I was happily sitting using an internet connection that was not my own so I could work while waiting for my daughter to get out of class.  Best of both worlds kind of moment.  I’m here waiting when she gets finished and I’m using my time wisely to get work done.  I was feeling downright joyous and a little smug… when low and behold out of nowhere my connection?

Failed.  Kerplop.  Gone.

And I had the gall to be irritated by this.  For a moment I actually became completely indignant because damn it!  My connection was down!  I had no connection!  What on earth is a girl to do when her stolen internet connection goes down and she’s trying to work?!!

Dramatic sigh.

Since I’d planned on working I didn’t bring a book.  The benches are hard.  My day has been lonnnng.  And what do I want?  To work before I go home and get stuff done.

Would it be unreasonable to fall down on the floor rest my head on my big puffy jacket and cry.  Just a little?

Oh.

Okay fine.  I’ll write instead.

I haven’t had cheese puffs in years.  Excuse me.  Cheese Puffs.  They’re a proper noun, right?  Anyway, Cheese Puffs…  I try not to eat them because they have absolutely no redeeming value.  Except the cheesy puffy goodness I recall from my youth.  The savory fluffy cheesy goodness melting on my tongue. Yum.

So even though I do my very best not to keep junk food (that I love) in the house, I bought some Cheese Puffs the other day.  Oh Cheese Puffs.

Sigh.

The bag has been sitting on the counter for a few days.  Whispering to me.  Breathing sweet nothings into my ear as I walk past.  I’ve resisted.

I hold firmly to the belief that resisting temptation at the store it’s easier than resisting temptation at home.  None the less… there are Cheese Puffs here.

And after pulling open the bag and partaking of a few puffs I was… well I was sad.  And disappointed.  And I would leave the post at that if it were not for the fact that the second bowl (I had help getting through the first, I swear) was 10 times cheesier and far less styrofoamy than the first…

Oh cheese puffs… how unsettling you are.

That being said, what’s your favorite oh-so-bad for you treat?

I’ve had my iPhone for how many years now?  Many.  Let’s go with that.  I wasn’t one of those that stood in line for hours waiting to pay far too much to be an early adopter.  I wrote blog posts siting the insanity of that.  I still feel that way (though I covet so many lovely devices).  That’s what comes from being someone without disposable income.  It wasn’t long before I got my phone though and I couldn’t have been more pleased with it.  In no time it became my own.  My precious.

It wasn’t just a phone to me.  In fact 90% of the use I got from it had nothing to do with pressing it to my ear and talking to a person on the other end of the magical invisible phone wires.

Everything was contained on the little hand held magic device.  Photos, music, twitter, the whole fucking internet, games, information, giggles.  After loved ones it quickly became the first thing I would grab from a burning building.

On Friday in the middle of an update my phone made a desperate cry for help and then died.

Dead.

Okay that was a little dramatic.  I mean it did die.  And it really did call for help.  Laying there face up on my little computer table it made a call without me touching it and then shut down completely.  I administered apple CPR, had to return it to factory settings and then sync it.  BUT the itunes database was down or something so I just sat nervously for what seemed like forever waiting to see…

You guys?  It was like my life flashed before my eyes.  Phones aren’t what they used to be.

I’m about to bash bicyclists in the city of Portland.  Yes.  Even with the “bikes are sexy” photo over there (they are).  Even though I love that Portland is a bike friendly city.  Even though I adore that we have a city you can get around without a car.  I’m about to say something bad.  Are you ready?

Bikers, you are not the only ones using an alternative form of transportation.  Don’t hog the sidewalks!

In my experience many bicyclists treat pedestrians the way they accuse motorists of treating them.  Without a fucking care.  Like the fact that they are bigger and faster than you (you being me. or any pedestrian.) means they have more rights.

Not that I’m enamored with the way many motorists treat walkers either but that is not what this post is about.  Usually the cars aren’t rolling up on me on the sidewalk.  There are laws that apply to both bicyclists and motorists.  There are laws that apply to pedestrians too.  So when I’m walking down the street on the sidewalk where I belong as a pedestrian I don’t think it’s out of line for me to expect at least most people to follow the posted regulations and traffic laws.

