Sick Days

This blog is on hold for the next day or so, I'm afraid, because I'm not feeling quite up to my usual, energetically insane self. I've been living off of Yoplait Apple Turnover low-fat yogurt and Cream of Rice cereal. I've been feeling so poorly, I haven't played The Sims 2 in almost three days, and haven't had a cup of coffee in two. (Everyone who knows me is now on the phone, dialing 911.)

In any case, my mind seems to be kind of down in the dumps and not very creative, so we'll have to wait until I've recuperated a bit.

Thanks for your understanding.

~C~

I'm NOT Obsessed, OKAY?!

Shhh.....

Can't talk now....

Playing The Sims 2. My teens are are all on their way to college, Mary Sue Pleasant just caught Daniel dallying with the maid and they're on the verge of splitting up, and Bella Goth is missing!

What? I know they're not real. What are you talking about?

I AM NOT OBSESSED!!!!

Shhh... quiet! I'm trying to make Mortimer Goth fall in love with the postal delivery girl, Dagmar. (He needs someone now that Bella's gone all MIA.)

~C~

That's Doctor Cruise to you!

Gawker.com published a bit of transcript of Matt Lauer's Today Show interview with Tom Cruise. Seems Tom is now a doctor (undoubtedly a graduate of the Senator Bill Frist School of Medicine). This is no small achievement, considering Tom's a high school dropout. Still, he wants you to know he knows what Ritalin is. And Matt Lauer doesn't. And neither do you.

I guess in today's competitive, all-or-nothing world, "a little bit crazy" just isn't quite crazy enough.

~C~

What Rhymes with 'Insider Trading'?

"In other Martha news, a new musical inspired by Stewart's life, 'Martha! The Unauthorized Musical,' will have a staged reading in New York next week. (Hollywood Reporter, CNN/Money, Playbill)"

Someone, stop this. Stop it now. Stop it definitively. I mean, I'm on Martha's side. How can you send Martha to jail and set Michael Jackson free?

But I'm begging you. Please. Please do not make me live in a world where someone is standing on a stage, in a Martha wig, singing about the Securities Exchange Commission.

In the name of God and all that's holy.

~C~

"Don't Talk to Strangers While You're Looking Both Ways Before You Cross A Busy Street While Carrying a Sharp Stick That Could Put Your Eye Out."

Blessings to Heaven, those dedicated searchers in Bountiful, Utah, found lost Boy Scout 11-year-old Brennan Hawkins, hungry, thirsty and exhausted, but alive yesterday. His relieved parents spoke with press early Wednesday, and a couple of things about what they said really jumped out at me.

The first was when his father, Toby Hawkins noted that "I thought that he was the most ill-prepared out of our five children to deal with it, and now I think he was maybe the best prepared." Just when we think we have our kids all figured out, they go and surprise the heck out of us. In a good way, that is.

The second was when Brennan's mother, Jody, noted that perhaps it took searchers so long to find Brennan because he was actively avoiding them.

According to the CNN articles, Jody was quoted as saying: "He had two thoughts going through his head all the time. Toby's always told him that 'If you get lost, stay on the trail.' So he stayed on the trail. We've also told him don't talk to strangers ... when an ATV or horse came by he got off the trail ... when they left, he got back on the trail."

"His biggest fear, he told me, was someone would steal him," she added.

And suddenly, I had a sick, sinking feeling. Why was it that that was Brennan's worst fear, though he was lost in a big, scary woods, without a clue as to where he was or which direction was home? Because that was the thing he was taught to fear most by his parents. And why did they teach him that? Because that was their biggest fear. And how do I know it? Because that was my biggest fear when Savannah was little.

If you look at the teaching that his parents gave him, it was good, level-headed advice that wasn't anything different from what you and I have taught our children. "Don't talk to strangers." "Be careful of people you don't know." It's how Brennan interpreted it in a pinch that was key. "Stay on the trail," plus "Don't talk to strangers," morphed into "Get off the trail when people come through on horseback and ATVs, shouting your name, then get back on after they've left. Forget exposure to the elements and wild animals. The biggest danger here is being snatched by a kidnapper." He was eleven, of course, and we all know that even the most down-to-earth child is prone from time to time to thinking that is clinically insane, especially when under physical and emotion duress.

And who is to say that any of our children would have interpreted our wack-ass paranoid lessons any differently? I might have just as equally managed to twist my daughter's young mind with cautionary tales born out of my own fear. She just never got lost in the woods, so it was never put to the test. We might want to become aware of this when we speak to our children about the big scary world and how to defend against it.

