated him to get his driver's license and work on getting that GED. The girl after me was apparently abusive but you never know: the being yourself without worrying about what other people think sounds a lot like me. I can say for sure there aren't many people like that in my hometown; more of them worry about what other people think instead of doing what they want to do. That's probably one reason I had to get the hell out of there.

It's interesting to note that according to studies, gay men are bigger. I thought maybe this was anecdotal but my husband looked it up & it wasn't. This whole thing with Psycho Boy would definitely support this since he was the biggest I had.

The smallest guy, however, wasn't a super massive horndog who jumped on anything with a pulse. I call him Corona Boy & he was definitely not the sort of guy with women falling all over him. That is something I couldn't speculate on since I was never the type to be interested in those guys (sharing wasn't my thing & probably isn't for most natural redheads) or really get anyplace with them (referring to the high school crush there). Maybe other women can tell us if the guys who jump on anything are the smallest & worst in bed.

It would be true justice if that were the case, don't you think? No woman would have to worry about not sleeping with that guy in high school or college since she'd have been disappointed there too. I couldn't say about women since I've not met any truly non-selective women that men would want to compete with each other to sleep with.

This has to explain things about me but I'm not sure exactly what. In the meantime, I'm seeing friends who care, taking it easy & waiting for the day I'll not worry about crying at random. I'm not sure you ever get over it & I'm still pissed by the unfairness of it all. Religion doesn't provide me comfort on it. The only comfort I have is that I'm going to make money from what I do or die trying. I won't have anyone belittle or undermine my career or use lack of money to claim it's not valid. I owe it to my deceased family to keep living to the fullest and taking every viable opportunity I can. Those not with that program will just have to get out of my way.

I've also got a treasure trove of inspiration for writing.

So More Death Comes to My Immediate Family

Over the years, I've had a lot of relatives die. Some were people I'd never met, some died when I was too little to remember or only have a few memories & one was someone I actually knew well. Now comes another death, the one I didn't expect in the manner it happened: my father. I still can't bring myself to call him "Dad" but I can call him "George" as my mother referred to him (no part of his name is "George" by the way; my mom's just eccentric--part of the mystery is solved, I know).

I've lost aunts, uncles, my grandmother & the most recent big one was my brother in law weeks before I was accepted to law school. That one was particularly bad since he & my sister had only been married a few months, she'd just had their first child (who was 3 weeks old & had bonded to his father in the womb) and he would have been eligible for health insurance in a few months.

My parents just got out of bankruptcy & my mom was happy he was getting a full paycheck. He'd just recovered from a knee injury & to talk to him, you'd never think of him as "old" or "boring." He hated the slow drivers on the road just like everyone else. He wasn't even 60 years old & this happened. The doctor said apparently this kind of thing happens often; people just drop for mysterious reasons, slip into comas & don't recover. If it happened to my father, I wonder, what's to stop it from happening to anyone else? Me, you, the guy down the block? We're not promised tomorrow. He's now been declared brain dead & they're only leaving him on life support until I can get there to say goodbye.

I already learned about the fleeting nature of life after my brother in law (my sister's first husband) died. I just wonder why the fuck God is pissing on my family. It's been that way forever for them; what the fuck?!?!?! Since when is my mother Job? She and my sister are totally devastated over this. I've been emotional over it but not sure if it's just the tragedy of the whole thing or actually caring. I definitely know it's not making life easy on my mom. Father's Day & major holidays are going to be a total bitch, even for me not living there. At least we had last Thanksgiving, I keep telling myself.

This "praying" stuff also bothers me. God is the one who decides it's your time, right? It's infallible & set in stone. So what good does praying do? You can hope, you can try to be optimistic but there's the element of realism to consider. If your number is up, isn't prayer just a waste of time or is it like getting clemency from the governor or something? Guess I'm also getting crotchety about it like the hard core atheists. I've known people are just saying it to be nice but I'd rather you just say you're thinking of me or sending good vibes my way.

A few things about my grief process:

