Let Them Eat Cake

Oh, hello there. Long time no see. How's it goin? What's new?

I've been a wee bit busy. That's part of my excuse for being MIA. The other part is that Donald Trump's presidential campaign has made me question my reason for being, which has eclipsed my mommy blogging motivation.

These times, they are a changin'!

I left my old job after five years. But I took this lamp. And also that one. And this one. And the other one too.

Then we had a Michael Jackson party for The Boy's 6th birthday. This was at his request, which kind of made me feel like I was winning at this parenting thing. (He's too young to appreciate any awkward irony.) But about a week before the party, a little buddy of his came over and apparently didn't know who Michael Jackson was, so J$ said he changed his mind and wanted to have a ninja party instead. I said A) TOO LATE. And B) Your friend needs to reevaluate his life choices. Duh.

The night before the party I almost died the death of a thousand paper cuts because, as per usual, I was assembling motherf*cking cupcake toppers and bedazzling oreo pops at 3am. Seriously why, WHY, WHYYYY do I do this to myself ? WILL I NEVER LEARN??

Ahh. That's bettah.

Also, someone RSVP'ed the night before for a FAMILY OF 5, and then someone RSVP'ed THE MORNING OF for another two kids and two parents and in case you don't know, now you know: This puts me IN A RAGE. Pet Peeve Hall of Fame right here. It drives me absolutely BONKERS. I can hear myself getting all shrewy about it and I can feel DM trying really hard not to roll his eyes at me and I still can't stop. It is seriously SO ANNOYING TO ME. Like, WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION? I'm not asking you to reply via carrier pigeon. The marvels of modern technology make it literally as easy as the push of a button. "I Will Attend." Click YES. Or NO. It's that simple people!!!

I shouldn't be so judgy. "He that is without sin among you, cast the first stone," or whatever. Once DM did this to friends of ours, but it was against my express and vehement objection. I was like, No, absolutely not, that is not okay. We are not a family of lawless savages! He went anyway. Also, I recently forgot to send my regrets to an old friend's wedding invite until two weeks prior. Oops. Dick move. But, less bad than a late RSVP - "Will Attend - PLUS FOUR," right???

Maybe my frustration is exacerbated by the fact that I am a woman obsessed who hand-crafts cupcake toppers and magical rainbow unicorn wands and/or orders personalized thingamajigs from Etsy or what have you. I mean it's one thing if you want to bring a few more people to a mellow backyard BBQ. But, for me, kids birthday parties are a production. There are months of careful planning, ordering, multiple trips to Michael's, crafting, baking, etcetera culminating in one mathematically and scientifically calculated afternoon of conspicuous consumption. I already order/make/bake extra everything because I now know better, but the last few parties we've had, there have been like ten unaccounted-for little critters in need of goodie bags! Maybe this is indicative of the underlying problem of kids expecting elaborate to-dos and fancy goody bags at all (a problem created by Pinterest and psycho parents like yours truly). I don't know.

ANYWAY. The party was fine. It always is. AND. The people who RSVP'ed the night before? Literally the nicest family with the most polite children I've ever met in my entire life. Like, THE actual nicest. And as they were leaving the mom said, "I already told the kids they don't get goodie bags because we RSVP'ed too late, so no worries at all if you don't have enough." Soooo, I'm an asshole. Thank the Patron Saint of Party Etiquette we had enough!

Success. DM and I celebrated the next day with a well-deserved grown-up date.

"Mom Purse" this, MFers.

Then DM took the kids to the East Coast for a week and I started a new job and it was kind of good in a way that I could just focus on the new gig, but it felt very strange to come home to an empty, quiet, CLEAN house every night. I felt a little lost and floaty but also a lot free. I got more sleep than I have in 6 years. I subsisted primarily on popcorn, jelly beans, and toaster waffles. It was not the worst.

Imma 'bout ta watch TV by myself for the first time in a year! Just as soon as I figure out which remote to use.

I also had a romantical sister date complete with crafting, poolside cocktails, sunset over the Pacific, and Mexican food. It was all fun and games until the Uber driver asked if I was her mother. [Side eye emoji.]

The new job is good but hard. I feel like a newbie again and I hate not knowing things. But everyone is nice and patient and helpful and, p.s., the office is 1.5 miles away from my house!!! My commute is a tenth of what it was. The other night I texted DM "On my way. Be home in 300 seconds!" The place is also a block from the beach, and it appears that the entire staff generally works normal business hours and even kicks off by 3 on Friday to go surf. I cannot complain.

