Glorious Taco

Someday, we'll all have a good laugh about this….

Gentlemen July 30, 2011

Filed under: dating,Uncategorized — equinette19 @ 3:57 am

OK boys and girls, let’s play how not to get someone to like you on OkCupid!

1. Don’t be a square.  Make sure you make a lot of spelling mistakes, and don’t use punctuation. Why it works: It communicates that you aren’t trying to impress them even the tiniest bit.

2. Keep it short. Once again, we’re not trying to impress anybody (that’s so uncool). Keep it under two sentences.   Why it works: If your message takes longer than twenty seconds to type, they may think you’re actually interested.

3. Talk dirty to ’em.  You want to be very clear that all you want is sex.  Try telling them how you imagine their butt feels through clean linen.  Why it works: It discourages them that the only thing you like about them is how their meat’s shaped.

Now for the disclaimer:  I’m not saying that you can never make a mistake, or send a cute little short message, or tell someone how hot you think they are.  I certainly do.  I just want all you smart, sexy lads to know that us smart, sexy ladies really like it when you show us how smart you are.

Also, if you really want to impress me in particular, talk to me about marine life. Just sayin’.

 

 

 

 

My brain is full of AMAYZAAAAAHHHH June 6, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — equinette19 @ 4:12 pm

Is somebody putting LSD in my marshmallow coco puffs?  Because the freaking circus in my head last night was insane.   I watched the new X-men movie before I had this dream, and you can tell.

I know that nobody gives a flip about my dreams, but it was so freaking cool I can’t help myself.  Here it is, with no embellishment.

First, I was a half-human mutant living in prehistoric cave.  I also had a mutant boyfriend and we were supposed to be keeping the race alive or something, so you can guess where that went.  Oh, and the mutant boyfriend was the guy I dated in high school.

Then I was a regular person in the present, trying to get a pregnancy test to work, which made absolutely no sense as, apparently, I hadn’t had sex since before Jesus was born.

Dream logic. Right.  Wait, no, I just remembered-I thought that some guy I’d never even met was the father, even though in the dream I was conscious of that fact.  What?!

Next segment:  I was with two men, and we were trying to save eggs that had fallen into the sea and become lodged on rocks and I was putting them under my clothes to keep them warm.  One of my companions pointed to an egg half-frozen in a crack on the large rock we were clinging to.

“It’s dead,” I said. ” Look, it’s frozen already.  I probably can’t even get it out.”

“Just give it a chance, come on.”

I dug at the ice surrounding the egg-it was only a fragile, flaky film after all-and put the frigid thing under my shirt.  A swell came in and lifted me up gently-the eggs floated around in my shirt and pants- but my hands were locked onto the rock and I fell asleep despite the cold and wet.

I woke up and felt for the eggs, but they were gone.  My companions and I dove into the water and searched the sandy bottom. Though cold, the turquoise water was very clear.  One man pointed to something white and I picked it up: an eggshell, still held together by membrane.  I felt something poke my leg; there was something sharp stuck in my pants, and I shook it out.  It was one of the empty eggshells.

We swam to shore and ran up the beach, looking for the hatchlings.  I nearly ran over a delicate grass basket, and as I stared at it, one of the men explained that it was something the animals made to protect themselves as they hatched.

“That makes no sense, I thought they’d already hatched.” I said.   The men shrugged and grinned.  We continued sprinting up the sandy path through the eucalyptus and palm trees.  I came upon another little basket, this one made with thinner weave and taller than the last.  I picked it up, and, breaking my fingers through the sides as I gripped it, put it over my head.  We laughed as we ran.

We came to a wooded area with a vast meadow of tall golden grass.  A warm breeze tugged at the basket I held above me, and I jumped; it caught the wind like a parachute and slung me in a graceful arc over the rippling grass.

As it set me down, I noticed a line of animals; not babies, but full-grown.  They had been the inhabitants of the eggs.  They were waiting for me so they could say goodbye.

I ran to a buck and took his head in my hands, pressing my forehead against his and crying bitterly.  I did this to a little dog, too, telling him secretly that I loved him best. Perhaps he had been in the egg frozen in the crevice.

As I turned in front of my children, I fell to all fours and became half-animal, though we all screamed with human voices as we charged across the meadow.  I can’t remember if we were going to war or simply running to our new lives; I think it may have been a little of both.