1. I don't eat much. I wouldn't be shocked if I lost a bunch of weight if my mom or sister died. Really, I wondered why people kept giving us food when my brother in law died since I had no appetite? I figured drugs would be better: something to make you want to eat or not feel depressed would be the ticket. Note I didn't say illegal drugs since there are legal drugs that can do this stuff.
2. I won't want to cry but when it hits me, it hits in a huge way. Last night, it hit hard when I was telling people I was now going down there to say goodbye. It also hit hard when I saw my cat Oswald (we thought he was a girl but when the vet said he was a neutered male, Ortensia became Oswald). George will never get to meet him. When my brother in law died, it hit me when I was in my supervisor's office & realized that my oldest nephew would never know his dad. At least he's got my sister's second husband now & he's been a good Daddy to him.
3. I can't be surrounded by it 24/7. I need respite from time to time, hanging out & interacting with people who have nothing to do with it i.e. not related to the person who died & suffering the same sense of grief or worse than me.
4. I need human contact. Ideally, someone to hold me who won't let me go before I say so. Now that I have him, my husband is ideal for this but a guy friend who won't try taking advantage will do in a pinch. I'm upset my husband can't be with me until the funeral. That will be tough. Yes, I did get laid the night my brother in law died (with an ex I happened to run into that evening; it lead to a brief reconciliation) & that's one reason I need my husband with me now. I don't dislike sex anyway but in grief, I crave that human contact & that connection. You need something to counteract the pall that comes over you. It's in your stomach, your throat, your face, your movements; it's like you're wearing a heavy cloak you have no clue how to remove.
5. Don't pray for me. Say you're thinking of me or sending me good wishes but don't try to convert me or tell me about how great Jesus or God are. Spare me the sermons. You aren't going to convince me to go back to the puritanical Baptist faith I ran from.

Yeah, I'm damn upset right now. I'm not in a good mood & crossing me is bad enough on a normal day. This is rage times a trillion. I'm also not very happy with people who've been told about it who've said not a word to me. No "I'm sorry" or "Hope you feel better" or even "That sucks." I think I'll be cleaning some house when I get back to town. You don't get to be a "friend" in my life when you can't even acknowledge that my situation sucks.

I've reached out to people more on things, remembering what my mom says about how if you want friends you have to show yourself friendly. Well, I figure you can't call someone a friend if you never give them the opportunity to actually BE a friend to you. Me talking about this is most definitely the opportunity to show me what you're made of in that sense. Are you a friend or are you worse than a stranger on the street? Most strangers have at least enough compassion to feel bad for you if an immediate family member is dying or dead. The hospital is also apparently damn anxious to pull the plug before I get there. I told my mom to ask them why they needed to do it this second when I wasn't going to be there at 3 a.m. If they want to get on my bad side, I said they can go right ahead & see where that gets them. I think I deserve my goodbye time considering I never got that with my brother in law.

Not sure which is worse: instant death or this waiting around stuff. I think waiting around seems worse since it's false hope & all this build up only to get disappointment in the end. At least I know the things to ask my husband about & tell others of in case he goes first. I also worry this will kill my mom from depression. Studies show that dead people's spouses usually die not long after the dead person died. We're just too young for this.

I warned my husband my family lives to their 60s & my father didn't even get to 60. No one will live long enough to be a burden but still. It just sucks all around.

I know I'll be shitty company for a while but frankly, I don't give a damn about that. Talk to me when it happens to you if you've got a problem with it.

Is There Going to Be ANOTHER Day of Reckoning For Me?

I just got shocking news this evening: after recently recovering from a knee injury from wrecking my old car, my father was rushed to the hospital this evening. At last report, he suffered a heart attack, is currently in ICU & hasn't regained consciousness. He also has fixed pupils, which isn't a good sign.

For those who haven't already read about this, I have a very complex relationship with my father. I'll spare you some of those details but I didn't have a Ward & June Cleaver upbringing. The only way my life would be similar would be if Ward had been an alcoholic who eventually cared more about drinking than his family & June had to step up and be both mother and father. My mother's definitely no stupid woman & she's a far better human being than many of us. My sister is definitely a better human being than many of us; maybe that's where she got it from.

Distance has improved that relationship in some ways. I don't have to be part of that drama or deal with him getting drunk & showing his ass. My mother would say he's mellowed in his old age & they've been through a bunch of shit but if it were me, I'd have left so many years ago. Remember, I'm the one who told my mother she should get a divorce when I was 7 years old.

I don't think I'd have married him in the first place but I probably say that having seen what it's like to live with an alcoholic parent. I know you can't change someone & it was my mother who told me that whatever a guy does before you marry him, he'll do after you marry him.

When I went to CT in 2003, I discovered that there was a huge amount of unresolved shit in that relationship. Particularly with his drinking with that neighbor kid when I was in 8th grade (an older kid we looked up to who was under 21) & me writing a long, multi-paged letter about how I felt. I think I even outright wished him dead in it.

I've gone from blind hatred & fantasies about killing him with the car to a state of numb indifference. I knew when we had this huge fight driving home even when the roads weren't great & he said "If you were a man, I'd punch you" that we weren't going to ever have a functional, normal father-daughter relationship as long as he sat in denial on this. Never said "I was wrong to do that & put you kids through the strife I put you through." My parents have never acknowledged putting us second, much less apologized for it.