I'm sure Toby and Jody Hawkins have sat all five of their kids down and set them straight on the dangers lurking past the front door. I think they are probably fine parents with good hearts and the best of intentions. Now, they're just having to go back and clean up a few of the past information they imparted that might have been misinterpreted through the haze of human growth hormone and the Sunny Delite hangover.

Just something to think about... what we say, versus what they hear....

Thought I'd blog it outloud, to see what you guys thought.

~C~

The Sowards Family Motto

My family, like most families, has its own little brand of weirdness, peculiar unto itself. Maybe more peculiar unto itself than most other families, even. But then, perhaps not, since we seem to be relatively free of incest, molestation, addiction and criminal conviction. So far.

Repartee is what we do best. Back and forth. Parry and thrust. Touché. No subject for humor was taboo. No irreverence was too big to stomach. My father, as big a pain in the ass as he could be, was always willing to allow himself to be the butt of jokes -- ours and his own -- no matter whether they dealt with his receding hairline or his pot belly or his eccentricities. So that's how the Sowards family motto was born.

And here it is:

"If it gets a laugh, it's not in bad taste."

You'd think we'd have learned our lesson. You'd think we'd come out of that knowing that funny people are downright unstable and not to be trusted. Do you think it stopped us from passing it along? Of course not. We are prisoners of the night, searching endlessly for our next host bodies.

Why... here's one now....

This is my niece, Shane. She is clearly labeled as such.

Shane is four years old, and is obviously painfully shy. Please note to the immediate left of Shane (that would be your right), is the bucket, also labeled to avoid confusion. The bucket contains, as you can see, one very naked Ken doll. What you can't see, but what the bucket also contains, along with the very naked Ken, is two naked Barbies, a shark and a baby bottle. On a recent trip to Las Vegas, this bucket was rarely out of my niece's sight, even when she was swimming in the pool. My sister dubbed this concoction the "bucket of porn."

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Oh, sure, she thinks that's funny now. But one of these days, she's going to be out with her daughter some place and her daughter's going to burst forth with a diatribe on the 'bucket of porn,' and then I don't think that mother will find that quite so funny anymore."

Oh, yes, she will. And so will I. Because we're Sowards women and we were born to be funny. In fact, in my family, you have to be funny just to survive. Maybe that should be the other family motto. "Repartee or die." My father, now 76, has been making noises about amending the family motto to include, "Never pass up the opportunity to use the bathroom." We're all trying to talk him out of that one.

For now, though, if it gets a laugh, it's not in bad taste. Which, I realize, is not true in real-life. But we're not talking about real-life, now, are we? We're talking about family. Family is what you're trying to get away from when you go out and join real-life.

So, get out there. Away from your family. Go find real-life. And don't forget to take your bucket of porn.

XOXO

~C~

Everybody's talking....

... about Tom Cruise and what's up with him lately. Those outside "the biz" are asking me, "What's the real story?" Those of us inside "the biz" are saying to each other, "Okay, we knew he was weird, but how did we totally overlook 'crazy?'" The answer to the latter question, of course, is that trying to pinpoint specific "crazy" in this town -- in this business -- is like trying to find one particular leaf of seaweed in the kelp beds off Monterey. (For the unititiated, that's whole lotta kelp, my friends.)

So, what's with Cruise? And what do we think of it. Since I truly have no personal knowledge or experience with Tom Cruise, everything I say is based solely on my observations of the business at large, and what I see it do to people. As I said in the comment section of my previous post, my personal opinion is that he's just simply been famous too long. This was corroborated this weekend, when I was hanging out with my dad, the retired screenwriter. He brought up the undeniable point that fame creates two things that stunt someone's growth.

First, the need to protect yourself and any semblance of private life kind of forces you into this hermetically sealed world. Sure, you can travel, you can play tennis and ski, you can go to the grocery store if you want (but if you didn't have to, why would you want to, is all I'm asking?). It's like floating around on the ocean, sealed in a ziploc baggie. You can see the water, you can see the weather, but because you are not actually in the water or in the atmosphere, you are in an environment all it's own. It's lonely in a very real way. You will never know who likes you for you, and who truly has your best interests at heart, apart from what your best interest can do for them. Just thinking about it has driven a lot of stars a bit bonkers (Gene Tierney and Vivien Leigh come to mind). So most movies stars -- Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, and many others -- choose simply to ignore it all and pretend they're living a normal life. So, in one respect, being famous makes life harder and less manageable, in a "big picture" kind of way.

