It's come out this past week that there is a document from the fourth century that tells of a time during which Jesus referred to his wife Mary Magdalene.
I'm going to ignore The Da Vinci Code because that book is terrible.
Obviously, this is centuries after Jesus died. And obviously one reference like this is not irrefutable evidence that he was, in fact, married. And obviously the Catholic Church is going to ignore it because sex is the devil and Jesus was above all that because he is the Christ.
But when I first learned about this new evidence, brought to us by Harvard professor Karen L. King, I suddenly and fully remembered what having faith in my religion was like. It had been years since I'd become disillusioned with my religion, and almost two years since I had a crisis of faith concerning whether or not I believed in God and the Holy Trinity (pretty sure by any stretch of the imagine I am now officially a lapsed Catholic).
I believe in God still, sure, and I believe Jesus was totally awesome, but I sort of hate the story of his death. If you think about it (and by it I mean the crucifixion), Christianity is a rather violent religion. I'm not really here to wax philosophic on religion and Christianity, though. I'm here to talk about the awesomeness that consists of a Jesus-Mary Magdalene marriage.
There's a girl on my facebook newsfeed that has posted a status, multiple times, that drives me crazy. "Remember ladies, if you're easy to get, you're easy to forget!" First of all, who posts the same status more than once? That's dumb. Secondly, this status is not particularly insightful. We're not covering any new ground here, so the repetition was not actually necessary. And finally, the 60s happened, and now I can fuck who I want and still respect myself in the morning. Thank you.
But we as a society still have this weird relationship with sex, and it's tied up in centuries of societal norms and jealousy and love and, yes, religion. Praying to a Christ that has never had sex makes the act less than holy - gives it a bad rap. Sex is dirty and wrong unless it's within the confines of an ordained-by-God marriage, and the purpose of marriage is to procreate. Any marriage, and by extension sex itself, without thought to procreation is wrong. Jesus, because he never planned to have children, never got married, and therefore never had sex.
UNLESS HE MARRIED MARY MAGDALENE. If this is true, if we find out this marriage was real and it happened, then we know this is true: the Son of God married a prostitute. And he didn't exactly do it for the children.
A woman who got paid to have sex was not beneath the marriage bed of JESUS MOTHEREFFING CHRIST. This idea... hoo. Oh boy. I love this idea so much. I want to put this concept in my bathtub and swim in it, soak in it, live in it. Line my coffin that holds my cold, decaying corpse with it and be in it forever.
So remember ladies (assuming any of this is true). Powerful men like women with experience. Lots of experience. It's your God-given duty to be promiscuous.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
What The Humanization of Vampires on Your TV Screen Says About Humanity Today
Do you guys like vampires? Because I LOVE vampires. I've always loved vampires, even before TWILIGHT came out and TRUE BLOOD came on HBO. I read DRACULA and INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE while I was in middle school. Watched the movie BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER when I was even younger.
In fact, I've always been fascinated with dark stuff and magic and the supernatural and scary monsters and things that go bump in the night. Halloween was my favorite holiday growing up. My dad used to joke that all the short stories I wrote when I was little always killed someone off. In eighth grade a short story I wrote for history class was deemed too graphic by my teacher and I had to rewrite it (it was a ghost story at an industrial plant in Lowell in the 19th century - I guess she didn't like that the machines killed a little boy).
All this leads up to a moment freshman year of college, early 2008. A friend of mine had just gotten obsessed with this book series called Twilight. This was months before the movie release, when the books were really getting a following in the teenage fan girl subset of our culture. I asked her what it was about, and she told me it was a love story between a human girl and a vampire boy.
Ugh. My first reaction was complete and utter UGH. Because vampires are the soul-sucking undead. They feed on humans and kill them and turn them into scary monsters that can't go out in the daylight which shows you how EVIL THEY REALLY ARE and also it's super gross if you think about it because the vampire is like 100 years old and the human girl is a child.