That's why I'm so hard-core when it comes to not bringing kids in bad situations or putting them second in life. No kid needs to be put in the position of having to be the strong & responsible one, not having a parent to guide or protect them from the realities of life. Granted, it could have been far worse. I was never physically or sexually abused but the emotional abuse I got was bad. I did get called a bitch & because my mother wouldn't let us curse, we couldn't use profanity on my father.

I feel like it's even worse when someone's making your life Hell & doesn't have a substance abuse problem to partially excuse it. Drinking was a deal-breaker for me when I looked at who I'd marry. You couldn't be my husband & a social drinker; I outright told guys (including my husband) about my childhood & that I couldn't live that again so it would never last if I had to worry about alcoholism becoming a cast member. Maybe I should have added mental issues to that as well; it's something else I'm not good at handling & probably explains why many of my family members are as they are. My father was a great parent when he was sober; when he wasn't, it sucked.

I haven't really dwelled on this since I've been trying to live my own life & you can't resolve conflicts with someone who refuses to admit to doing anything wrong. Mainstream society would side with me on this & I shouldn't have to back down and say "Oh, it was perfectly okay to get drunk and not take us to things, embarrass us in front of our friends, let your drinking buddy kidnap us, make us have to keep secrets from our classmates & stunt our social development, drink with the underage neighbor kid we looked up to, etc."

I'm not sure how I feel about all this. I did tell my mother to pull the attorney card if she had to since I don't think anyone should be getting substandard care or general substandard treatment. My husband kept pushing me to have an emotion. I just have a million concerns in my head.

For one, I wonder if he's going to live or end up brain dead i.e. not being the same person. I know my family can't afford an institution & it would kill them to do that. I also don't really want that kind of financial drain on my mother since she's gone through enough in this life. She doesn't need more. He apparently never said anything about staying on life support or not.

Second, I wonder if and/or when I'll have to go to NC. That prospect bothers me, especially when things have been going well for me. Even my husband has had things look up for him. I would have no place to stay unless I was in a hotel since people either have no space, aren't in town or their homes would be unsafe for me. My husband said he'd go with me to any funeral that happens but I saw how he acted last time when shit hit the fan so I'm concerned he'd just cave again and let Nick the Ineffectual continue to think he's his better.

I, on the other hand, will be very nasty if he gets problems & have no issue telling Nick the Ineffectual to his face that I wish for him to watch his son die a slow, painful death. Be a monster to me & I'll be monstrous right back. Even up the ante if I feel I need to for my mental health.

My husband didn't get that you can't tell someone who's gone through the things I have that they must go backwards after making so much forward progress. Call me selfish, naive, whatever but going backwards would be my functional death. If you give me no pro-social outlet, I'll have to go the antisocial route. I've told people this before & I felt like my husband ignoring it meant he didn't truly believe me or get what it is to me. No therapy is going to change my view & I'm not going to take meds; I don't feel I need them since I do function fairly well & am far happier today than I was living in NC or the South (who wouldn't be happier living their dreams?). I bet meds would also steal my creative energy & who wants "normal" me? I wouldn't & doubt any true friend would either. My husband goes without saying; he's definitely anti-meds on general principle.

Third, I'm not sure how this whole thing is going to resolve with me mentally. I'm not earth shatteringly devastated & do feel worse for my mom and sister. I can't live up to some little "happy, functional family" tableau. My reactions are different. My tears (if anyone ever sees them since I don't cry in public very much; I'm not even good at letting myself sit & have a good cry) are for different reasons. The unresolved stuff is definitely part of it. The fact that I never got that acknowledgment is another part. Can't we have something in between total sadness & indifference? That's where I'm at right now. I also at least understand the "why" of my father's alcoholism, which didn't come until later in college.

So much is going through my mind right now. I'm not sure I'll get to sleep tonight even though I'm coming down with a cold. Maybe I should do dishes or put meat away. It's a radical notion at 3:30 in the morning but hey, I have to do that stuff sometime.

The World of Modeling & Officially Being One of "The Beautiful People"

I had my modeling debut on Wednesday. As in, I got to be in a fashion show for a legitimate designer who has a track record & contacts. The models I worked with included people who do it professionally. This was an opportunity I never really expected to get, even though every girly girl would kill to do it. After all, there are modeling scams all over the place. Plus, I'm in a grey area on height.

However, I'm so darn thin that I look taller than I am. That's nothing new considering one mother whose kid I watched one summer thought I was 5'8 when I'm actually shorter than that.

My opportunity actually arose when I went to an event for my film company & met a designer who invited me to participate. An awesome person, by the way. I would totally work with her again.

Things you should know about modeling:

1. It is NOT as easy as it looks. Really, it's not. This is one point where mass media and the general public have it totally wrong.