Later, I was part of a criminal organization headquartered in a mansion, though I was also going to a girls’ school where many of the students were also part of the clan. I had become jaded and bitter due to the loss of my mutant boyfriend from the beginning of the dream, as well as those animal children that had hatched from eggs.

Re-reading that, I’m questioning the wisdom of posting this.

Anyways, I was following a thin black man down the grand staircase, my steps slow and deliberate. I cornered him at the bottom and stood close to him.  A stole of tiny purple jewels lay draped around my neck, and I tossed one end around his so that I could pull him towards me.  He turned his head away from me, unwilling.

“Always looking for diamonds, and you continue to ignore me.” I said laying my head to one side so that my neck was exposed.  Was he a vampire?  I don’t know.

I followed him up another set of stairs, smiling as he gave me dubious looks but tolerated my company.  Jewelry lay in black velvet display cases set in the marble, but most of it was protected by class. We came to one case that was open, and I lifted out a pair of topaz earrings. I put one in my mouth and broke it between my teeth, but the black man was looking for a different, tastier gem.

We came to a landing where several people were drinking and joking.  The stairs we had climbed wrapped around the atrium of the mansion; you could see people in the gallery below.

I turned to my companion and suggested that we take some of the Lady’s jewels.  She was in the shower; I could hear the water running.  Then, for some reason, I changed my mind, leaned over the banister and addressed the man playing the white grand piano on the floor below.  He was the leader of the clan, and the Lady’s boyfriend.

He was also Vinn Diesel.

“Hey! Vinn!”  I shouted.  “I’m going to eat some of Emma’s jewelry.  I don’t want her to be scared. Thought I’d tell you.”

Vinn Diesel stood up, pointing at me, “No, you have no idea what she can do! She’ll-” but he was interrupted as the marble wall next to me cracked and a giant piece of a mirror was hurled through, no doubt torn from the wall in Emma’s bathroom.

I leaped over the railing, spinning in midair and shattering the mirror with my shin. As I landed in the gallery next to Vinn Diesel, Emma’s voice could be heard, shaking the walls as she shrieked death threats to anyone foolish enough to enter her chamber.  She flung another piece of glass for good measure.  Still crouching, I caught the dagger-like shard with my toes.

“Right.  Not going in there.” I said.

There was something else where Emma and myself and some girls were sitting in an arbor, and Emma was smoking weed and making fun of the substitute teacher who looked like someone I work with.  Then the kid upstairs jumped off the top of the refrigerator and I woke up.

I’m just posting this so I don’t forget it.  I don’t care what anyone thinks, that was seriously one of the coolest dreams I’ve ever had.

 

Internet meme: Geddan May 27, 2011

Filed under: memes — equinette19 @ 5:49 am

What do you get when you combine a half-inserted N64 cartridge and spastic late-nineties J-pop?

I stumbled upon it while watching Kampfer Abridged, when the song “Promise” by Hirose Kohmi was used in the stinger after the credits. I immediately fell in love and went in search of other videos about it.

This is the evolution as I understand it:

1.  Original.  It began with a glitch in the N64 game GoldenEye 007, called “half-inserted cartridge syndrome”. As the name suggests, when the cartridge wasn’t pushed in all the way, characters and planes and helicopters would randomly spaz out.  It was only a matter of time before someone put it to music.   “Promise” was bouncy and frenetic enough to do the job.

2. Animated dance: I think this is the video by Lamaze P that solidified Geddan into a dance, but, seeing as I can’t read Japanese, I’m probably wrong.

"This budding meme needs more pelvic thrust!"

2. Nitori gets down:  Nitori Kawashiro is a character from the 11th Touhou Project game. For some reason, someone decided to animate her getting down. I’m glad they did.

3. It. gets. good.

(I’m sorry I don’t know how to just put videos on my page yet)

 

Siphonophores May 25, 2011

Filed under: Animals — equinette19 @ 11:46 am

Thank you WTF Japan Seriously (don’t judge me) for introducing me to my new favorite animal, the Siphonophore

.

Deep-sea colonial badassery.

There I was, bingeing on animated flocks of flying panties, when I came across this video.

At first I thought it was fake; an elaborate puppet festooned with pink balloons and streamers set to trippy music to delight my stupid American brain.

But no, it’s totally real. Wikipedia says so.