The second aspect to fame that makes it hard for people to grow, actually is the opposite of the first. Little things in life -- day-to-day mundanities like bills, and housecleaning, and laundry, and car buying and shoe shopping for the kids -- become easier, because you have someone else handling them out of necessity. In addition, everywhere you go, people are trying to be nice to you, trying to make you happy, trying to appease you. No one says "no." No one says, "Me, first." It's "Yes, Mr. Cruise." And "No problem, Mr. Cruise." And "We'll see to that for you, Mr. Cruise." No one ever says, "Excuse me, Mr. Cruise, but I believe I was standing in line before you were." Or "Pardon me, but I believe that last knish is mine, Mr. Cruise."

If author Robert Fulghum is right, and all we really need to know we learned in kindergarten, then famous people are the only ones entirely exempt from those unspoken rules. They don't have to share well with others. They don't have to put things back where they found them. They don't have to play fair. They get to hit people with impunity.

The trouble is that conflict, obstacles, dispute and resolution -- these are the things that mature us, that teach us, that mold and shape us. Without these things, we stay as children. We speak as children, we play as children, we refuse to put away childish things. It is difficulty, hardship and contention that teach us the most important things about ourselves.

Robbed of that opportunity, without the depth and sensitivity to seek it out, celebrities can end up being frozen in emotional stasis. Some celebrities do have the character to fight it, by surrounding themselves with the "before people" -- the people who knew you when you were nobody, and consequently will tell you to your face that you're a nitwit. Oprah Winfrey has Gayle King. Stephen King has his wife Tabitha, who, according to his book, On Writing, is one of the few people these days he can trust to tell him when his writing is less than incandescent. Meryl Streep lives in a tiny little New England community that doesn't give a crap how many Oscars she's won, as long as she drives the carpool once a week and keeps her lawn mowed. The list goes on -- Harrison Ford, Kurt Russell, Ron Howard, Sandra Bullock -- people who make it a point to live some place where they are surrounded by people who will make it a point to say "no." People who knew you when you had to put your shit away and share the red crayon and you got benched for hitting, so they're not so impressed with your ass. Because those few know that "no" is good for you from time to time. It keeps you human.

But -- and here's the news flash, folks -- most celebrities, regardless of their talent in front of cameras or onstage, are fairly shallow, self-involved people. They're not very interesting. They're not very good with "people skills." And they're kind of... dare I say it?... boring. And this is their worst fear -- that deep down, below the superficial glitz and glitter, lies nothing more than another layer of glitz and glitter. And I think this is Tom Cruise's problem. He's a smart, charming guy, surrounded by people who do nothing all day long but say, "Yes, Tom," and "No problem, Mr. Cruise." He isn't challenged, he isn't confronted, he has no need to learn how to be a diplomat or a mensch. It's not in his list of learned attributes. Consequently, he has no way to triangulate with normal behavior anymore, so he's out there, sailing around on choppy waters, with no idea of where he is or where he's going. He has lost vision and focus, and now he's just kind of this oddball guy who thinks he's somebody. No, Tom... Mahatma Gandhi was somebody. Winston Churchill was somebody. The Dalai Lama is somebody. You're just a guy who pretends to be other people for a living, and if you would simply open your eyes and see the world the way it is for most people, you'd know that. Which brings us to the last, most important thing that Robert Fulghum ever learned in kindgarten.

"... Remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you ever learned -- the biggest word of all -- LOOK."

~C~

Thursday is Sushi Day

At the commissary, I mean. Believe it or not, "bad commissary food" jokes notwithstanding, the Fox commissary cafeteria is pretty derned great -- though I wouldn't recommend the beef stroganoff. For some reason, that's always looked a bit suspect. On Thursdays, they bring in sushi chefs and... well.... sushi hilarity ensues.... I live for Thursdays. Although I did have sushi yesterday, as you will recall. But that was Whole Foods sushi, which is okay in a sushi pinch, but in the grand scheme of sushi at large is really... well... kinda flat....

Mmmmm.... sushi.... I had my usual today -- a combo tray of spicy salmon, spicy mercury tuna and spicy shrimp, all with avocado. Plus the wasabi. Because "spicy" just isn't spicy enough for me, apparently.