So say you’re crossing a little two lane bridge with a sidewalk on only one side of the bridge and there is a clearly posted sign on each end of the bridge telling bicyclists to walk their bikes… Wouldn’t you think that the poor abused put upon cycling community would make an effort to respect that?  I mean it is for the safety of not just themselves but pedestrians too.  Yet every time I cross the Sellwood bridge on foot I nearly get run over by multiple bicyclists.  It’s so ridiculous that I want to stop the few cyclists that are walking their bikes and thank them just for doing what they are supposed to do.

So bikers, don’t be the dicks you accuse motorists of being, please.  I really don’t like getting pegged in the hip as you speed by unannounced.  Or at the very least?  Get a damn bell.

Of all the sentiments humans have learned to express through words, love and longing may be the ones to which the most time has been committed.  Love notes.  Songs.  Poems. Tales of woe are often the flip side of a tale of love.  And then you have your chick flicks.  And the greeting card industry.

We use words to woo.  To seduce.  To comfort and confirm.

A group of carefully, cleverly crafted words can make you swoon.  Make you fall.  Make you miss.  And yes, make you long for that love.  You may read each syllable greedily.  Linger on a particularly sweet turn of phrase.  Laugh.  Smile.  Feel your heart skip a beat.

But it’s not the words you’re longing for.  The words can evoke a response.  Form an idea.  But without something there to write of, the words are hollow.

Love cannot live on words alone.

I don’t know how old I was when I realized that my dad’s name is Bob because even after I knew that to be true there seemed no reason to say it.  To all the world he was Bob.  Well, there were a few people who called him Robert.  And his mom calls him Bobby to this day.  But I don’t think it would be a very good idea for anyone else to go the Bobby route…  He may be getting older but he plays a lot of golf and I’m sure all that club swinging is keeping him in good shape.

Back to the point, his name is Bob but there are two people in this word that have the privilege and honor of calling him something else entirely.

Dad.  Daddy.

I remember being young, 10 or so, sitting in a lawn chair on the fourth of July outside with my neighbors watching my dad set off fireworks.  I needed to tell him something.  To get his attention.  Maybe I was just asking permission for another bowl of my mom’s homemade  Oreo Cookie Ice-cream or maybe I wanted to tell him not to light his shorts on fire.  I can’t recall, but I do know I couldn’t get his attention by yelling “Daddy”.  Yelling “Daddy” in the middle of a neighborhood holiday gathering was useless.  It was like saying “Hello Mr. Smith!” at a Smith family reunion.  I couldn’t walk over to him, he was in the designated fireworks lighting zone.  It was a kid free area… okay it was supposed to be a kid free area.  So I yelled out “Hey Bob!” and his head whipped around, eyes fixed on me.  That look… It was something like irritation mixed with humor.

Bob.  It’s still an odd name for me to say.  It’s his.  My dad’s.  But Daddy is the only name I want to call him.

For instance?  Saying “Happy birthday, Bob!” seems like the most unnatural thing in the world, so I think I’ll just stick with;

Happy birthday, Daddy!  I love you.

Four letter words get a bad wrap.  Head.  Duck.  Beer.  Mush.  Blog.  All fine perfectly respectable words.  All containing four letters.  No more.  No less.

Yet four letter words have a well known reputation for being bad.  Nasty.  Dirty.  Wrong.

Baby is a four letter word.  As is word, love, like, high, good, nice, cake, pies.  Who doesn’t like cake?  And pies?  Okay… I stretched it a little there when I pluralized pie but still.  What’s so wrong with the four letter word?

So it’s not the number of letters… four letter word is just a less caustic pet name for cussing, cursing, swearing. Profanities.

What is it about profanities?

It’s the power of them.  As I said in my previous post words have meaning by themselves and within the context in which they’re used.  They have meaning and power.  With some words you feel that power more.  Some words you feel a surge of power just letting fall from  your lips.  What carries more weight, “I’m hungry.” or “Fuck, I’m hungry.”?  “This is a great movie.” or “This is a great fucking movie.”?