But come on! I have never seen such a cool-looking animal.  It’s pink, all jelly-like, has a thousand little curly tentacles, and a tail of christmas tree lights.  Does James Cameron know this exists? Obviously not, because it would have starred in Avatar, not the Na’Vi.

Okay, fine, the Na’Vi were freaking awesome, but this thing should have at least made an appearance.

Oh man, the more I read about these things, the cooler they get.  Let’s see, the Portuguese man-o-war is a type of siphonophore-I didn’t know that.

Some species can grow to be the longest animals in the world: up to 130 feet long: A stinging jelly longer than a blue whale. Oh my god.

Also, they’re colonial animals, which means they’re made up of thousands of individual animals called zooids, kind of like coral

(Dunn, Casey: http://siphonophores.org/5/25/11) .

Oh hey look I just used APA in real life. I’m sure it’s in the wrong format, but I’m not about to open that book again if I have to.

"Just cite the damn source correctly, woman!"

WAUGH!!  (and no.)

 

Quentin Tarantino and squash casserole May 18, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — equinette19 @ 2:09 am
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I work with several older women who have been cooking for the better part of a century, and occasionally they bring things in to share.  To say that I partake enthusiastically would be an understatement, but I feel left out when the old girls sit back and swap recipes and stories. My repertoire consists of “I LIEK FORZEN PIZZAS”, so my contributions are few and very often have nothing to do with cooking and everything to do with how sexy Jeremy Wade is (whoever has the remote to the breakroom always leaves it on Animal Planet. I don’t complain.)

Yesterday, Martha brought in something called zucchini cake, and at first I didn’t believe that there were squash in it.  This alien confection was one one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth; round, with toasted pecans and some sort of glaze on top, and only one or two tiny specks of green to betray the vegetable hidden within.

I thought of my aunt’s squash casserole, which was my favorite dish at thanksgiving and christmas (next to turkey-gravy pancakes the next morning OH MY GOD) and which I never have anymore.  There was an epic Shakespearean feud several years ago over the matriarch’s house, and the aunts and uncles are still pretty Montague and Capulet about it.  No more squash casserole, no more giant family get-togethers.

😦

Wait just a damn minute.  I have an oven. I can read.  I’ll make my own.

I looked up a Paula Deen recipe and off to WalMart I went, during which time my brother and I played “Boy or Girl?”, lost, and forgot the paper towels.  Oh well.

I had trouble finding some music to listen to while I cooked.  REM made me feel like I was  on a roadtrip, Beatles were too tame, and Fever Ray made me think of that one time I watched a pirated video of my brain being repeatedly defecated upon.

The mood’s gotta be right.  If you’ve every been on the interstate listening to the radio, looked down and realized you were going 105 in a sixty, then I have three words for you:

Kill. Bill. Soundtrack.

I don’t care who you are, or what mundane, everyday task you are doing, if you put on the soundtrack to Kill Bill, you will fold all your laundry in thirty seconds and then axe kick it into the closet.   I wasn’t  pounding Ritz crackers in a bag with my fist, I was one-inch-punching my way out of a buried coffin.

The crackers were the dirt.

The casserole is pretty good, if a little oily (thanks, Paula!), but I would say it’s a success, mostly because I felt like a freaking ninja while I was doing it.

 

Ocean Invertebrates: My Love For Them September 19, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — equinette19 @ 4:12 am
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I have been watching David Attenborough all day, and feel the need to rhapsodize about freaky marine invertebrates.

The blue sea dragon, glaucus atlanticus

You will be assimilated. No, really.

I have been inspired by the delightful marine-nerd blog that is Star-Gazy Pie.  One of their links was to this news story maligning one of the most beautiful nudibranchs I have ever seen.

You can keep your whales  and your seals and most other vertebrates(unless they’re on this show); give me something slimy or armored and slightly translucent.  Preferably all three.  I’m sorry, but these animals do things that are a thousand times cooler than anything a mammal can do.

For example: my dear Star-Gazy just taught me that argonaut males can detach their penis-tentacle, called a hectocotylus (WHAT?) and it will swim on without them and mate with a female on its own.  Oh, and also, the hectocotylus was once thought to be some sort of worm.  Excuse me?  Marine biologists were trolled by an octopus’s detachable penis?  Hell yeah, argonauts!

My future wife

However, I will make an exception to my vertebrate rule for Joy Reidenberg,the comparative anatomist from the show I linked above.  I have never seen someone thigh-deep in whale guts looking so happy.  For that matter, I’ve never seen someone thigh deep in whale guts, but it seems like there’s nothing that adorable woman likes better.  Be still my heart.