2. The things that form the attorney mindset are murder in modeling. You can't be paranoid, obsessed with a routine or overly eager to please. You've got to have some self-confidence, be prepared for the unexpected and let go of things.

3. Modeling may be the only space where you aren't being encouraged to cover up or repress yourself. I actually loved going to my debut since it was the one forum I've been in where I wasn't being made to feel shame for looking as I do or where I'd have to worry if something was too revealing or too sexy.

4. Being in a sorority is very good prep for being in a fashion show. You have to do a lot of posing for pictures, though you do get to be alone much more often than with sorority picture taking. I remember doing TONS of pictures for our sorority events & girls outright saying they felt like they should be models with us having to pose so darn much for picture taking from different people.

5. If you were the ugly guy/girl back in the day & get a modeling opportunity, the arrogant friends are useful resources here. If they overcame their ugly guy/girl past, even better.

Models and the world of fashion modeling has a very nasty rep in society. When I was a teenager, the only thing I really heard about was how the models in magazines were unrealistic to what girls actually looked like and that if you were a small size, you were "unnatural." Hell, pretty girls have gotten a bum rap as well! Look at shows like Daria or My-So Called Life. You have the Fashion Club, Quinn Morgendorfer (whom I'd look more like if I were an animated character) and a whole episode of My So-Called Life where the model of this one magazine is attacked just b/c she looks better than others. Even today, you have certain feminist types and fat appreciation folks who aren't content with just empowering themselves in the face of society's standard of beauty. Instead, they have to engage in skinny & pretty hate.

Are there vapid airheads in that world? Sure. Are there models with eating disorders or managers and others telling models to lose more weight? Probably. I didn't experience that myself & haven't heard about it from anyone I know in that field but I'm sure it happens.

If someone told me to lose weight, I'd laugh my ass off considering I actually lost some weight recently (likely from working out) & me weighing less isn't really a good thing. It would mean going down in cup sizes, which I wouldn't want. A friend in high school once asked me if I was anorexic & I was a clothing size bigger then, so that should tell you something about how little I need to lose weight. Vanity sizing may have affected that some but I did have to get rid of things I had from that time b/c they were now too big on me.

The outfit I ended up in was actually much more revealing that anything I'd ever worn in public and was going to be more revealing but ended up being not so much. You could see my underwear in it as well most of my body, though I was clothed (no nude modeling for me, thanks). I'm hoping I can get a full pic of that at some point since I looked gorgeous & how many attorneys do you know who've also modeled while they were attorneys?

I also wasn't the least bit self-conscious about going out in it. I got out there & it was very liberating. Wearing something as part of a fashion show (or even a stage performance) is not the same as wearing it out on the street. Performance is different & if you have a creative background, you get this. Even my conservative mother got this.

Unfortunately, my night was tarred some with a fight I had with my husband. He was mad I took off my wedding ring to do the show. My understanding was I had to take it off since the designer said to take off any jewelry not part of the costume since it would mess up the pictures. He got upset and left. The designer said I didn't have to take off my ring & wanted to meet him but by then, he was gone. I learned later that apparently the owner of the venue where the show was treated him badly. Still, it did cause a fight since I felt like my husband didn't want me to model at all even though I got this opportunity & it would be stupid to turn it away. It's one thing if I tried & failed but I tried & succeeded; the future is wide open.

We settled this, at least, so now things are good. He did also say that if I had to take off my ring for an acting role, he'd understand. As bears repeating for those not in the creative field, performance is different from your real life. You're putting on a show, creating a performance. It's not the same as taking it off to go pick up guys in a bar (or girls or transvestites, whatever your preference is) so you can have an affair.

Frankly, I'm sick & fucking tired of the skinny hate and the pretty hate. As far as I'm concerned, those people can go someplace unpleasant if they want to try going there with me. I'm of the belief that people who are pretty, get modeling opportunities or do/have something desirable in society should not have to apologize for being who they are or having it. I decided after doing this that I'm not going to apologize for being pretty or having a body women envy. Why are those realities my fault? Who is anyone to go & make that my fault? Why should I or anyone else be punished for it? If you've got that stuff, you should be happy & embrace it.

That's not to say you have to be a jerk or an asshole to others but if you make assumptions about my competence or diminish my rights as a human being over it (I'm more of a reactive personality instead of someone who actively starts shit with others), then I most certainly get the right to call you a fat ass or whatever derogatory term will be fitting for you as a detractor. It's not MY problem or anyone else's that you're insecure, envious or have low self-esteem. Maybe if you worked on yourself, you'd not be going around hating model types.