This is what originally turned me off True Blood and THE VAMPIRE DIARIES as well. I was very anti-human/vampire love story. Vampires are monsters. Sexy monsters, that sensually bite your neck, sure. If you were some other sort of supernatural creature, fine - have fun with vampires. But as a human, you do not fuck (with) monsters.
My feelings about Twilight haven't changed much - mostly because Bella is one of the worst protagonists in modern literature, if not all time. I'm going to ignore Twilight from here on out.
But I finally got on the True Blood train right before season 4, and that is a hell of an entertaining ride (although story-wise, it's not great, but it's really fun to watch). And The Vampire Diaries? Good god is that genre television at its best. Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer made me root for a vampire/human love story (shipping Buffy and Angel foreverrrr). I have embraced the vampire/human love story, and I'm glad. It has given us some wonderful Bill Compton moments (although sometimes he kind of sucks), some glorious Eric Northman moments (season 4 excluded), some crazy awesome Damon Salvatore moments, and some truly touching Stefan Salvatore moments (one of the most mutli-dimensional characters on TV today).
Until recently, vampires were creatures to be feared. Soulless, hateful, no regard for human life. Intelligent, which made them all the scarier. Creepy, steeped in weird mythology and living in dark, dank castles that hadn't seen real human life in centuries. They were an OTHER. Even in Interview with a Vampire, told from a vampire point of view, they were still other, separate, not human.
But now we see them struggle with their humanity, their love of a particular human. They have an instinct to feed, but they have respect for human life. You can start to put yourself in the position of a vampire, feel empathy for a vampire.
It's exciting. Our bad guys used to be Disney villains that wreaked havoc for no other reason than evil. As we, as a society, understand more about the human condition, human psychology, and ourselves, we cut more slack to those we had firmly put in the "other" category simply for being different than us.
More acceptance of vampires, even if its just genre storytelling, is indicative of a society that is more accepting of those we once wrote off as "the bad guy." The humanization of vampires is a symbol of the progress we humans have made towards world unity. Towards world understanding. Towards world peace.
Thank your local vampire aficionado today. We couldn't have done it without them. (Well, us. Me too. Us.)
In fact, I've always been fascinated with dark stuff and magic and the supernatural and scary monsters and things that go bump in the night. Halloween was my favorite holiday growing up. My dad used to joke that all the short stories I wrote when I was little always killed someone off. In eighth grade a short story I wrote for history class was deemed too graphic by my teacher and I had to rewrite it (it was a ghost story at an industrial plant in Lowell in the 19th century - I guess she didn't like that the machines killed a little boy).
All this leads up to a moment freshman year of college, early 2008. A friend of mine had just gotten obsessed with this book series called Twilight. This was months before the movie release, when the books were really getting a following in the teenage fan girl subset of our culture. I asked her what it was about, and she told me it was a love story between a human girl and a vampire boy.
Ugh. My first reaction was complete and utter UGH. Because vampires are the soul-sucking undead. They feed on humans and kill them and turn them into scary monsters that can't go out in the daylight which shows you how EVIL THEY REALLY ARE and also it's super gross if you think about it because the vampire is like 100 years old and the human girl is a child.
This is what originally turned me off True Blood and THE VAMPIRE DIARIES as well. I was very anti-human/vampire love story. Vampires are monsters. Sexy monsters, that sensually bite your neck, sure. If you were some other sort of supernatural creature, fine - have fun with vampires. But as a human, you do not fuck (with) monsters.
My feelings about Twilight haven't changed much - mostly because Bella is one of the worst protagonists in modern literature, if not all time. I'm going to ignore Twilight from here on out.
But I finally got on the True Blood train right before season 4, and that is a hell of an entertaining ride (although story-wise, it's not great, but it's really fun to watch). And The Vampire Diaries? Good god is that genre television at its best. Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer made me root for a vampire/human love story (shipping Buffy and Angel foreverrrr). I have embraced the vampire/human love story, and I'm glad. It has given us some wonderful Bill Compton moments (although sometimes he kind of sucks), some glorious Eric Northman moments (season 4 excluded), some crazy awesome Damon Salvatore moments, and some truly touching Stefan Salvatore moments (one of the most mutli-dimensional characters on TV today).
