msaramat

One of the things I had about television is that someone always has to be the bad guy, even the good guys. I guess it's the drama thing, they add stuff to ramp up the drama so people will watch. And since it works, they'll keep in doing it. Because real life is boring, and so tv has to make everything bigger and better and fantastical.

But I hate it. I hate when they make good characters do idiotic things that go completely against character, thus making that stupid thing part of cannon and something I have to deal with when I watch the show or read the fanfic, if I decide to do so, from that moment forward. I hate when they flip flop a character's personality or actions or whatever every other fricking episode because the writers can't be bothered to keep up with the most basic continuity of their own damn show. I hate that when couples break up, and when we start to realize there might be more fault laid with the woman then the man, they immediately make the man sleep with some random woman way back when things were crappy between them so now the woman can feel all justified that she was really, all along, in the right.

I'm just so sick of tv lately. Thank goodness for Nickelodeon.

My local library is running a Books and Brackets contest where you choose the best children's books. Some of the choices are easy (IMO, Alice in Wonderland is vastly superior to Peter Pan), but how exactly am I supposed to choose between Charlotte's Web and Where the Sidewalk Ends? And the fact that Harry Potter is up against Dr. Seuss is, literally, killing me.

Although, I have to admit I would choose Green Eggs and Ham over just about anything. I mean what kind of person doesn't like Green Eggs and Ham? Not the kind of person I want to know, I'll tell you that.

Fact remains, I haven't had so hard a time choosing things as I have for this contest.

Today is my son's 18th birthday. Next week I will be 36. Age doesn't really mean much to me, but I had a mini freak out moment when I realized I'm 4 years away from 40. Forty seems like such an adult number, like I should be doing all sorts of things I'm not doing. My cousin, who's two years younger than me, just bought a house with her husband. That's the kind of things I should be doing. But I'm not. For one, finding a husband just seems like a lot of work.

Two, owning a house is a lot of work. I much prefer renting so other people can cut my grass and when I have a plumbing problem I don't have to pay to have it fixed. So what if I can't paint my living room purple (which I wouldn't, that's just wrong), at least I didn't have to shell out hundreds of dollars when my toilet starting leaking water that didn't actually come from the toilet.

So anyway, I'm old and I'm acknowledging it. Happy birthday, Brandon!

First, baby update. My nephew, who was born 12 weeks early, is doing really well. They moved him downstairs to where the less critical NICU babies are a couple of weeks ago and yesterday he hit 3 pounds. So, things are looking good. Here he is:



He's looking like a baby now, getting chubby cheeks and all. And he's finally allowed to wear clothes now. He should be home in a few weeks, if all goes according to plan.

My kids were home for break recently. Taylor was home the last week of February and then Brandon came home the week after that. But he managed to overlap them so he could spend some time with this sister, which was nice of him. While he was here he did this:



which I am not claiming any responsibility for. My mother, when she finds out, is going to have a cow. He got it done two days before he went back to school, so he had to hide it from her for two days. But it looks really good and he's been wanting to get it forever, so now that he has he's happy. But my mother will still freak out when she finds out.

We had my sister's baby shower over the weekend. It turned out very well. I had nothing to do with the planning, but I was so tired from running around that day that I was so exhausted when I finally got home I crashed.

And that's about all that's going on in my life now. I need a hobby.

Watching all these entitled white men discuss these women's issues is annoying the crap out of me. Watching the women who agree with those entitled white men pisses me off. But why are we so surprised they think this way. I told my mother the other day that if you want to know these men's opinions on women, the kind of woman they think all women should be, you only have to look behind and to the right or left of them at their perfectly-coiffed, broadly smiling wives. Their Stepford wives, my mother said.

And then I look at Michelle Obama, who's been vocal and visible and real, while at the same time remaining supportive and respectful of her husband, and I can't imagine going to back to the Laura and Barbara Bush ideal of First Ladies.

Part of the reason why I love Barack Obama so much is because of his wife. Michelle Obama is just like all the other women I've known all my life. Smart and driven and opinionated and determined and black. She's the kind of woman I grew up surrounded by, the kind of woman my mother raised me to be. You cannot imagine how many times I look at Barack and Michelle and am so happy to see such a wonderful representation of my people in the White House.

That we've got this kind of woman standing beside our President and the people who are trying their hardest to get the bid to run against him want to take us back to when a woman's place was barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, frankly disgusts me. That in the year 2012, this is still a fucking issue, that women, who make up more than half the population of this country, have to deal with this shit pisses me off. That this whole thing came about because the Republicans can't bag on the President because of the economy anymore just makes it worse.

As a woman, even if I wasn't an Obama supporter, this would make me mad. This would make me gather all the information I could and share it with every woman I know. Because this goes beyond party and politics. This is men trying to make our decisions for us, men trying to treat us like people who don't matter, men thinking they know what is best for us as if we're not capable of making our own decisions. And the the more we sit by doing nothing, the longer they'll do it.

But that goes for everybody with issues people don't give a damn about. We need to be educated and informed and we need to spread the word.

And I should stop watching Politics Nation with Rev. Al Sharpton because it's making me particularly pissy against the Republicans. Although it has renewed my sense of Black Pride. And you can never have enough Black Pride.

Brandon always wants fish. I have no idea why, he just always wants fish. So my mother got him a little aquarium and some fish he can take back to school with him. We've had the fish for 24 hours. After 12 hours one bit the bullet. When I woke up this morning, two more fish had joined the first. There are two fish left and at this point I'll be surprised they survive the week.

Added to this is the fact that Brandon bought a betta fish at Thanksgiving that the pet store people were convinced wouldn't last a week. It is still alive. The fact that the fish we bought yesterday couldn't even last twenty-four hours makes them complete pussies in my book. Bettas rule.

I do not get why people think Downton Abbey is the best thing to hit television since television. I've tried to watch it, really, I have. On Sunday nights, I'm pretty much glued to my PBS, but that show bores the crap out of me and I do not get it. (And on a side note, the fact that PBS is making me wait until May for series 2 of Sherlock greatly annoys.)

And this pertains to a lot of the stuff on television. I don't get why people can stand to watch NCIS. I hate half the cast, DiNozzo in particular. I don't get why people love Temperance Brennan on Bones when I think she's the biggest idiot ever. I don't get what's so great about the Doctor on Doctor Who as I would not follow that man to an exit if my house was on fire.

I've stopped watching many a show because I can't get past a character or a storyline or plot hole so massive it defies good sense that annoys me (do not get me started on Torchwood or How To Fuck Up A Guilty Pleasure in Five Idiotic Episodes). I love White Collar but they almost lost me with the bullshit that was the first half of season 3. I'm starting to hate Regina so much on Once Upon A Time (not to mention that NO ONE in Storybrooke is happy, it's depressing) that it's starting to ruin my enjoyment of that show.

Maybe I'm just losing patience for weekly dramas. Comedies I can handle. They're funny. The episodes are different enough each week that even if they have an off week, the next week it's like it never even happened. Dramas involve investment of time and energy and I'm severely lacking that. I watch tv to be entertained. A lot of what I'm watching is not doing that.

And there goes a short post that went too long.

I'm supposed to be making cookies. I am, as you can see, on the internet. The internet is not going to make my cookies for me. And then the eaters of my non-made cookies will not be happy with me.

So, I'm going to go make those cookies.