 

Dating advice September 12, 2010

Filed under: dating,Gender — equinette19 @ 11:31 pm
Tags: , , ,

So I was looking at some dating advice today because I realized over the weekend that I have very little faith in marriage.

It’ll make sense in a minute:  My mom was telling me that my cousin and her husband were getting a divorce, and I laughed and said, “Well there’s a big surprise.”

“Oh, do you know something I don’t?” she asked.

“Um, no, I just have very little faith in marriage.”

“Oh no, that’s terrible!”  She wailed.  “Oh God, because your father and I got divorced and now you don’t think that people can stay married….”

Shit, I felt bad.  I petted her head and told her that it was in no way her or dad’s fault and told her that I just know way too many people that are divorced or in shitty relationships.  If my beautiful, productive, smart friends and family can’t hold down a good relationship, what kind of chance do I have?  My corn snake is a better judge of character than I am!

I figured some dating advice articles would make me feel better, and, you know, for someone who spends a lot of time railing against fear culture, I sure do love me some red flag dating advice.  Even when I get a new For Dummies book, the first thing I look at is the section called “Top 10 Most Common Mistakes”.  Makes me feel like I have an edge, somehow.

Anyways, while I was reading about all the different things that should make me want to dump somebody, I noticed that the nameless dud in the articles was always male, except for How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk by First Things First  They squeezed in “jerkettes” so boys could come to the seminars, too.  I went to Askmen.com to see what kind of dating advice the guys were getting.  This article I clicked on had the tagline “This week’s questions come from readers who make themselves too available. David D. explains why you need to back off to turn women on.”

Wait a minute, I was just reading something about how I should dump a man who doesn’t make himself available.  So the girls are learning how to OMG RUN FOR THE HILLS, and the guys are learning how to HUNT THAT BITCH DOWN, YOU PANSY.

Okay, fine.  I’ll just marry my cat.

 

An apology to the angry MENZ July 10, 2010

Filed under: Gender — equinette19 @ 10:35 pm
Tags: , , , , , , ,

On July 9th I authored a post called “Calling all Masculinists”, an opinion piece on some of the comments I saw under the MENZ article, “Feminism and World War III“.  I’ve done some research and soul-searching based on the feedback I’ve gotten, and I owe these people an apology for two things:

1) I asserted that I understood your anger at women, which is ridiculous, seeing as I’ve only just learned about the men’s rights movement.

2) I admonished that anger, which is a big faux pas when talking to ANYONE.  You don’t tell an angry person that their anger is wrong-what does that do?  It makes them angrier!

I don’t regret making the post because it’s been a learning experience, but I think I just managed to piss off the people I was trying to understand.  When you admonish a stranger for their view on something, you are effectively saying “all the experience and rationale that has brought you to your conclusions are invalid.  You must be mistaken.”  Hardly a way to make friends.

Now I’m wondering if I can take a stand on any issue that I don’t have a direct history with.  Perhaps, but I’m guessing that it would be wise in the future to learn more about a movement before making a judgement on its participants (much less TO the participants), and to be more careful about passing judgement, period.  You never know who’s on the other side of the computer, and to assume that you do isn’t very fair to them.

I thought I had a pretty good grip on the reason that these men would say things like “all women are psychopaths”, but that was just arrogance on my part.  My “aha!” moment came when I was watching this video on Youtube about the basics of the men’s movement.  For whatever reason, that’s when I asked myself to listen to the message as though I were a blank slate with no history in feminism, and, when I did, I felt….you guessed it: anger.  If I could feel this way-a single woman who’s never experienced these injustices-how did the men who had been wronged by it feel?  Then I knew it was time to put my literary foot in my mouth and apologize to these people for assuming I had any idea I knew what they had endured.

I do stand by my claim that blanket terms about any group of people are unfair.  However, I realize that it’s damn near impossible not to lump people into categories based on personal experience, and that, when I think about it, I do it all the time.  It’s nearly impossible not to.  It’s not fair to stereotype any group of people, but stereotyping seems to be deeply ingrained in all people as a defense mechanism.

So what to do?  I’m glad I wrote “Calling all Masculinists” because I’ve learned a valuable lesson, but damn if paradigm shifts don’t suck.  And how do I reconcile feminism and masculinism?  I agree with aspects in both of them, but one seems to work directly against the other.