Until recently, vampires were creatures to be feared. Soulless, hateful, no regard for human life. Intelligent, which made them all the scarier. Creepy, steeped in weird mythology and living in dark, dank castles that hadn't seen real human life in centuries. They were an OTHER. Even in Interview with a Vampire, told from a vampire point of view, they were still other, separate, not human.
But now we see them struggle with their humanity, their love of a particular human. They have an instinct to feed, but they have respect for human life. You can start to put yourself in the position of a vampire, feel empathy for a vampire.
It's exciting. Our bad guys used to be Disney villains that wreaked havoc for no other reason than evil. As we, as a society, understand more about the human condition, human psychology, and ourselves, we cut more slack to those we had firmly put in the "other" category simply for being different than us.
More acceptance of vampires, even if its just genre storytelling, is indicative of a society that is more accepting of those we once wrote off as "the bad guy." The humanization of vampires is a symbol of the progress we humans have made towards world unity. Towards world understanding. Towards world peace.
Thank your local vampire aficionado today. We couldn't have done it without them. (Well, us. Me too. Us.)
Friday, September 7, 2012
I'm Glad You Stuck Around on My TV Screen
What is Justified without Boyd Crowder? Or Breaking Bad without Jesse Pinkman? I shudder to think. But there was a time, in these shows' and characters' inceptions, in which they were supposed to be written off by the end of the first season or, in Boyd's case, the first episode.
There's a lot of characters on TV like that, and although they're across the board all entertaining (hence why they stuck around), the success of their storylines varies. Here is a list of the best used - and the worst.
THE BEST
1. Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), JUSTIFIED
Justified is one of the best shows on TV. Most of the people that I know that watch it are older (my parents and my uncle, for example), which is a bummer for the young folks because they're missing out on some crazy good television. And considering there is a SHIT TON OF AWESOME (Raylan Givens, Ava Crowder, Mags, Quarles, Limehouse - hell, they even got rid of the one weak element in the show, Winona, going into season 4) in this show, it's saying a lot when I declare, with no reservations, that Boyd Crowder the best thing about Justified.
Boyd and Raylan's complicated relationship is the centerpiece of the show by this point - something of a mix of respect, dislike, distrust, brotherhood, and an underlying need of the other (mostly for information). And Walton Goggin OWNS this role. Justified is great without Boyd, but it's on an entirely better level with him.
Also he and Ava are super cute together.
2. Opie Winston (Ryan Hurst), SONS OF ANARCHY
Sons of Anarchy is one of the more entertaining shows on this list (although stretches of it can be frustrating - see the finale of an otherwise awesome season 4). However, Opie's development has consistently made for good storytelling and good television. Only supposed to be a in a few episodes of season 1, Ryan Hurst has created one of the more multi-dimensional characters on this show.
From dealing with the (spoilerss) death of his wife, to his romance in season 2, to his relationship with his father, to his relationships with Jax and Clay (and Clay's complete manipulation of him to get to Jax), Opie has become a necessary and fascinating character - a character I'm interested in, a character I want only good things for even as I know it's unlikely.
And god damn did I love his confrontations with Stahl. TEAM OPIE.
3. Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), BREAKING BAD
Obviously Jesse Pinkman is on here. In Gilligan's first draft of the pilot, he wasn't even Jesse - he was Dupree, a dumbass name that I'm glad got corrected. And Jesse became integral to the show, as his relationship with Walter White deepened, and his relationship with Mike and Gus became more and more complicated. Jesse's character development is just as fascinating as Walter White's, as he started off as a twenty-something not sure of his identity, spiraling further and further into a web of drugs, lies, and mortal danger, and Aaron Paul plays him to a T. Jesse is the man.
I put him behind Boyd because nobody beats Boyd, and behind Opie because at this stage of either show, Opie has more to do than Jesse. I trust the writers of Breaking Bad, and I'm sure he'll come back swinging next season, but right now there's not much for him to do.
