Some quixotic internet causes of mine.

I have not read any of the Twilight books, nor have I seen any of the movies. I'm going to check out the first when I go back to school. My sister has the first one. She also has a incredibly messy room. She's (most likely) re-reading Eclipse because of the movie.

Twilight is part of my internet missions - I want people to stop mocking the fans. (Though I have no defense for some of the merchandise - Edward Panties are just... I don't know.)

And when I googled to get that link, the first link was to a site called "Twitarded," oh so cleverly calling the fans retarded. People defend their use of ableist language (lame, retarded) by saying they don't mean that anymore. Then why use them as an insult? They must still mean something bad, or they wouldn't be used that way.

I assume the more common nickname for fans - Twihards, comes from "die hard" - they're die hard fans. That's fine.

Anywho... I don't like the bashing of Twilight fans. (And the hatred for the books seems extreme, especially when it's just plain hatred and doesn't involve a critique - how are the Quilutes portrayed, the problematic relationships - if she picked Jacob, it still would be unhealthy. And the one with Edward is just a mess.)

Small note - my sister would rip me a new one if she saw this - how can you talk about it if you haven't read it? Because I'm curious and now I'm finally thinking of reading the books. (She also could not believe that I knew bits and pieces about Lost, despite never watching the show. It was incredibly popular and mentioned on many sites I visit. Of course I know there's a smoke monster!)

The bashing of Twilight and its fans seems to just be reactionary - if it's popular, it must be bad. Also, more sinister, it is very popular with women and girls, and things that women like are always belittled.

Anyway, the Twilight books do not mean that the books you like disappeared or magically changed into Twilight. Same with the movies. Twilight did nothing to you. So cut it the fuck out. Also, wouldn't your time be better spent doing something you enjoy, like reading a book you love? (I said this on FB and a friend asked how will I feel superior now? That was a puzzler, but you can feel superior to the Twilight bashers now! Problem solved.)


Well, I wrote a novel, and I don't have much about the others.

I cannot stand the endless mocking of Justin Beiber - he's a girl, he's gay. It has nothing to do with his music, just his appearance and age. People are mocking a young boy. Which is so classy.

And something that keeps coming up every time M. Night Shyamalan makes a movie, and since the Village, they've started to really suck, according to reviews. (The Village and Signs scared the crap out of me, though I've never seen Unbreakable or The Sixth Sense.)

People purposely mispronounce his name or write it incorrectly - Shamalamadingdong. Yes, his name is long, but it's not hard to pronounce. On a tangent, I don't mind when Colbert mispronounces Ahmadinejad's name, because he slips a joke in there each time.

I basically hate mispronouncing names after you've been told how to pronounce it. It shows a lack of respect. "You're so unimportant, I'm not even going to bother remembering how to say your name."

One last pet peeve that started when the Saudi prince visited Bush and they held hands. The gay "jokes" never stopped. It's based on xenophobic ignorance - in some cultures, men can be more expressive and friendly with each other - hugging and holding hands, for example.

One last thing - calling Hugh Jackman (or a famous character he plays) gay because he does Broadway and danced and sang when he hosted the Oscars is just gross, and one thing I love about Bollywood - the men lip-sync and dance in the movies... and at the award shows.

Anyway, I want people to stop being racist and to stop mocking Justin Bieber and Twilight fans. I'm more deluded than Don Quixote, aren't I?

So I'm procrastinating...

And I decide to see how my county voted.

We voted for Obama, baby! 63%!

Shelby County is one of six in Tennesse that went for Obama this year.

But what's more depressing is the numbers for my state and my county.

253,633 people in Shelby County voted for Barack Obama.

Less than 400,000 people voted. The wikipedia says our population is just under 900,000. I think we have a few more eligible voters than that.

And the state is worse!

1,093,213 voted for Barack Obama in the entire state, and 1,487,564 voted for McCain. 33,228 voted for "others". (I'm using google maps, so I don't have a decent link.)

Less than three million people voted across the state! Again, that's less than half of our population, according to wikipedia.

What the fuck?

Of course, one can only hope that Tennesseans decided to vote in a completely different manner from the rest of the country and ignored the top and voted for local office and propositions, so more people did vote.

We aren't a swing state, so we didn't get attention, so why bother voting?

Obama supporters could have said the state always goes red, so why bother? And McCain ones could have said the same thing, thinking he had it in the bag. Or they could have realized he wasn't going to win and decided not to vote.

I don't know why people don't vote, since I did. ::smug::

::not so smug::

Damn, my paper is still not done!

"Cut Coupons to cut Costs"

So sez a Mister Sean Bixler of New York, New York.

He won one hundred dollars for his profound, perfect money saving idea.