I feel like somehow we've gotten to a point where being the pretty, skinny girl is the same as being a villain. You might as well be torturing puppies in your spare time. Consider another media example: the TV movie Death of a Cheerleader. Tori Spelling played the pretty, popular character who was a total bitch to Kellie Martin's character, the girl who wanted to be pretty & popular but was on the fringes of the in-crowd. I felt Tori Spelling's character was completely unsympathetic; if you watched it, you'd be rooting for her death since she had no redeeming qualities. The case it was based on was much different & the popular girl apparently wasn't a total bitch.

I actually listened to my "arrogant" friend (well, it's what my husband says but if I didn't think he had redeeming qualities he wouldn't be my friend) & realized he had a point. Plus, I remembered he hung around model types so if anyone would have insight on how I could properly prepare for this I figured he would.

Maybe it's naive but I do think it's possible to 100% embrace being "one of the beautiful people" without becoming an asshole. Let's face it, I already have problems with people assuming bad things about me for plenty of other reasons. I'm also just not a person who has to knock others down to feel good about herself. I don't have to vilify a pretty girl to make myself more beautiful (I'm a redhead so mine is different anyway); maybe that's why we have this whole mainstream attitude over it. The writers of shows and movies were ugly in their day, never got viewed as "pretty" later on & have criminally low self-esteem to this day.

Consider the Abercrombie & Fitch statement from the CEO about how they don't want fat people wearing their clothes & that they market to the "cool kids."

I heard about this and thought it was simply a confirmation of what I already saw in my high school days. All the preppie & popular white kids wore Abercrombie & Fitch clothing.

I personally rebelled against it since I had a true sense of style my classmates didn't, I got 40% off clothes I could wear to work at my retail job at JcPenney so most of my clothing was dressier stuff & I didn't like most of the kids in my grade who were wearing this stuff. I also left shit like wearing labels behind in middle school & Abercrombie & Fitch just wasn't my cup of tea (Rave was more my speed).

The only time I got something from there was a tank top I wore to play a role in a Drama Club play I was in where I was the lead guy's girlfriend. I felt like Abercrombie & Fitch would be her aesthetic and make her more genuine as a functional, "normal" high school student than my personal style would. However, when we took the show to a theater competition outside our city I ended up wearing something more my style at the behest of my fellow cast members & Drama teacher. I have no clue where that tank top is today; it's probably vanished someplace in the annals of time and my mother's garage full of stuff you can't get to or organize.

My other thought was "Thank you! At least someone is respectful to skinny people & not making their size 2s as big as houses." Not a retailer I care for but if you're my size, shopping can suck. I'd like to be able to go someplace in NYC where there's a selection in my size and it doesn't cost a trillion dollars (other than sample sales). No one ever cares about whether I can find clothes to fit me but the skinny haters sure can.

Why should some private company have to cater to fat people when there are plenty of companies that don't cater to me as a skinny person? I can't control my size either. Should the CEO have said it publicly? Probably not & with him looking as he does, he had to have known he'd get that held against him when he made those statements.

See my point on skinny hate? It's one thing to appreciate who you are but you don't get a right to slam me or others who are skinny by nature. People have practically been calling for crucifixion of this CEO, which I can't agree with. In college, I interviewed for a job there but they had this crazy group interview session where you were evaluated based on how much you talked vs. the other applicants. Well, the big mouths are going to win every time. No opportunity to talk to anyone individually about their experience or sales abilities or anything like that. Just not my thing.

So, would I model again? Absolutely. I'd like pay for it but as long as I'm treated with basic respect and my personal boundaries are respected, we're all good. This is another one of those "we'll see where it goes" type things. I figured even if I never did it again, I would at least be able to say I did it once.

Getting Tattoos & Getting Philosophical

Read this article recently, where an employer apparently encouraged people to get tattoos. Not just any old tattoos, though. They rewarded company branding.

I've written a little about tattoos but not sure I ever really stated when it was a good or bad idea to get one or what types are okay vs. not okay. Here goes:

NEVER get a tattoo of the company you work for if you're not an owner. If you're not the owner, you could very well get fired or quit later on in disgust. The job situation could easily change and you could go from viewing it as a little slice of Heaven to tolerable or in my husband's case, a very nasty form of Hell.

Now you could also lose your business but at least if you're an owner, it probably had more of an impact in your life and might be a reminder to you of something you did well or a mistake you don't want to repeat.

I also never got a tattoo of my sorority letters or the name. If you really want to after you've gotten through the pledge period, I could understand doing that. However, that doesn't mean you can't still get kicked out at some point. Remember, it did happen to that bitch whose father draws Spider-Man.