4. Cheryl Tunt (Judy Greer), ARCHER
Cheryl was supposed to be the first casualty in an ongoing joke, where Sterling Archer sleeps with one of his mother's assistants after another. But then they cast the great Judy Greer, and that all changed.
What started as a funny but cliched joke turned into one of the craziest characters on TV today, and Judy Greer plays that shit like no one else could. Crazy rich, psychotic, a glue drinker, and into all sorts of weird sex stuff, Cheryl is a gem, and her character gets better every season.
5. Niklaus "Klaus" Mikaelson (Joseph Morgan), THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
Okay, I love The Vampire Diaries. I know it's on the CW, but it's my favorite vampire show (Buffy gives it a run for its money, True Blood isn't even close to as good). The characters are all great, the storylines are all interesting. There's enough critical love of this show (except for the first couple episodes) where I don't have to defend myself any further.
Klaus came on to the scene in season 2 and was a force to be reckoned with. The Big Bad. They were supposed to kill him off, but they liked Joseph Morgan so much they kept him around. Which honestly? Understandable. Joseph Morgan is fantastic.
But now this evil vampire of evil, bent on world domination and destruction, has been written as some kind of demi-god who can never die without killing off the main characters as well. We're in a bind here.
I'm keeping him here under best, though, because I love his love of Caroline (seriously, I LOVE Caroline), because of the twist in the season 3 finale, and because he's really goddamn sexy. I mean, look at him. And when he talks? Oh god. Oh man. I love Klaus.
THE NOT SO BEST
5. Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), TRUE BLOOD
True Blood isn't very good anymore. This makes me sad to say, because the first three seasons were damn entertaining. But between throwing every storyline possible in the mix to see what fits (werepanthers will always be my least favorite storyline of all time, although the Iraqi ifrit story tried its damndest to best it) and the awkward pacing of the main storylines due to too many other storylines crowding the episodes and some truly unlikeable characters (Tommy, Arlene, Mrs. Fortenberry), it's not a good show. Although season 5 was pretty damn entertaining.
Lafayette, who is killed at the beginning of book 2, stayed in the show around because he was a fan favorite and because Nelsan Ellis is amazing. He's still a fun character to watch, but his storylines haven't been great, making him feel somehow misused.
Keep your chin up, Lafayette - they saved Tara, maybe they can save you too.
4. Andy Bernard (Ed Helms), The Office
Andy was only supposed to be on for a season, but they combined his character with another to make him recurring. Fair enough - Ed Helms is a masterful man, and a very funny actor. I like him as boss much more than I ever liked Michael Scott (still not sure why people ever liked Michael Scott, one of TV's most overrated characters despite how awesome Steve Carrell is).
However, The Office blows now, and I don't care about any of the characters. Unfortunately, that includes Andy.
3. Spike (James Marsters), BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Oh Spike. I love Spike. Only supposed to be on for a couple episodes, Spike (and James Marsters) proved too entertaining to not bring back again and again, eventually making him a series regular.
And in the beginning, it was great. Spike was a bad guy. He fell in love with Buffy. That's fine too. Until he started to become a weaker character, and less of a bad guy, until finally there was a screwed up romance between the two, and Spike became a total wimp. Love killed any sex appeal and awesome Spike formerly had.
Which is too bad. Because Spike, before he was a love interest, was awesome. If they had figured out what else to do with him, he'd still be on the awesome list.
2. Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), GLEE
If you don't love Jane Lynch then you can just get right out of here. She's funny in literally everything she's in.
Except maybe Glee.
That's not her fault. Signed as a recurring character because her other show PARTY DOWN was on the fence for another season (sadly canceled), Jane Lynch has done everything she can with a character that, originally, showed a lot of promise. A hard-ass over-the-top villain that played a foil to the Glee Club, Jane Lynch owned every scene she was in.
However, Ryan Murphy can't for the life of him create a consistent character, and attempts to humanize Sue came out muddled and weird. Jane Lynch did what she could with the material, but I was mostly left trying to understand how one character could have so many conflicting traits in such an unbelievable way.