I don't think it's that good, frankly. No, I did not submit a tip of my own, I only found this site through a blurb on yahoo's front page - I was bored and I like stories about spending and saving money at times.


I think he won because he's a guy, and guys don't cook, guys don't clip coupons, they just make the money and dole out a few bucks a month to the little wifey-poo because she can't make good money on her own. (That's what bugged me the most about The Jetsons - in the opening sequence, George Jetson is dropping his family off at school and the store (the wifey). He holds out one bill, and takes the money still in the wallet. This applies to many futuristic books, movies, comics, and TV shows from almost every time, but it's most glaring in ones from the '50s and '60s. Technology changes, with no social changes. Pisses me off, but makes me happy to live now.)

My problem with his tip and interview is the fact that he doesn't mention store brand food - he says you can save up to $20 every time you go shopping! Wow! He also says, in his tip, that "you may have to buy different brands each time you shop". Oh, the humanity! And it takes time to compare your list with the store flier and your coupons... make it stop!

We cut coupons from time to time - I have done it the most over the summer - it's a good way to eat up a summer Sunday, especially if there's baseball on.

But we don't usually use most of the food ones - except for candy and some desserts or things that don't have a store brand counterpart.

But most of the staples are available as store brands. I've never seen a coupon for a Great Value loaf of bread. And it is my belief that most brand name items with the coupon's discount cost at or even above their store brand counterpart. Which is why it sucks to cut coupons in this house.

I guess, if you shop at expensive stores and have never bought store brands, then you would save money on brand name items with coupons if you can't bring yourself to touch a store brand with a ten foot pole.

But I still love cutting coupons! Very soothing.

Is your city stingy or generous?

I saw this study a couple weeks ago, and it pissed me off right away.

What bugged me was how the study was done.

To come up with these lists, The Chronicle of Philanthropy analyzed 1997 tax returns for households earning more than $50,000 a year that itemized deductions, including charity donations, reports The Associated Press. To determine the amount of discretionary income, the researchers deducted food, taxes, and other basic living costs from total incomes. It from this number that the percentage of charitable donations was calculated.

So only households making more than $50K can make donations now?

And everyone who makes donations records it for their taxes?

I call bullshit.

We donate many things - material and otherwise. We've never recorded it. How do you deduct time spent volunteering?

I guess the study is fair by whatever standards the institue has - households making more than $50K must donate more to them.

Look, many people who volunteer at the Crisis Center are former clients - they'll never make $50K a year.

You can't measure time for your taxes, though you can for scholarships!

I'll be donating time and only time (broke college student) over the next four years, and probably long into the future.

Will I ever make more then $50K? Will I ever deduct the books I donate?

Maybe, and hell no.

So I'm stingy.

Does this bug anyone else?

Oh the stupidity!

The articles linked to in the 'What's New' box are rarely new or news worthy, but since yesterday, they've been really stupid - without even having to read anything but the titles.


Angelina (if you have to ask which Angelina...) has a "shocking new look"! She's "too thin?"

But right below that is yet another thing about quick, easy no-exercise weight loss!

Argh!

I hate my cell phone.

It gets hot when I use it too long, and the speakerphone option is not loud enough for me to set it down and still hear the person.

While my mom and sister's identical, newer, slimmer cell phones may get hot, everyone in the room - or car - can hear both sides of the conversation, while on mine, I'm lucky to hear both if I'm called from a cell.

Yesterday, it shut down twice in a twenty minute conversation - important! With a friend of my mom who's married to a dean at the U of M. I finally made the sacrifice and got offline to talk to her from our house phone, which won't die on me.

When I was in Washington, I would keep it charged all night and it would die if I called my mom (since it was a Memphis cell phone calling a Memphis cell phone, it wasn't too expensive).

I keep that thing charging all day and all night, and it still dies on me if I have the gall to use it for more than a few minutes unplugged. Oddly, it doesn't shut down when I'm texting, or trying to.

I've been taking the charger to the Crisis Center with me, since I work at a computer with a mostly empty surge protector, I can let the bastardly thing charge all day.

And then there's texting. I hate hate hate hate hate texting on a phone pad. I always swore I wouldn't text unless I had a traditional QWERTY keyboard.

But I have to, because texts are better than voicemails for my family, and texts can go places that calls can't.

Like into my mom's high school. Her job's babysitting with no fridge privileges, because the student will sleep for hours due to her meds or just do nothing because of the meds and the illnesses.

So she has plenty of time to text me.

And it is the only way to tell her something during the day - we had a doctor send her a fax to the school (the same letter being sent to the U of M to say why I've been home this past year.) and the lady who gets the faxes threw it away, because "We don't have a student named Kaitlyn Monkey Trumpets. Or one named Pennie Monkey Trumpets."