So, now I'm stuffed and want to nap. It's the white rice. It'll pass in about an hour. But for the next hour, I'm flying high on my sushi magic carpet ride. If sushi had been popular in the 60s, LSD would never have taken off like it did. I just know it.

Hey, man... I think my hand just turned to strawberry jello! Oh, wow....

~C~

A Waxing Gibbous Moon

Tonight, there will be a waxing gibbous moon. No, really. They swear, it will be waxing gibbous.

Why does that sound like it was written by Lewis Carroll.

'Twas brillig and the slithy tove was waxing gibbous in the wabe.

I just finished five pieces of sushi, and I still want to go and get some candy. What's wrong with me? Where's my sense of discipline? Can I borrow fifty cents?

Okay.... I'm going back to work now. I'm still struggling with my PoMo paper. But I sense I'm nearing a breakthrough. Or a breakdown. Or a breakout. Or a breakdance. Hard to tell which just yet.

I'll keep you posted.

~C~

My House - My Rules

The exchange below is in response to my post about Brandi Stahr, the girl from Texas who fought with her family, then took off and made a new life for herself in Kentucky. Tracey, the commenter, who clearly doesn't know me and has never read any of my previous posts, decided to do the unthinkable here in Catharineland.... What we call a "drive-by" (thank you for the phrase, grrl).

I decided to pull it from the comments and make it a post. I realize it's long, but I beg your indulgence. I think it's really important that we air this dirty linen in public, rather than in the miniscule little print of Haloscan. Tracey's posts are italicized and right-justified; mine are in standard font and left-justified.

Before we're too hard on Tracey, let us do as she suggests and be "compassionate." Tracey is not doing anything that every one of us hasn't done -- nominated herself for Grand Poobah in a one-vote election. I'm just at an age where I'm finding it harder and harder to swallow, especially when it concerns women arbitrating who's a "good girl" or a "good mother. I got a little tart with Tracey, I'll admit. We all know how gladly I suffer... well, let's just say how gladly I suffer, and leave it at that, shall we?

With rights come responsibilities. She had the right to run away, but what about the responsibility/humanity of not dreadfully hurting the ones that loved her? Besides...how is it a right to ring up thousands of dollars in bills and then run away from it all so your parents can pay for it? Sure...she had every right to do what she did...but it still makes it wrong, in my opinion. Of course, I would never intentionally hurt my family like that...I choose the "right" of having simple human decency over the right of simple selfishness.

Tracey

Tracey, girl... well, ain't you something... a regular girl scout you are. You know all about responsibility and rights, do you? A political science major, are you? Brandi has spent 7 years supporting herself, not asking for her family for a thing (by their own admission). And where do you get off passing judgement on the relationship she has with her family? You know nothing about her family (unless you're her mom, in which case, leave the girl alone, for God's sake!!) So, don't come around here with your ridiculous assumptions and your high-and-mighties. They just don't fly here, kid. Now, get thee to a nunnery.

~C~

Eh...I never made it well in the Girl Scouts, could only hack a couple of years. But I still love the cookies! lol And you're right, I don't know about Brandi's relationship with her parents...I guess that I am coming from a place where I just couldn't envision hurting people like that. How much would it have taken just to say "sorry...leave me alone?" Dunno...that's where you and I will have to disagree.

And really, you don't know me either. Not a poly sci major (but married to one. lol)...and vote decidedly liberal (Though I'm more of a Dean girl and not a Kerry supporter). I'm all with you with the rights thing...I just believe that rights, not tempered with compassion, can lead to a very individualized and lonely existance.

It's too bad that polite debate and alternative opinions don't fly here...because I think it's healthy to hear opposing viewpoints. Promoting irresponsibility (you never did answer the 26,000 dollar question...lol) above responsible behavior, if indeed a part of liberalism, is something that I'll never quite be able to grasp.

And, sorry, not going to a nunnery...I'd miss certain things way too much.

Tracey

Dear Tracey -- I couldn't agree with you more. Anything not tempered with compassion can lead to a very lonely existence -- including random, self-righteous judgmentalism. Climb down off'n your high horse for a few minutes and look up a couple of words in the dictionary for me -- the first is "debate;" the second, "thesis." Intelligent debate -- polite or otherwise -- depends on both parties agreeing to stick to the thesis. I made the original post -- so I got to pick the thesis. (My house... my rules....)