Still, better than Rachel. Seriously, I hate Rachel. I don't even watch the show anymore and I still hate Rachel.
1. Dean Pelton (Jim Rash), COMMUNITY
Full disclosure: I never liked the dean the way everyone else did. I thought he was funny enough in small doses, but even in season 1 I was confused by and kind of over his shtick. Jim Rash is very funny, and everyone else likes the dean, so maybe I'm wrong.
Bumping him up from regular to recurring I think weakened the show, because a lot of his whole thing is "oh my god he's weird and creeptastic and totez in love with Jeff" and I don't find that entertaining. That said, he looks rather dashing in this picture.
It was between him and Senor Chang for this coveted position of worstest, but I liked Senor Chang for longer than a lot of other people, and I think they stopped using him as much anyway as Ken Jeong became busy with other obligations.
Anyway this is my list. I know Ben Linus from LOST is missing from this list but I still never got around to that show, and don't intend to.
Now let's all get excited for Sons of Anarchy THIS TUESDAY so we can forget how lost we are without Breaking Bad.
There's a lot of characters on TV like that, and although they're across the board all entertaining (hence why they stuck around), the success of their storylines varies. Here is a list of the best used - and the worst.
THE BEST
1. Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), JUSTIFIED
Justified is one of the best shows on TV. Most of the people that I know that watch it are older (my parents and my uncle, for example), which is a bummer for the young folks because they're missing out on some crazy good television. And considering there is a SHIT TON OF AWESOME (Raylan Givens, Ava Crowder, Mags, Quarles, Limehouse - hell, they even got rid of the one weak element in the show, Winona, going into season 4) in this show, it's saying a lot when I declare, with no reservations, that Boyd Crowder the best thing about Justified.
Boyd and Raylan's complicated relationship is the centerpiece of the show by this point - something of a mix of respect, dislike, distrust, brotherhood, and an underlying need of the other (mostly for information). And Walton Goggin OWNS this role. Justified is great without Boyd, but it's on an entirely better level with him.
Also he and Ava are super cute together.
2. Opie Winston (Ryan Hurst), SONS OF ANARCHY
Sons of Anarchy is one of the more entertaining shows on this list (although stretches of it can be frustrating - see the finale of an otherwise awesome season 4). However, Opie's development has consistently made for good storytelling and good television. Only supposed to be a in a few episodes of season 1, Ryan Hurst has created one of the more multi-dimensional characters on this show.
From dealing with the (spoilerss) death of his wife, to his romance in season 2, to his relationship with his father, to his relationships with Jax and Clay (and Clay's complete manipulation of him to get to Jax), Opie has become a necessary and fascinating character - a character I'm interested in, a character I want only good things for even as I know it's unlikely.
And god damn did I love his confrontations with Stahl. TEAM OPIE.
3. Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), BREAKING BAD
Obviously Jesse Pinkman is on here. In Gilligan's first draft of the pilot, he wasn't even Jesse - he was Dupree, a dumbass name that I'm glad got corrected. And Jesse became integral to the show, as his relationship with Walter White deepened, and his relationship with Mike and Gus became more and more complicated. Jesse's character development is just as fascinating as Walter White's, as he started off as a twenty-something not sure of his identity, spiraling further and further into a web of drugs, lies, and mortal danger, and Aaron Paul plays him to a T. Jesse is the man.
I put him behind Boyd because nobody beats Boyd, and behind Opie because at this stage of either show, Opie has more to do than Jesse. I trust the writers of Breaking Bad, and I'm sure he'll come back swinging next season, but right now there's not much for him to do.
4. Cheryl Tunt (Judy Greer), ARCHER
Cheryl was supposed to be the first casualty in an ongoing joke, where Sterling Archer sleeps with one of his mother's assistants after another. But then they cast the great Judy Greer, and that all changed.
What started as a funny but cliched joke turned into one of the craziest characters on TV today, and Judy Greer plays that shit like no one else could. Crazy rich, psychotic, a glue drinker, and into all sorts of weird sex stuff, Cheryl is a gem, and her character gets better every season.