Okay, actually I can complain, just a little. I have to dress like a grown-up which is not one of my specialties. Also? There is no ice. I mean, there's like a dusty deformed block of ice from 2004 in one of the freezers. But there is no way to get cubes of ice in my beverage of choice. So basically I'm adjusting to life as a pilgrim. But don't worry. I'll get there. I'm a survivor.

One other issue is that, before I got the new job, I had signed up for this writing workshop so I could bust out the next great American novel right quick ;) There's a (self-established) daily writing quota and I figured, given my penchant for too many words, I'd be able to meet it, no problem. Haaaaaa.

Let me just say, I am eternally grateful for the opportunity and experience my last five years of employment afforded. But, as I think I've mentioned here before, the job did not require the utmost application of brain cells. Most of my job was rote and repetitious and could likely have been performed by a primate with a law degree (I happen to know several). I figured I could squeeze half my words in during lunch and still have the stamina for a post-bedtime stretch.

At the new place? Not so much. I've used more brain power in two weeks than I have in the past year. And my grey matter is a fat lazy f*ck. It is dusky viscous sludge. I am basically doing an intensive "couch-to-5K" program for my think box. Or maybe couch to half marathon. And it is somehow physically exhausting to be using my brain like this again. Also, writing at lunch just means I'm working an hour later. But trying to string a bunch of coherent sentences together at 9pm? Let's just say it has not been smooth sailing.

Another hurdle has been the fact that, apparently, I kind of suck at writing. I mean, *actual* writing, as opposed to blogging. My scribble-scrabble thus far can most aptly be characterized as "Bridget Jones' less witty, semi-literate, schizophrenic cousin's diary."

It has also become clear to me over these past few weeks that I do my best work when I get a bee in my bonnet about something on the internet and feel the need to preach from my tiny soap box. It is much, much harder (for me) to write, regularly, in a linear manner, and tell a story. Even (or especially) when that story is my own.

The take-home is, don't hold your breath for Mack N. Cheese to be debuting at the top of the NYT Bestseller list anytime soon :)

In the vein of lighting a fire under my tiny soap box though:

This. Freeport Bakery in Sacramento (Sac-TOWN, whoop whoop) made a cake with a Ken doll in a pretty dress. Some people got their puritan panties in a bunch, called the bakery and said they'd lost their business forever and ever ("You're not invited to my birthday party so THERE!"), "un-liked" them on Facebook, wrote them nasty messages, left negative reviews and comments, etc. Luckily, it seems the story has a happy ending. Support for the bakery in general, and orders for the fancy Ken cake in particular, have been flooding in after the story went viral. Git it, gurrrrl.

It's my party, I'll have a trans-Ken cake if I want to!
Hater's gonna hate. The rest of us get cake!
Image courtesy of the Sacramento Bee.
Read the story here. 

I'm glad it ended well but the initial backlash still chaps my hide. Why is it that when a bakery refuses to make a cake for a non-traditional client/theme/occasion based on their "religious" or "moral" views, these whackadoodles are like, "RAH RAH RAH! RIGHTZ! You can't force a bakery to make a cake they don't agree with. Private business are free to make whatever they want and not make whatever they don't want! Yeah! CAPITALISM! FREEDOM! GOD! THUH CONSTITUSHUN! 'MERICA!!!"

BUT THEN! When a bakery exercises it's GOD- (or Adam-Smith-given) RIGHTS and bakes a deliciously sassy cake AT THE REQUEST OF A PAYING CLIENT, these same 'Merica - FuckYeah fools are like, "DON'T GET YOUR GAYNESS ON MY GOD OR MY FREEDOM OR MY FROSTING!"

YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR CAKE/CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND EAT THEM TOO, PEOPLE!

Okay I'm going to go crawl back under my rock now, byeeee.

Wait, just kidding, I'm back. I forgot one small recent milestone. My kids also started Pre-K and Kinder on Monday and NOBODY CRIED.

The end.

duck dynasty, matt walsh & free speech 101

Apparently, I'm a "left-wing extremist." And/or a member of the "neo-liberal thought police." I don't really think of myself that way, but according to the Matt Walsh Blog, anyone who doesn't agree with his angry ramblings regarding the recent Duck Dynasty debacle is just that. So there ya go. Learn somethin' new every day. Good thing we're not in the McCarthy era or you'd be blacklisted just for reading this Commie Blog. 