The post wasn't about whether Brandi was "good girl" or not (boy, did those two words leave a bad taste in my mouth -- GAH! I think Rhonda just fainted.). The post was about whether she had the right (as an of-age adult) to relocate and leave no forwarding address. My main point was that she wasn't "hiding," (Malinak's sinister implication being that she was guilty of some wrongdoing on her part) -- she just packed up and moved and didn't tell anyone where she was going. If you would like to debate the issue -- whether it's hiding if you're not attempting to conceal your identity from certain lame law enforcement personnel, then that would be a polite debate. That's not what you did. What your post was is what has come (in my circle of blog-buddies) to be called a "drive-by." I must say, Tracey, I'm grateful for this opportunity to set the record straight here for all who might post in the future. Allow me be entirely unambiguous on this issue.

I see this over and over. Women are tearing each other down, speculating what makes a "good girl" and a "bad mother," as if anyone of us knows better than the other. Why do some women feel as if they have the right to set themselves up as the arbiters of decency, morality and good parenting at every opportunity? Just look at their prime targets. Womanhood. Motherhood. Daughterhood. We are lined up like those little ducks in the shooting galleries in Frontierland. Only we're also the ones doing the shooting. What's wrong with this picture?

"Well, she's just not a good person because I can't imagine doing what she did." "Well, she didn't breastfeed her baby the way I did, so she's not a good mother." "Well, she's a working mom, so she can't possibly be taking care of her children properly." "Well, she's a stay-at-home mom, so it's obvious she's over-involved with her kids." You're not the only one who does it, Tracey. You didn't invent this. It's become so reflexive, women don't even know they're doing it anymore. Hell, I still catch myself doing it from time to time.

Drive-bys are not permitted here. Ever. (I feel so strongly about that, I had to put it in color.) They pit women against one another and, in doing so, diminish us all. If, after reading that entire post, the most salient point you managed to hit upon is that Brandi wasn't very nice or good to her family for running off like that, then you not only missed the point of my post, but of Brandi's abrupt, unannounced departure seven years ago as well. A compassionate person might have attempted to step into young Brandi's shoes, imagining what being 20 and alone in a strange state, having to start from complete scratch, with no one and nothing to fall back on might have felt like. Or not. I'm just saying....

My other not-so-subtle point was that, had Brandi been a 20-year-old man, I doubt anyone would be so quick to imply that he'd done something vaguely criminal by leaving. But Brandi is not a man. Brandi is a woman, and as such, subject (as we all are) to being treated like an errant child who needs permission -- or worse yet, as if she were a very smart dog who's slipped her leash. I find this intolerable, not only for Brandi, but for me -- and for you, for that matter. Because, again, what diminishes one of us, diminishes all of us.

So we'll not sit in judgement of Brandi and whether she's a good little girl who minds her manners. Not on my watch. Not on this blog. (My house... my rules....) Now, the befuddled Texas Ranger who hasn't figured out how to use Lexis-Nexis and Dialogue to do a widescale name search.... Well, that's a high horse of a different color. Him, we'll sit in judgement upon. Why? Because anyone living in the 21st Century who hasn't learned how to use the computer properly should be mocked. But... mocked with compassion, of course. Always, with compassion.

So, are we all clear here? My house, my rules. Rule #1 -- Stick to the point (unless you're really funny -- then you have carte blanche). Rule #2 -- check your self-righteousness and religiosity at the door. Rule #3 -- wipe your damn feet. I just vacuumed.

~C~

PostScript

Now, perhaps I was a little testy with Miss Tracey. One of the reasons, I confess, is that she peppered her second post with little smiliecons. Happy face, happy face, wink, wink. This would be fine, if this were a light, airy little post about catnip or chai tea or SPF 30 vs. SPF 50. However, I think Tracey showed some gumption in having the temerity to come to my blog and tell me what she thought was what. No matter that she fucked with the wrong redhead. She showed some serious ovaries. I like that in a woman. And then she went and ruined it by sticking little happy faces and winkies in the middle of it. This is something else that women do that men don't. "Happy face... Just kidding... just a woman.... wink, wink.... don't take me seriously... you know how we get sometimes."

Sisters, we need to knock that shit off, but NOW!

~C~

Ohhh... I Get It. He's At the Bottom of a Well.

Russell Crowe apologized. No, not to me. I didn't call the cops on his sorry ass. To Nestor Estrada, the concierge at the Mercer Hotel, who took the brunt of Crowe's personal misery in the form of several stitches to his face.