5. Niklaus "Klaus" Mikaelson (Joseph Morgan), THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
Okay, I love The Vampire Diaries. I know it's on the CW, but it's my favorite vampire show (Buffy gives it a run for its money, True Blood isn't even close to as good). The characters are all great, the storylines are all interesting. There's enough critical love of this show (except for the first couple episodes) where I don't have to defend myself any further.
Klaus came on to the scene in season 2 and was a force to be reckoned with. The Big Bad. They were supposed to kill him off, but they liked Joseph Morgan so much they kept him around. Which honestly? Understandable. Joseph Morgan is fantastic.
But now this evil vampire of evil, bent on world domination and destruction, has been written as some kind of demi-god who can never die without killing off the main characters as well. We're in a bind here.
I'm keeping him here under best, though, because I love his love of Caroline (seriously, I LOVE Caroline), because of the twist in the season 3 finale, and because he's really goddamn sexy. I mean, look at him. And when he talks? Oh god. Oh man. I love Klaus.
THE NOT SO BEST
5. Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), TRUE BLOOD
True Blood isn't very good anymore. This makes me sad to say, because the first three seasons were damn entertaining. But between throwing every storyline possible in the mix to see what fits (werepanthers will always be my least favorite storyline of all time, although the Iraqi ifrit story tried its damndest to best it) and the awkward pacing of the main storylines due to too many other storylines crowding the episodes and some truly unlikeable characters (Tommy, Arlene, Mrs. Fortenberry), it's not a good show. Although season 5 was pretty damn entertaining.
Lafayette, who is killed at the beginning of book 2, stayed in the show around because he was a fan favorite and because Nelsan Ellis is amazing. He's still a fun character to watch, but his storylines haven't been great, making him feel somehow misused.
Keep your chin up, Lafayette - they saved Tara, maybe they can save you too.
4. Andy Bernard (Ed Helms), The Office
Andy was only supposed to be on for a season, but they combined his character with another to make him recurring. Fair enough - Ed Helms is a masterful man, and a very funny actor. I like him as boss much more than I ever liked Michael Scott (still not sure why people ever liked Michael Scott, one of TV's most overrated characters despite how awesome Steve Carrell is).
However, The Office blows now, and I don't care about any of the characters. Unfortunately, that includes Andy.
3. Spike (James Marsters), BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Oh Spike. I love Spike. Only supposed to be on for a couple episodes, Spike (and James Marsters) proved too entertaining to not bring back again and again, eventually making him a series regular.
And in the beginning, it was great. Spike was a bad guy. He fell in love with Buffy. That's fine too. Until he started to become a weaker character, and less of a bad guy, until finally there was a screwed up romance between the two, and Spike became a total wimp. Love killed any sex appeal and awesome Spike formerly had.
Which is too bad. Because Spike, before he was a love interest, was awesome. If they had figured out what else to do with him, he'd still be on the awesome list.
2. Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), GLEE
If you don't love Jane Lynch then you can just get right out of here. She's funny in literally everything she's in.
Except maybe Glee.
That's not her fault. Signed as a recurring character because her other show PARTY DOWN was on the fence for another season (sadly canceled), Jane Lynch has done everything she can with a character that, originally, showed a lot of promise. A hard-ass over-the-top villain that played a foil to the Glee Club, Jane Lynch owned every scene she was in.
However, Ryan Murphy can't for the life of him create a consistent character, and attempts to humanize Sue came out muddled and weird. Jane Lynch did what she could with the material, but I was mostly left trying to understand how one character could have so many conflicting traits in such an unbelievable way.
Still, better than Rachel. Seriously, I hate Rachel. I don't even watch the show anymore and I still hate Rachel.
1. Dean Pelton (Jim Rash), COMMUNITY
Full disclosure: I never liked the dean the way everyone else did. I thought he was funny enough in small doses, but even in season 1 I was confused by and kind of over his shtick. Jim Rash is very funny, and everyone else likes the dean, so maybe I'm wrong.