So. I've never seen the show "Duck Dynasty." But I know it's very popular and I'm sure "Phil" and "Kay" and the rest of the bearded crew are swell. I am basically just responding, admittedly in knee jerk fashion, to what I feel to be a rather misguided blog post by Matt Walsh that has been making the rounds in the ether. Not to knock the guy. I've read some of his stuff before and though he sounds like a bit... how shall i say... hyperbolic, at times, he seems intelligent and well spoken and on occasion makes some points I agree with.* But anti-gay rhetoric really chaps my hide, especially when couched in terms of Jesus/God/The Bible. I just think it is a hot, steaming load of crap. I have close family and friends who are gay, lesbian, trans, and this issue affects me on a personal level. It hurts my stomach and it hurts my heart.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have spent portions of my life being incredibly distrustful of, if not outright hostile to, organized religion. There are many reasons for this, which I'm not going to get into here. But I've come around. These days, I try to take more of a live and let live approach. This article really resonated with me and my own experience as an agnostic, or at least, an unconventional believer. On a personal level, we need to go beyond "tolerance," to seek compassion, understanding, kindness, and love for one-another, regardless of our backgrounds and beliefs. We should all be able to believe what we want to believe, and act in the ways that we think are good and right and true, so long as our beliefs and actions don't infringe on the rights of others to do the same. THAT, for me, is where the rubber hits the road. And I'm not saying it's a perfectly defined line. It gets messy and I'm not claiming to have all of the answers. But even though he claims to, this Matt Walsh guy doesn't, either. [Note, while this post in particular really got me riled up, I don't mean to single him out as the only swill merchant on the internet. I read what he wrote, and I became enraged, and I have forbidden myself from conducting further google searches for "duck dynasty free speech" for fear my effing head will explode.]

Anyway. Read the post, or else this isn't going to make very much sense. Or don't. I will summarize. Apparently, Phil Robertson, the patriarch of Duck Dynasty, was interviewed in GQ and said homosexuality was a sin, referenced the infamous slippery slope to bestiality, and, for good measure, argued that blacks in the South during the Jim Crow era were "happy." In the same sermon on sin, he waxed poetic on the... er... spatial benefits of vaginal versus anal sex. A&E indefinitely suspended Robertson for his comments. Walsh claims that A&E "committed suicide," and proceeds to lambaste the network for hating the Bible, hating Christians, standing against free speech and against the views of a majority of humanity (p.s., i don't know if Gallup has polled all of humanity, but a majority of Americans actually support "gay rights" (sarcastic/smart-ass quotations in original)).

Now look. I have family members who say shit ten times worse than this duck dude during regular dinner conversation, and I usually just zip my lips, nod, smile, and start to drink heavily. I'm not saying I wouldn't sit down for a meal with the guy, or treat him with respect, or let him tell me stories and show me pictures of his grand kids. I believe that these types of attitudes are usually borne from ignorance, not evil or hatred. We do not spring forth from the womb with our biases and bigotry intact - that is learned behavior. I would certainly attempt, as I would with any fellow human, to find some thread of  understanding and connection. 

But that's not the issue here.

The real rub for me is how this guy is being painted as a poster boy for Free Speech and Christianity. Some Congressman called him "The Rosa Parks of our generation." You have GOT to be f*cking kidding me. Look, I'm no lawyer... oh wait, that's right, I am a lawyer. In that case, let me provide a quick primer. "Free Speech" under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects individual citizens from governmental intrusion upon free speech. (There are plenty of exceptions, including hate speech, but we won't get into that here.) And Duck Dude has that right. He is free to publicly denounce homosexuality-cum-bestiality [no pun intended] and male [not female?] prostitution and anal sex [with a man, no mention of whether or not it's cool with your wife?] and all that other sinny stuff until his face turns blue. Just like Paula Deen, Richie Incognito, and Don Imus have the right to go stand on the street corner and preach their prejudices to the world. In the words of Jon Stewart, you have the right to say idiotic shit. I also like how my uncle puts it: "The First Amendment protects your right to be an asshole. It's up to your parents to raise you not to be." (And again. I'm not necessarily saying they're bad people. I wouldn't know. I haven't met them. Why do I feel like I'm talking to my kids? You're not a bad boy. This is just bad behavior.)

But just like the Food Network, the Miami Dolphins, CBS, or any other employer -- A&E has the right to reprimand, suspend, or fire his ass. I'm not saying it was necessarily a good call. I don't know. I haven't heard both sides of the story, nor seen how it's all going to play out. I'm just saying, it's their prerogative. As Robyn Pennacchia of Death and Taxes writes, "As far as I know, no one has a constitutional right to a reality show about their life."