I guess all I can do is to continue to approach issues with an open mind, and continue to seek the feedback of people from all sides of an issue.  That being said, its time for your voice to be heard: and the question is this: What are your suggestions so that I can avoid making this same mistake in the future?  Is it possible to fight for men’s rights and women’s rights without one oppressing the other?  You’ve got an opinion and I want to hear it, so click on the “leave a comment” button at the bottom right of this post and let me know what you think.

-Vanessa

 

Calling all Masculinists! July 9, 2010

Filed under: Gender — equinette19 @ 12:23 am
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Ho-ley cow.

I’ve been visiting masculinist sites, looking for friends to populate my links with, because all of my links right now are fat liberation/body acceptance/feminist blogs.  In my search, I realized something that should have been apparent since I looked up masculinism on Wikipedia;

Some of these people, ah, aren’t inclined to think kindly of women.  And by that I mean fiery burning napalm hate.

I’m currently reading an entry from menz.org.nz, otherwise known as MENZ Issues.  It was founded by the Men’s Center of North Shore, Inc., and is now an open forum for men’s issues in New Zealand.   The post is called “Feminism and World War III”, and my heart sinks even before I begin reading the comparisons between feminism, psychological warfare and WWII propaganda.  My roots with civil rights and equality started with feminism, so I was dismayed, but not exactly surprised, by the article.  I’m sure that particularly zealous feminist groups have employed tactics used in psychological warfare, but that can be said of any prominent, publicized group with an agenda.  People who agree with the message call it informative.  People who don’t call it propaganda.

As I said, the article didn’t really shock me.  The comments did. Some of them were thoughtful commentaries on child support, fathers’ rights, and divorce bias.  However, interspersed with these were statements of intense anger directed towards women.  I’ve copied and pasted some of them here, but I strongly encourage you to follow the link above and read them in their original context.

“I am no longer a man but a slave to the capricious and irrational and irresponsible women that populate this country. I can honestly say that I do not even like women anymore, and never want to have a relationship with one again. I really believe, based upon considerable study (and I am a scientist – ecologist), that most if not almost all women are disposed this way.”

“Here is a question for you. Besides giving birth and raising children have women EVER contributed much to civilisation?”

“It seems all women are capable of doing is ripping civilisation down with irrational and dishonest behaviour that has attacked Western civilization at the root.”

“Wisdom, reason, common sense, objective analysis of facts and data in compliance with the Scientific Method are all MALE traits. They all rely on LOGIC AND REASON. Not emotion.”

“All women are psychopaths. That’s not a nice thing to say because psychopaths are not nice, but it is true. When a girl enters puberty, a huge amount of resources are redirected from development of the central nervous system (including the brain) to the reproductive system.”

“I disagree with Dave that women want to have relationships with men. Women want to control and manipulate men. That is not the same thing as a relationship. A relationship requires mutual exchange of thoughts and ideas and information and cooperation and negotiation. Women are incapable of thought or ideas or exchanging information or cooperating or negotiating.”

I’m guessing that the authors of these comments are mostly disenfranchised fathers who have been raked over the coals in divorce court and now have to pay child support and alimony to someone who broke their heart.  I’ve said some pretty nasty things about men just because of petty little breakups with boyfriends.  I can’t imagine the rage and pain caused as you watch someone you built a life with be supported by your country’s legal system as they take away your children, your house, and a pretty big chunk of your money.

Look, guys, I understand (as much as a single, childless woman can understand the pain of a divorced father).  But I think that the kind of thinking expressed in the comments listed above is harmful to everyone involved.  And now I shall rant about it:

I don’t think it’s ever okay to lump every person of a certain distinction into one negative description.  First of all, that takes away the voice of the individual.  Second, it makes people feel like they’re on separate sides of a “war”, and a war between the sexes is the last thing we need.  Wait, that’s dumb.  War is the last thing we need, and it doesn’t matter what type.  Unless you’re a small arms dealer, in which case, war is great news.  That’s a whole different can of worms.

What I don’t get is the sense in anger and hate.  Okay, I’ll admit that being angry helped me complete my hike in record time today, but what good does being angry at a certain sex do?  You close yourself off from an entire world of human experience and information, not only by limiting yourself to one worldview, but also by turning people of that group off when they read nasty comments like those above.  That goes for feminists who rail about men being brutish and domineering; or straight people who bellow and snort and thump their bibles at gay people; or anyone who makes racist jokes.