I have no clue how it works once you've graduated college and are out living in life but I'm sure if someone became the next Casey Anthony or Ted Bundy, a national fraternity or sorority would want to take membership away from that person lest (s)he "damaged the brand" for future potential new members or the members who still had to represent the group in a college setting. No one I know has become notorious so not sure how that works but it's worth asking yourself that question before you consider getting your letters tattooed on yourself.

I guess I've also got an issue with getting something so permanent like a tattoo for something I don't have an ownership stake in. These days, I'm just not motivated to work as hard for anyone besides myself. My closest friends or people I respect would probably be next & then there's everyone else. Considering what I've seen & heard about in the corporate world these days and being who I am, is it any wonder I feel that way? Wouldn't YOU be on the defensive constantly if everyone made you feel like you didn't deserve a fair shot b/c they were jealous of your accomplishments or skills? I responded to one job ad I saw recently & read it to my husband, who said I sounded "angry" in there.

I've gotten that reaction from others when I responded to ads. Gee if you were an out of the box person & had been subjected to the endless parade of bullshit I have, might that make you not have an emotional investment in anyone?

Might that make you conclude that you are going to have to figure out your own hustle since no one who could pay you is actually going to respect or trust you?

So, if you're going to get a tattoo get something that has personal meaning for you. Fuck what anyone else has to say about it!

I also don't like the idea of branding myself with a company or an organization; my own mother says that one job she has only offers advancement if you're willing to get the organization's name tattooed on yourself (figuratively, at least). She says she's not that dedicated to it!

The whole tattoo thing makes me question if more companies are going to demand that next for just getting a job there. If some posters are asking for pictures via LinkedIn profiles and to see all your social media passwords while making you take these fake behavioral assessments, is tattooing the organization's name on your body (or perhaps even on your butt) really that far behind? Plenty of employers already demand employees not to have a private life or a point of view.

I've gotten to that distrustful point when it comes to paying day jobs. You also get a very different perspective of the world when you lose close family members belonging to your generation at a very young age.

That different perspective brings me to some philosophical points.

One thing I've realized recently is that I'm losing my past & maybe it's not such a bad thing. I'm not "the ugly girl" and haven't been considered uncool in ages. I also have people in my life who don't seem like they're going to be jealous of me as I move up in the world. They have their own success & don't seem to begrudge me of having any. I also feel like I can respect those people I have allowed in (which isn't a large number since I've always been a private person; I also freely admit to not being the easiest person to have a friendship with). Sometimes, you also realize that particular people are in your life for a reason.

I feel like I'm going to lose more pieces of my past as time goes on. I found out news about my former friend who showed her ass at my sister's wedding that made me feel perfectly fine with having cut ties. History does not trump survival & being better in your life. You can't keep people around who bring you down, begrudge you of good things or want you to be ashamed of who you are.

At first, I felt kind of bad about it. I'm not in my childhood town or anyplace where I went to school. NYC is where my adult life is; you could probably say my college years is where my life began since that's when I got to choose where I went, my friends, my clothes, who I dated & be my full self. As pieces of my past fall away, it makes life today more cemented & permanent. It also makes regression impossible & me more steadfast about not moving backwards. It's much harder to go backwards if you don't live in your childhood town and your oldest friend from childhood is a distant memory. My former friend might as well be dead with the personality change she's had.

A big concern with doing things is still being the same person I always was; I think I still am. I'm still as much a rabble rouser as I ever was. I'm still unconventional & opening my big mouth when I feel the motivation. No one hearing about stuff I'm doing has ever been shocked by it since I always was a driven, ambitious person who was going to do something significant & unusual. My challenge is going to be figuring out how I can embrace who I am today (particularly with being an industry branded "hottie") without forgetting what it was like to be who I was in the past.

That's something I wonder: How do you let the past fall away enough so you can move on & embrace the success you get in today's time but not lose the values/experiences that make you not be the worst of the "successful" class you now belong to? And is it a bad thing if you let go of some of that past trauma if doing so will make you more successful?

Personally, I don't think this letting go of the past is a bad thing. Some people didn't have great pasts & psychologically, it's probably far better to let it fall away than act like you're still something you aren't.

To end this on a less tragic note, another observation: if you don't have a celibate marriage, don't get a wooden bed frame for your marital bed. I discovered that we may find ourselves with a damaged bed frame in the near future & I have a feeling it's the result of our combined sex drive.

It occurred to me that you don't see beds in college dorms with wooden bed frames. My beds in my dorm rooms didn't have that. Nope, they had metal frames. I figure it's because the people putting in the beds figured sex happens often on college campuses so they may as well be prepared. Otherwise, they'd have to buy new bed frames all the time since students & their sex partners would break them from so much use.