Bottom line. Phil Robertson is in a legally binding contract with A&E. He is, for all intents and purposes, their employee, and a de facto representative of their network. I haven't read the contract, but it probably says something along the lines of "A&E can terminate your contract for whatever reason they damn well please, including but not limited to, spouting off at the mouth in a manner they feel affects the public's perception of their network and/or their bottom line." Now. Maybe, as Matt Walsh suggests, A&E has gravely misjudged public reaction to this type of thing, a la Chik-Fil-A. Maybe Ducky McDuckerson fan clubs will be sprouting up left and right, and FX network will snatch that gold mine of a show up so fast it'll make A&E's head spin. But. Just because they made a [potentially poor] business decision to publicly disapprove of Duck Dynamo's anti-gay rhetoric does not mean that they are anti-Christian [I'll leave aside the question of how a corporation is capable of "hating" anything or anyone]. That, along with this "Free Speech except for Christians" BS, is just specious nonsense intended to inflame people who don't know any better.

I'm not even going to entertain the notion that this guy is somehow being "persecuted" for his "religious beliefs." (Two can play the snarky quotes game.) The man was being interviewed by GQ magazine, and, in the context of his religious beliefs vis-a-vis homosexuality-as-sin, he describes in detail how a female vagina is infinitely more accommodating than a male anus. I'm sorry, but please, I dare you to take that shit to court. 

Walsh did make a valid(ish) point about A&E supposedly defending some moral high ground ("gay rights") while simultaneously peddling swill every other hour of the day (hoarders, housewives, trophy wives, whatever). But I could make the same general argument (i.e. hypocrisy) about Christians. Walsh accuses A&E of "hating Christians who have the audacity to believe the entire Bible, rather than just a few segments that pass the modern PC litmus test." I know an awful lot of Christians, and I have yet to meet a single one who follows the Bible to the letter. I've gone down Leviticus road before so I won't go into too much detail here, but you know what I mean. No one is spewing mouth sewage, penning vitriolic blog posts, and defending their constitutional right to publicly denounce divorcees, bacon-eaters, tattoos, premarital sex, etc.... This is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. Not just because Christians often cherry pick their biblical commandments in the same way that A&E prioritizes its PR messaging. But because, at the end of the day, isn't Christianity supposed to be about love and forgiveness? "Love the sinner, hate the sin?" The notion that I either have to hate gay people and what they stand for, or hate God/Christians/Christianity, is just absolutely absurd to me!* Not to mention, completely counter to my understanding of what that God and Christianity are all about. Where is the LOVE, people?!?!

Oh, also, one other small issue. When Jesus died, did he make you the sheriff of scripture? Why do people act like it is their personal mission in life to eradicate the world of sin? Why don't you just handle your own shit and let me and The Gays and God work it out amongst ourselves? 

Along the lines of using the Bible as cannon fodder in the quote-unquote-gay-rights debate, check out this interesting old post on CNN's Belief Blog about how the Bible was used to support both slavery and abolitionism. The point being, you can probably use the Bible in favor of just about any argument you want to make. That doesn't mean that you should. 

* I take back what I was going to say about this guy being reasonable and intelligent after seeing this post on his FB page:

What a douche box.

Sincerely,

The Christian-hating, left-wing-extremist-thought-police-Nazi (Matt Walsh definition), otherwise known as a normal human who has a whole slew of super christian family that she loves and respects, but also doesn't like when people disparage the lifestyle of her gay brother and family and friends in the name of religion.

The End.

Psyche! Sorry for getting political. I know I'm not saying anything earth shattering to people who already agree with me, and I'm not going to change the minds of the people who don't, so basically this was just a big fat waste of my time, but hey, since when has that ever stopped me?! ;)

On a lighter note - two of my favorite funny guys on the subject:

and this.

Googliography:

The Matt Walsh Blog - Dear A&E, congratulations, you just committed suicide.

Our Land - We are all living in a relationship with mystery, by Sarah at Left Brain Buddha.

GQ - What the Duck? by Drew Magary

Death and Taxes Mag - Enough Rope: Why suspending 'Duck Dynasty' star Phil Robertson over homophobic remarks wasn't the answer - by Robyn Pennacchia

CNN Belief Blog - How the Bible was used to justify slavery, abolitionism - by John Blake