If it sounds like I’m screaming “Why can’t we all just get along?”….well, yeah.  I am.

Learning about your rights and fighting unfair practices can be done without saying things that widen the gulf between the two “sides”.  It’s hardly fair to turn your back on an entire group of people just because a few of them hurt you.  Individuals!  People are individuals!

I am a woman.  I’m also a daughter.  And a writer.  And a wildlife enthusiast.  I love getting dirty and banged up and riding with the windows down while I blast zydeco music till my ears hurt.  I fight against inequality caused by gender differences, but I don’t blame it on men.  Hell, I’m not even really mad at the systems that reinforce harmful gender roles and pit the sexes against each other.  I just want to change it.

However, I can talk all I want, but it’s nothing without feedback.

What I really want is to hear from the masculinists floating out there in the web-o-sphere: How do you feel about the comments listed from the MENZ article, “Feminism and World War III”?  Do you agree or disagree with these views?  Why or why not?  What are some issues facing men that don’t get as much press as divorce court and paternity laws?  Comment and let me know what you think.

-Vanessa

 

Speaking up July 5, 2010

Filed under: Sexuality — equinette19 @ 4:14 pm
Tags: , ,

Last night, I lay awake thinking about what is going to happen once I find work and start interacting with people who say bigoted things.  It’s going to happen.  I’m going to be minding my own business and will hear someone say something that makes my stomach clench.

For instance: using the term “gay” with a negative connotation.  I used to use the word regularly before one of my gay friends asked me to stop.  It’s weird to think that there was a time when I was so insensitive to the word; even weirder to think about how long it took me to drop it from my vocabulary. At first, I only omitted it around my friend, but I continued to slip up around him, slapping my hand over my mouth and cursing myself.  I eventually realized that I had to stop using the word negatively altogether,  not because my friend asked me to, but because it was wrong to wield a word that describes a person’s life with such immaturity.

That was only two years ago, but now I feel a jolt every time I hear someone laugh, “That’s so gay!” , and I wonder if I should correct them.  I wonder how it would affect people?

Standing in the checkout line, you’re looking at the gum and say to you’re friend, “Damn, they don’t have Orbit.”  “Aw, gay, man.”  He replies.  A girl behind you in line says, “Excuse me,” she sidles up to the two of you and pushes her glasses up her nose. “it makes me sad to hear you talk about my brother that way.”  You stare at her.  What? She nods at your friend.  “When you use the word ‘gay’ like that, you’re taking a word that describes many people I love and using it in a negative way.  You may not realize it, but it perpetuates the idea that being gay is bad.  Just think about it.”  The PC Nazi smiles and looks over her glasses at you.  You and your friend mutter an apology and flee.

And then what?  Do they snigger and punch each other on the shoulder and crow “that was SO gay!”?  Do they choose their words more carefully in public?

I suppose I have to ask myself which I regret more, clamming up or speaking my mind.  There was one time I was working in a hospital in Florida and a doctor was talking about the patients he was seeing.  “Yep, a bunch of people who don’t want to lose weight and come in here for double knee replacements.”  His companion laughed and he added, “Hatians, you know.”  This was only two weeks after the earthquake in Haiti, and I was shocked he would say that.  His comment was size-ist AND racist, AND about a population of people who had just suffered a devastating disaster in their home country. As if the first two weren’t bad enough.

And you know what?  I didn’t say a damn thing.  Not a word.

And, every time I think about it, I wish I had ripped him a new one.  I was a float tech.  He couldn’t have done anything to me.  In fact, he probably would have been mortified when I pointed out how insensitive his comment was. But he wasn’t.  He got away with it and is probably still saying nasty things about his patients and sleeping perfectly fine at night.  Because I didn’t have the guts to say anything.

So I guess that answers that question.  Time to put on my big girl panties and start giving people a wake-up call.  Because it’s not just a word.  Words are all we have to separate us from the monkeys.  Words drive everything we do.  And when we use a word like “gay”, or “fat” in a negative way, it reinforces the belief that these things are bad.  How can it be rude or inappropriate to gently point out how harmful these little comments can be?

Hey, the worst thing that can happen is that I piss someone off.  Quite a silly thing to be afraid of, when you think about the consequences of remaining silent.