Bumping him up from regular to recurring I think weakened the show, because a lot of his whole thing is "oh my god he's weird and creeptastic and totez in love with Jeff" and I don't find that entertaining. That said, he looks rather dashing in this picture.
It was between him and Senor Chang for this coveted position of worstest, but I liked Senor Chang for longer than a lot of other people, and I think they stopped using him as much anyway as Ken Jeong became busy with other obligations.
Anyway this is my list. I know Ben Linus from LOST is missing from this list but I still never got around to that show, and don't intend to.
Now let's all get excited for Sons of Anarchy THIS TUESDAY so we can forget how lost we are without Breaking Bad.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
I Still Like This Era We Live In. Period.
It's a fun little game, trying to see what decade you would rather live in than this one. The 60s is a pretty popular answer. Sometimes the 20s. The 80s. A conservative or two misses the 50s. Some douchebag without a firm grasp of history gets teary-eyed about the 40s. Sometimes people venture even further back in time. 1800s, Enlightenment, Renaissance, etc.
If karma's a bitch, nostalgia's a whore. Nostalgia, you ignorant slut.
Me, I'm good here in 2012. I like my phone and my computer and the internet. I know we're going through some tough times, but I also know we'll move past it. Well, I don't KNOW that, but I believe that.
And as much as love learning about our past, I'm not particularly interested in living it. The 60s was a time of political unrest and upheaval that makes these days seem pretty damn tame. The 20s was an entire decade where alcohol was illegal, so definitely no thanks. The 80s sucked for being gay, but at least they understood good hair. People in the 50s knew how to dress, sure, but the fact that that decade directly resulted in the 60s tells you all you need to know about how much I'm not at ALL interested, thank you.
Women's rights is an issue if you go too far back. My mother couldn't apply to the Ivy League schools because they were still all-male, for example. But at least then, as a woman, you knew that a bad date was still going to pick up the check. This is no longer a universal truth.
But that's not even the biggest issue for me. Here is a tale explaining in full why I am perfectly fine with living in the present.
In 2004 I was 14 years old. One day I visited my grandparents in Leisure Village, a retirement community up in Camarillo. We were having a grand old time, playing bocce and ping pong, maybe swimming. At one point I had to use the restroom and found my underwear covered in blood. Ugh, menstruation.
By this time I'd been getting my period every 4 weeks for about a year, but it still surprised the crap (well, blood I guess) out of me every time. I'd look down and get confused, like it'd only been three and a half weeks since my last one ended so why was it back again already? I was never expecting it. But going to an all-girls school and being on a girls' soccer team usually meant I was around others who were prepared, so I was used to getting lucky.
Not so on this fateful day in Leisure Village.
Grandma, you see, had not received a visit from Aunt Flo in a few decades now. Her friends were on her same page. In fact, it's safe to say the ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD was on the same page. I was totally screwed.
I told my grandma, and together we walked to the Senior Center, hoping they might have something for us. The lady was very nice, saying she didn't have anything but the public restroom down the hall might.
See, it's just not a thing I think about. You have tampons with applicators (my mom kept threatening me with tampons without applicators but like that is totally disgusting mom stop it). You have pads - thin pads, thank you. You have birth control that sometimes lets you skip that step altogether. These are the products I am used to. This is the beautiful life I have come to take for granted.
So in 2004, when 14-year-old me ominously stepped into that public restroom on the off-chance it would have something to stop the bleeding, I was... not prepared. For the box that was easily one cubic yard big that held a single pad meant to fit inside my underwear.
With the exciting new tagline: "Pad: Now Without Garter Belt!"
Now Without Garter Belt.
NOW WITHOUT GARTER BELT. This was a thing to brag about. Now without garter belt. Now without... now without garter belt.
Well, we have two options, don't we? I mean, the pad's going in, that's not an option. The options I'm talking about are as follows: either women's hygiene has come a long way in a VERY short time, or this pad was older than I care to think about.