Let's be honest: that's one reason people go to college in the first place, especially if they go to school far away from their parent's house. It's the first time in life you can have sex without worrying about your parents catching you or anything you buy to prepare for it. You can get what you need without them having to go with you or find out (since the college can't talk about such things with your parents due to HIPPA laws; nor can your doctor even if the doctor's their best friend). If you move away from home for this, your parents have to let go and learn to trust you to be an adult; they simply have no choice if your school is lots of hours away & they don't have unlimited money to drop in unannounced. My mother assumed I did all sorts of stuff in college but my life wasn't nearly as exciting as she thought it was. Regardless, I do think getting to have sex without all this parental control & having to hide things from them is probably one motivating factor in going to school far away from one's childhood home.

Maybe if you've got a sex drive, you should get a bed frame with reinforced steel. I don't know.

Shaving in America: Do You Really Need to Shave "Down There?"

Reading Tuesday's Dear Prudence letter about the woman whose husband refused to have sexual relations with her until she was bare "down there" made me realize that's something I've not talked about here. I do have very strong views on the subject, so here we go.

If you're not completely dense, you get that I'm a natural redhead. Aside from having tempers and being really good in bed (supposedly; I haven't taken a poll of all the natural redheads & the people they've slept with), natural redheads generally have fair complexions & sensitive skin. My husband even said at one point "Your skin hates you," a concept I turned into some sweet commercial copy for myself in a commercial acting class.

Growing up, I hated that I could not get a tan to save my life. The only choice I have for skin color is pale white and lobster red accompanied with pain. Then we have the freckles, some of which also pop up in the sun. The only ways I can get tan are 1) get a second degree sunburn and let it heal (which happened once but was super, massively painful; I went swimming without sunscreen & decided to lie out in the sun on a float) or 2) get a spray tan. Even tanning at home would lead to me having orange skin since I'm not a pro & most likely would screw up the application of the self-tanning lotion.

I don't think I hated my former friend more as a child than when I got that second degree sunburn on the tops of my arms & my boobs while she had a tan on her back with "I, a heart, and the name 'Josh'" spelled out, having achieved that with spelling it in sunscreen and lying down for a while. Yeah, I hate all you bitches who can do that!!! I'd end up with a sunburned back if I tried it.

So, we've established that my skin is sensitive. In my age, it's gotten worse and will likely get even worse as I age further.

This means shaving & hair removal is not fun for me. Thankfully, I can use Nair or Veet (I'm liking Veet better since they have a sensitive skin formula) on my legs since shaving gets way too labor intensive for me. As a perfectionist, if I don't get every last bit of hair off I feel like I wasted my time doing it in the first place. Chemical hair removal is the perfect option if you are also like this & hate missing stuff when you shave. It's the only thing I'll use for my legs. Shaving my underarms is manageable since it's a smaller surface space & I can reasonably get all the hair off.

My attitude on shaving is I do it when I'm good and ready. I don't do it on a daily basis or even a weekly basis; I do it when I feel uncomfortable with the hair length. If I feel like it's too long or just don't want to see it anymore, that's when I handle it. Or if I'm going to a dressy event & feel my armpit hair is starting to look like Paula Cole's from the "I Don't Want to Wait" video. Check it out if you haven't. My sister called her "Armpit Girl" after we saw it. Personally, I don't want my underarms looking like that. I also deal with my legs if I'm going to be wearing a skirt or shorts someplace & my leg hair is starting to look like my husband's in volume.

Down there, though: how many guys actually care about that? I've had my whole attitude & practices on shaving forever, even when I was single. Guys I dated by & large didn't care. Now, maybe you'd argue that I enjoyed some pretty girl privilege here or the fact that I was willing to have sex made it irrelevant for the male population by & large. I have no idea; none of my sorority sisters ever mentioned that being an issue for them.

I personally feel like shaving is one of those things women do for other women. They don't want other women making fun of them or getting catty about it. I've never felt the need to compete with and be catty toward other women; of course, I always made sure when I was checking out guys at the club I was in a spot away from other women. One way you can tell I'm straight? When other women would be too close to me or my vantage point if I was out someplace as a single person, my first thought was "Move it bitch, you're blocking my light!"

Exactly one guy I ever dated brought up the subject with me of doing something about "down there." He's also the same guy who bugged me about paying on dates & was described by a friend of mine as having "the social skills of a rock." I call him Condo Man.

Condo Man lived in a condo (duh) & had lots of pictures of women in bikinis. I had a strong feeling I was the second girl he slept with & he was 8 years older than me. One day, he decides to ask me about shaving or waxing down there.

I told him the truth: there's two ways that area's going to look. You have the choice of hair or little red bumps. It made wearing an average swimsuit hell for me when I started getting hair since I had the choice of hair poking out or getting irritation to remove the hair.