Okay, well... Maybe "apology" is a strong term. He actually said, "I wasn't aiming at him." So, I take back what I said before -- I guess his hand-eye coordination hasn't improved. He says he makes no excuses, then goes on to say that he lost his cool because he'd been traveling for 20 hours straight, couldn't get a phone call through to his wife, and, well, "there's nothing you can say to people to explain the combination of jet lag, loneliness, adrenalin."

Apparently, since he couldn't explain it verbally, Crowe felt that the next-best way to communicate it was through interpretive dance -- one that crescendoed with a phone being applied forcibly to Mr. Estrada's cheek. As an artist, I can understand the need for an artist to cross from his primary medium into a secondary one to make his point. I think it's also safe to say that we all now comprehend a little more fully the effect of jet lag, loneliness and adrenalin. I know Mr. Nestor Estrada does.

I don't know about Nestor, but I'm fully prepared to accept Crowe's "apology," qualified though it may be. I'm ready to let bygones be bygones, to lay the past down and move forward in the spirit of kinship and brotherhood. Words cannot describe my willingness to forgive and forget, to reach out and embrace a fellow human being who's at the bottom of a well.

And, since words cannot describe it, I've choreographed a little interpretive dance. Let me see... where did I put that chain saw?

~C~

Last Day of the Spring Quarter

I never thought I'd make it through this quarter. I really thought it would kill me. Between the 300 - 400 pages of reading per week, the surprise extra 4-page paper that one professor took great glee in assigning -- because she didn't think we were paying attention, I suppose -- and the problems I was having with my vision (I needed prescription glasses, and didn't get them until last week), I really wasn't sure I'd make it all the way through.

But here I am. On the other side. Almost. I've turned in one paper. I'm tweaking the other (in show biz lingo, we call it a "polish"). I'll have that one in by the end of the week. Then... done.
I get three weeks off before the summer quarter begins.

Notice that my needed units to graduation has been reduced by six. Wishful thinking, considering my profs haven't actually read the papers yet. Still... Slowly, but surely. I'm getting there.

~C~

A Vote for Irresponsibility

This just in.... Another runaway has been located. And yet again, people are talking nonsense about how much money a missing persons search costs, and how that's all the searchee's fault, if, God forbid, they should actually turn up unharmed. As I've said before, there's nothing that seems to piss a law enforcement official off more than to find the missing-and-presumed-dead alive and in one piece.

This time, the perpetrator told no lie and made no apology about disappearing seven years ago from Texas A&M University. Not only that, but when Brandi Stahr's family finally made contact, she told them to stay away. I think Brandi just may not like her family too much. And since she knows them better than we do, who are we to argue? Brandi was found actually working in Kentucky, using her real name and her real social security number. Be that as it may, apparently young Miss Brandi thoroughly stumped Texas Ranger Frank Malinak, who couldn't for the life of him seem to locate her. "We thought we were dealing with a missing persons case," Malinak said. "But, in actuality, we were dealing with a person who did not want to be found and was in hiding."

Hiding, Frank? Uh, no, sweetie. A 20-year-old woman has a fight with her family, they cut her off, she leaves Texas and moves to Kentucky. Then she gets a job and supports herself. That's not hiding, Frank. That's called telling your family to fuck off. It's all about perspective. Just because you were too dense to find her, Frank, doesn't mean she was hiding. She didn't change her name. She didn't get a false social security number. She didn't adopt a new identity. She just didn't leave a change of address card.

This is not a crime. Repeating for emphasis, people. NOT A CRIME. Brandi Stahr is an American citizen, who at the time of her "disappearance" was a legal adult. She also just happens to have two X chromosomes, rather than an X and a Y, which might have something to do with the expressed need of those around her for her to ask permission every time she goes the bathroom. In any case, the last time I checked, the Constitution was still in effect. And because that's the case, if you want to tell your family to take a flying leap, then move to another state, get a job, and not call your mom on her birthday, you get to do that.

Why? Because this is America, that's why.

And in America, you get to pack up your CD collection, your cat, your autographed photo of Scott Baio (from the "Charles in Charge" years because, hey, wasn't Scott at his zenith then?), your automatic breadmaker, your Barbie collection, and load them in the back of your 1989 Hyandai Excel, then drive to Kentucky, find a place to live, get a job at the Sam's Club in Florence, Kentucky (cleverly using your real name and social security number in an obvious attempt to throw crack lawman Frank "Couldn't Find My Own Ass With a Compass and a set of Night Goggles" Malinak off your scent).