I cried that day*, for the decades passed in which women lived these disgusting, bloody lives. For the ladies that came before me, who didn't have access to shoving cotton with a string up their vaginas and instead had to wear it inside their underwear, without adhesive, tied around their waist so it wouldn't fall out. I heard tales of cloth you would simply throw out afterwards. Horrific. HORRIFIC. Mother. Grandmothers. Aunts. Great-Aunts. You have been through so much that I may never, ever know.
So today I salute all the women who came before me. You are an inspiration. And I am glad as all hell that I live in the now, and not in the past. Because honestly, nothing sounds worse than a tampon-free period.
*Not true. This is hyperbole.
If karma's a bitch, nostalgia's a whore. Nostalgia, you ignorant slut.
Me, I'm good here in 2012. I like my phone and my computer and the internet. I know we're going through some tough times, but I also know we'll move past it. Well, I don't KNOW that, but I believe that.
And as much as love learning about our past, I'm not particularly interested in living it. The 60s was a time of political unrest and upheaval that makes these days seem pretty damn tame. The 20s was an entire decade where alcohol was illegal, so definitely no thanks. The 80s sucked for being gay, but at least they understood good hair. People in the 50s knew how to dress, sure, but the fact that that decade directly resulted in the 60s tells you all you need to know about how much I'm not at ALL interested, thank you.
Women's rights is an issue if you go too far back. My mother couldn't apply to the Ivy League schools because they were still all-male, for example. But at least then, as a woman, you knew that a bad date was still going to pick up the check. This is no longer a universal truth.
But that's not even the biggest issue for me. Here is a tale explaining in full why I am perfectly fine with living in the present.
In 2004 I was 14 years old. One day I visited my grandparents in Leisure Village, a retirement community up in Camarillo. We were having a grand old time, playing bocce and ping pong, maybe swimming. At one point I had to use the restroom and found my underwear covered in blood. Ugh, menstruation.
By this time I'd been getting my period every 4 weeks for about a year, but it still surprised the crap (well, blood I guess) out of me every time. I'd look down and get confused, like it'd only been three and a half weeks since my last one ended so why was it back again already? I was never expecting it. But going to an all-girls school and being on a girls' soccer team usually meant I was around others who were prepared, so I was used to getting lucky.
Not so on this fateful day in Leisure Village.
Grandma, you see, had not received a visit from Aunt Flo in a few decades now. Her friends were on her same page. In fact, it's safe to say the ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD was on the same page. I was totally screwed.
I told my grandma, and together we walked to the Senior Center, hoping they might have something for us. The lady was very nice, saying she didn't have anything but the public restroom down the hall might.
See, it's just not a thing I think about. You have tampons with applicators (my mom kept threatening me with tampons without applicators but like that is totally disgusting mom stop it). You have pads - thin pads, thank you. You have birth control that sometimes lets you skip that step altogether. These are the products I am used to. This is the beautiful life I have come to take for granted.
So in 2004, when 14-year-old me ominously stepped into that public restroom on the off-chance it would have something to stop the bleeding, I was... not prepared. For the box that was easily one cubic yard big that held a single pad meant to fit inside my underwear.
With the exciting new tagline: "Pad: Now Without Garter Belt!"
Now Without Garter Belt.
NOW WITHOUT GARTER BELT. This was a thing to brag about. Now without garter belt. Now without... now without garter belt.
Well, we have two options, don't we? I mean, the pad's going in, that's not an option. The options I'm talking about are as follows: either women's hygiene has come a long way in a VERY short time, or this pad was older than I care to think about.
I cried that day*, for the decades passed in which women lived these disgusting, bloody lives. For the ladies that came before me, who didn't have access to shoving cotton with a string up their vaginas and instead had to wear it inside their underwear, without adhesive, tied around their waist so it wouldn't fall out. I heard tales of cloth you would simply throw out afterwards. Horrific. HORRIFIC. Mother. Grandmothers. Aunts. Great-Aunts. You have been through so much that I may never, ever know.
So today I salute all the women who came before me. You are an inspiration. And I am glad as all hell that I live in the now, and not in the past. Because honestly, nothing sounds worse than a tampon-free period.
*Not true. This is hyperbole.
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