Anyways, I hate texting, but I have to.

We have 'emoticons' to use - they're pretty cool.

And a thing called T9word, where you hit 223 and get the word 'bad'. It has an odd vocabulary - it recognizes Dixie, Becky, and Mikey, but not simpler words - I can't think of any right now, I'm in horrific pain. So sometimes it's harder to use than hitting the key until you get the letter you want.

I hate text messaging.

My mom's a tech dinosaur - she hunt and pecks at the keyboard, while I can type this looking at the computer screen. She's the dinosaur, and she loves texting!

Of course my sister does, she's a normal teenager.


Oh man, I'm in a lot of pain. I don't like this.

Don't doubt the power of words.

Last night, I felt blue for no reason - well, maybe there is a reason. I am all alone, when it comes to people, until Sunday night. But I've dogsat for longer, and everyone's a cell phone call away. My Lyrica dosage has been increased by 25%, from 75mgs three times a day to 100. Yesterday was the first day of 300mgs, so I looked up Lyrica to see if it had any mood or mental side effects. It didn't have depression, but it did have mood change, and I feel better after sleeping.

I actually cried more because of my allergies while eating popcorn and throwing it at pooches than when I felt sad. They are staying shitty, and I know why. I'm allergic to dogs, but I'm not allergic to my own, you know? If I get a scratch or a bite from them, it swells up and I need an antihistamine in me as soon as possible, but Dixie can clean my face, Mikey can lick my toe, and Wickett can snorgle in my boobs and I'm fine. A different dog... achoo, achoo, itch itch.

Doesn't stop me from begging for a new one every time...

And don't get me started on cats...

And the biggest spring allergy is to the cotton plant. Almost everyone who is not a native to the area gets 'cottonfever' two times a year - now, and in the fall. It looks like snow on the roads. Mom and Becky are in Texas and mom claims they saw snow in Oklahoma last night. Yeah, right. I didn't, so it doesn't exist.

They're on their way to New Mexico, and it was 80 degrees in "I'll be quirky" and another screen showed thunderstorms.

Meanwhile, in the humid, muggy south it is 40 degrees and won't get above 60.

It was that thunderstorm. Tuesday, I was out in a camisole tank and short shorts (in the backyard, are you crazy?) and was just fine.

Then I made the blunder of putting on pants and a tee to ride my bike... the wind was a bitch, and it was still hot and all those stupid semi-trucks create a wind of their own and don't know it.

But I do, you feel it when you're walking or riding your bike along the highway. Sometimes when walking back, I walk with the natural and traffic-created wind and I'm shoved along, and if a dog is attached to me, he better move his wittle feet 'cuz he ain't getting a ride.

Mikey's wang is still bugging him, and the vet okayed one 25mg benadryl for the twit if it bothers him. How can I tell it bothers him?

Last night, the front door was locked, the curtains were shut, it was dark, no one was out. Mikey hopped off the couch, away from the front door and window and cried.

Oh my god, they went nuts! Dixie lept onto the couch, "Where? What?" while Wickett sounded the alarm - something that can be heard a block away.

Nothing, nothing, nothing was out there!

I opened the front door (locked glass 'screen' door - it has a screen, like we'll ever use it) and let them look. Dixie wagged her tail and talked to the door like it was one of Becky's friends, but there wasn't even a cat!

All because dumdum's wang hurted him.

So they all got some white bread... Dixie and Wickett followed me into the kitchen, gimme gimme gimme or I will take it. Mikey didn't, so I took him a balled up piece with the capsule in it and another one to munch, er inhale.

He didn't wake me up at all during the 5 hours I slept - and white bread got them out the door. Of course, as soon as he moved, *whine*. So he got another benadryl. They gave us like 2 pain tablets that could be cut in half after his snip-snip, only 4 doses, while Wickett had a quarter tab left over, that's how fast he healed.

Mikey likes to play the victim.

After his bout with Parvo (he won, we lost a lot of money), he had to eat special soft food from the vet. that had to be mixed up with a fork, in a human bowl, for him alone.

For a while after that, he expected anything mixed with a fork in a human bowl to be for him. "You want my tuna? I thought you were a dog, not a cat. No, you're not getting any!"

Luckily for him, Mom and Beck are soft touches. Leftover scrambled eggs - Mikey. Rice - Mikey, and he gets it cleaner than our old crappy dishwasher. The rice actually worked for his liquid medicine - as long as it got in them, they didn't care what food it was put on.

Now he, has to have his own bowl of dog food - a people bowl, of course. It's the same food from the dish, but it's in his own bowl. Same with water in the evening. There is a genuine reason - weenie's usual eating routine involves exercise - he runs to the dish, back to the throw rug, eats, then runs back to the dish until he is done. Well, he can't do that if his wang hurts, "bottle-feed him, Kaitlyn."