I tried to Nair it once; that caused little red bumps. Home waxing caused me to bleed & suffer serious pain; I'm a pain wuss & probably didn't have the wax hot enough. Direct shaving didn't work either since I still had the freaking hair there & it hurt like hell afterwards.

Dick move to tell a naturally redhaired woman you won't have sex with her if she isn't going Brazilian. I accused him of wanting me to look like a 10 year old girl. Natural redheads (at least this one) & waxing do not mix: look at the after pics of my eyebrow wax in The Wedding Saga series if you think a professional wax wouldn't result in bad fu for me.

A natural redhead tampering with her "down there" area isn't going to look like some tanned Brazilian chick after waxing: she's going to have little red bumps that hurt like hell and won't be in the mood for wearing underwear, much less having sex. Forget about oral.

So, hypothetical guy, my suggestion to you if you're obsessed with having a woman who looks like she moonlights as a porn actress or Playboy model: don't date a natural redhead. If that obsession trumps the awesomeness of the natural redhead, you will just piss her off & God knows what she might do after you suggest she go inflict this pain on herself to make you happy. Plus, it defeats the entire purpose of getting rid of the hair since no one wants to be intimate if they've got those little red bumps from irritation. Why put yourself through that? By the time those little red bumps are gone, the hair's growing back.

Check out the comments on that letter. A bunch of people were defending this guy & I had to wonder if they'd ever dated a woman with sensitive skin. Some of us can't just "shave it off." If some men want to volunteer for that task & make it relatively painless for the woman, then I'll give some leeway.

If you could find me a cheap/low cost method to get rid of hair permanently without ever having to do the area again or having nasty side effects someplace, I'd consider it. I would love to never have to do hair removal again so long as the hair on my head still grew. Electrolysis is NOT cheap & it's time consuming, not guaranteed, simply not a viable option in my opinion.

You know, my whole skin thing is probably a good reason I'd never be considered to be a Playboy model. I have never had an afro or anything crazy but my centerfold pictures would have little red bumps or hair unless they airbrushed those bumps out.

Come to think of it, has anyone seen a nude model or porn actress who was a natural redhead? I haven't & if you do, I'd love to ask her about her hair removal secrets for "down there" since I'm sure she can't go on camera with the little red bumps and I doubt filmmakers love her so much they're going to spend more in editing & post production just so she can have sex on camera. Is this some other fetish section I'm not aware of in porn? It does seem to be a fetish in reality (at least with people I've encountered online & in real life, including my high school boyfriend) so I wouldn't be shocked if that was a separate category. They have clown porn so surely there's a category for this one. Maybe everyone dies in it, though.

If anyone is capable of killing someone from the intensity of sex, it would have to be a natural redhead.

Condo Man summed up the 1 in 100 guys who bothered me about things no one else did. 99 guys in a room never bothered me about things that he did. The funny thing is he bothered me about things other women get bothered about but in my case, those things never came up. If 99 guys won't bother you about something, why would you go out with the 1 who does? That question always came to mind when dating him & having fights on these issues.

Heck, if people think my husband isn't good enough for me they'd have wanted to kill Condo Man among my many jerky exes! I wouldn't be the least bit shocked if Condo Man were still single. He made me look functional & normal by comparison. He even made me look social; it was probably a turning point for me on that front.

People commenting thought this guy was watching a lot of porn or had a woman on the side. Well, if my husband tells me to be hairless after 18 years of marriage I'll tell him what I told Condo Man & how shitty that is to say to a natural redhead. I'll also have to insist on an open marriage; I realized my limit on celibacy is if you put me in a period longer than what I experienced when I was single. I didn't have even a year of celibacy after losing my virginity & I'm still trying to figure out how many months would cross that limit. I think it's within single digits though might not be less than 6 months.

I have to calculate this since then it does make it fair for me & my circumstances. The reason for this? I did a fair amount of dating once I got out of my hometown (after that, I managed to have summer relationships with guys who didn't know me in the past), had no shortage of interested guys & sex is a basic human need. Sorry if that upsets the Puritans but it is & if you knew my family, it's a small miracle that I'm not totally frigid or married to Psycho Boy. Recently found out that ex-friend didn't take God's bitchslap seriously & made the same mistake AGAIN. Sort of confirmed I made the right choice & made me say "Wow, my sister's got a much bigger heart than me since I couldn't call someone who neglects their kids a friend of mine."

Ladies, I say do what you're comfortable with and if some guy dares to tell you to be bald he'd better be willing to do the same for you. I didn't really ask Condo Man about it but he didn't go hairless for me so that tells you something. If he's got sensitive skin, he needs to be thinking twice about demanding a woman do that for him if she's got the same thing.