Like the word or not “fuck” carries with it a weight.  It’s the weight of taboo.  It makes you heard even when others would seek to shut you out for it.  It can be a verb, a noun, an adverb or an adjective.  I’d suggest its use as a pronoun but that would be fucking pushing it.  Then you have “shit” and “damn”.  They don’t carry with them the same weight as fuck does but they’ll still turn a few heads.  “Ass” and “bitch” get lumped in there as well.  I guess at three and five letters (respectively) they average one another out.

A quick look back pulls to mind the famous George Carlin routine on seven words you can’t say on broadcast.  The Internet has changed the game a bit with obscenities and one of these words I can’t imagine is considered taboo at all, but for the most part shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits are no-nos to this day.  Really I think it’s six words.  Mother is fine.  Fucker is not.  Therefore motherfucker isn’t acceptable.  But it makes sense.  You hear the word motherfucker and your ears prick right up, don’t they?

And cunt.  Well cunt is one of those four letter words that some people love and some, even some with trucker mouths, are hesitant to mutter.  It’s one I rarely utter.  Along with twat I tend to reserve the use of that word.  If I do say one of those words it rarely if ever is in reference to women’s genitals.

That’s the thing about “four letter words” (regardless of the number of letters they contain), when you look at their meaning, the way we utter them is seldom related to their definition at all.

So as defined by dictionary.com (because the dictionary app on my trusty little MacBook won’t let me copy and paste) all the dirty words I’ve referenced in this post:

Ass: a long-eared, slow, patient, sure-footed domesticated mammal

Bitch: a female dog.

Cock: a male chicken; rooster.

Cunt: the vulva or vagina.

Fuck: to have sexual intercourse with.

Piss: urine.

Shit: excrement; feces.

Tits: a titmouse.

Twat: vulva

Of all those, fuck is still my favorite.  And yours?

I’ve made no secret of my feelings for the movies di$ney puts out for kids.  I love the fun of it.  That you can get lost in their animation, songs and characters is a good thing.  They managed to hook you.  Pull you into the story and make you care about the characters.  You’re not just watching them.  You’re a part of their story.

That’s good storytelling.

In recent years there’s been a decline in the quality of the story, the animation and the songs but they still manage to engage their audience.

How do we get the children engaged?  Play on their fears.  What are they afraid of?  A parent dying.  Being kidnapped.  Being orphaned. Being lost and alone in an abandoned house-swamp-jungle-planet-tower.  It isn’t always overt.  Sometimes you’re dropped into it as a normal way of life for these characters.  Other times you’re watching a little baby deer stroll around the forest and the BAM!!!  Mom is dead.

But that’s not the only theme I’ve found upsetting. As we progress as a society I expect that our role models should progress too.  So I can’t believe that in 2011 (Tangled was released in 2010, I’m a bit behind) we’re still making films for kids that portray a female character as a helpless little slip of a thing that needs a man or a giant group of evil marauding men with hearts of gold to save her.

Repeatedly.

In the end the girl will learn her lesson and be empowered and shit.  But the journey to her empowerment is about her getting men to save her.  To complete her.  To teach us that we have to sit around and wait for someone to present a solution to our problems because we are too weak to do anything on our own except purse our lips, bat our eyelashes, smash a guy over the head with a frying pan and fall in love with the guy while he’s in the process of breaking and entering and try to make him a better man.  Because let’s face it, we should all fall in love with someone so that we can change them and make them be a completely different person than they were when we met.  Changing people works every time! And then, only then, can you be a strong empowered woman in love with a guy that forcibly cuts off all your long magical hair.  Oh and then you can marry him and presumably let said man (and the band of ruffians with hearts of gold) run your kingdom for you.

So yeah.  Let’s make movies for little girls to watch that are sexist, anti-feminist, teach us to love the criminal element and never take responsibility for our own happiness.  All with a saccharin sweet song.  Yes!  Let’s get them ready to go on Jerry Springer.  Wait, does Jerry still have a show?

In short, I saw Tangled over the weekend and I didn’t like it at all.

Try as I might
I’ve never managed to finish a love poem
Started
Stopped
Scrapped midway
Turned into a murder ballad
Words about lust
Or loss
But started and finished
With
And in
Love?
Never.

There shouldn’t be
The end