According to the CNN article, "Although Stahr committed no crime in her disappearance, investigators spent a lot of money and time looking for her, Malinak said. 'The responsible thing to do would have been to let someone know you're OK,' Malinak said. 'There are going to be people expending man-hours and effort, trying to find a missing person.'" Yeah, you looked really hard for her, didn't you, Frank. I'll bet you lost a whole bunch of sleep on this case. Next time I lose my carkeys, you're my man.

I say, Brandi girl, you go! Be irresponsible. Pay no heed to that party-pooper Frank Malinak. He's just feeling a little foolish right now because he never thought to look for you in the Sam's Club in Florence, Kentucky. That would have been on my short list of places to look, but then, maybe that's just woman's intuition. It also sounds an awful lot from the article like your mom is just kind of a big pain in the ass anyway, if you'll permit an outsider's observation. I think if your family really had wanted to find you before seven years, they'd have called in Dog, the Bounty Hunter. He'd have tracked you down in no time. Why, I'll bet the very first place Dog Chapman looks for anybody is the Sam's Club in Florence, Kentucky. So, I think your family is just crying crocodile tears now, sister.

On the other hand, I hope this doesn't start a trend. I can just see it now. Young women all over the country telling their oppositional, dysfunctional families to go fuck themselves, then getting in their cars and driving thousands of miles, only to end up in other states, getting jobs and living independently and without the burden of family expectancy. Can you imagine? Hoards of adult woman migrating en masse, and refusing to tell anyone where they're going? Refusing to check in as if they were children on a curfew? What kind of hellish nightmare would that be, I wonder? How could they possibly be trusted to care for themselves? Who will be there to pick up the pieces of their shattered young lives the first time they have to actually make a decision for themselves with only the sound of their own inner longings and ambitions to drive them, with only their own personal dreams and desires to live for, free of the weight of having to please every other damn person whoever told them that "good girls don't" and "nice girls should" and "you'd be so pretty if you could just lose a little weight and stand up straight," who called on the boys in class first, and who managed to somehow make them feel as if, no matter what they did or how well they did it, it still wouldn't be good enough. Living, in fact, almost as if they were...[gasp!]... real people.

It's a new world order, my friends. A new world order....

~C~

I'm Starting a New Club

The membership is fairly exclusive -- though not as much as you might guess. I'm calling it the "National Association of People At Whom Russell Crowe Has Thrown Things." In order to be eligible to join, you have to have had Russell Crowe lob some inanimate object at you. You can't have just been standing near where something he threw landed. No, no... that won't do. This is a much more selective group. You have to have had him target you, then lob said object in your direction, whether he succeeded in hitting you or not (he missed me completely).

I'm the only card-carrying member so far, but I'm sure once word gets out, our membership base will grow by leaps and bounds. Why, there's a hotel employee in New York whose attained eligibility status just this very weekend. Apparently, Russell's hand-eye coordination has improved drastically -- this time, he actually made contact.

We're sending a membership packet, complete with bumper sticker and complimentary tote bag, to the concierge of the Mercer Hotel, at the first available opportunity.

~C~

P.S. Russell Crowe is big, fat weenie. ~C~

Mark Felt?

Deep Throat? I don't know... it's... it's kind of a let-down....

People were speculating it was John Dean. Hell, people were speculating it was Jimmy Dean. A few of those "in the know" actually suspected Mr. Felt. But I was kind of hoping for something more daring, more shocking, like... Deep Throat was someone on the Committee. Or, better yet, Pat Nixon, who out of a quiet desperation, sought to drive her husband once and for all out of public life and into a life of solitude and seclusion -- a life for which she was much better suited.

The identity of Deep Throat was something that my generation has tossed about since we first watched the hearings on television when we were kids (and they were preempting the Brady Bunch). It ranks up there with whether or not there's a Loch Ness monster as one of life's great mysteries you'd rather not have answered.

Oh, well.... Mr. Felt did a good thing all those years ago, steering Woodward and Bernstein down the path toward the truth. Without him, all of those shenanigans would have stayed undercover. So bless his little 91-year-old heart for coming forward. Even if it's not the glamorous revelation I was hoping for.

But if the Loch Ness monster turns out to be a large crawdaddy, I'm going to be really cheesed off.

~C~