Back to my original point, words help me. Sometimes it's talking, but it's usually typing - so I can reread it.

Last night, when I felt blue, I sent a long, long e-mail to my friend in the UK (she made the trampoline video) just rambling and telling her I felt bad. At the end, I felt better. Just like this time.

I haven't even heard back, but I still feel better.

How did I meet my British friend? IMDb's soapbox and later a private message board. I still keep up with a few people from the private board (almost all came from IMDb) and yes, they are friends, as good a friend as any teenage twit who walks through the door.

If I communicate best through the typed word, doesn't it make sense I'd make friends with people who do the same? It's just talking and talking, which is most of what I do with my friends anyway. And it was usually silly talking, and the true ones always let me scream into their inboxes about whatever. I also help them, because I'm 18, and they're seeing what they went through 100 years ago or so and they can offer support and I can remind them that no, it wasn't the bestest time of your life. I also amuse everyone with my youthfulness and naiveté - just like at the Crisis Center.

Some people played games with other poster's emotions, because online relationships aren't real to them. I mean friendships, nothing more. But I still say love ya to them, because I do.

What is wrong with that?

I am getting more comfortable around people, but being stuck at home so much, I've always turned to online communities for social interaction. And it works well.

If there's a fight, I can unplug at look at puppy pictures or read or go outside.

And words there can hurt, anyone who denies it, well, I feel sorry for them, because if you're not hurt by words from a friend, how can you be uplifted by encouragement or sympathy from the same? I've deleted myself a couple times over words - generally words like, "Shut up. Appreciate your dad. We don't want to hear your problems. SHUT UP. You are so whiney. And addicted to pain pills and not 18 and a liar and your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

That sort of thing.

Sometimes I'd come back, but the last time, I still haven't.

I think it stems from something I did, but I can't be sure. As I got sucked into feminist blogs, the board mattered less and less. I made a post one day saying that I was worried about my sister, her emotions always go haywire around her period and it worries me in a lot more words.

But the fact that I said she gets emotional around her period pissed off one guy, so much, he didn't stop bringing it up, and was still doing so when I deleted myself (a lot of my female friends had just done the same). He was posting half-naked pictures of women in his avatar, and said, "She can talk about periods, but this is wrong?"

One of the last posts I did was about boobs - real ones, how they really feel, the bras, all that.

Oh, and since I was accused of smearing Becky's used pads all over the board, I used every opportunity to shout, "PERIODS! WOMEN HAVE PERIODS ABOUT ONCE A MONTH! BLOOD COMES OUT OF THEIR VAGINAS!" I didn't make it my sig, but I should have.

I was also told by one man, a number of times, to shut up about my health, I'm young, I have no right to complain. The irony? Most of his posts were complaints. Not about his health, but about the fact that he lived where he lived when he wanted to live somewhere else, and so on. He also said it when I said anything about my dad, along with other people. One guy said, "I didn't know my dad, you should be happy you knew yours." No, I've spoken with my half-brother. He's doing quite fine without knowing more about his dad than his name.

But I had plenty of defenders - they thought I wrote well, I made them laugh, and I was the daughter they never had, but were quite glad to leave the mothering duties to my mom.

There was a division in the board about me ranting about my health - she needs an outlet, she's not hurting anyone, you don't have to read it. Or, she's only 18, what does she know of pain, she should shut the fuck up, we don't want a whiner.

The second group (very small) got to me more than the first, another example of the power of words.

Anyways...

I've run out of things to say. Now I have to look at the comic Pluggers. And make sure the twits aren't frozen to the ground.

One other thing about the Wizard of Oz -

Glinda calls Dorothy ugly (or has bad eyesight).

If I recall, Glinda says she's a witch, Dorothy says witches are ugly, and Glinda says only bad witches are ugly, good witches are pretty.

Then she asks if Dorothy is a bad witch or a good witch! (I want a sandwich.)

To quote Kelso, BURN!

I am so fried, I want to review my April Mad - the white subscriber's cover said this is your last issue, give us money, but I called them because my mom paid $40 for a mad subscription, she wrote 'mad classics' in her checkbook, but according to the people at Mad, it was for the regular magazine. My subscription is safe until April 2009, which is so far into the future. (That's what I thought about the April 07 date until 2007 rolled around.)

So I want to review it, but I can't.

It's 2:30 in the morning. I woke up at 12:45 because I couldn't breathe. (I fell asleep at 9:30.)

My nose was stopped up and my throat was sore. 2 atarax (antihistamine prescription), a sudafed PE (okay, not sudafed, the store brand, but it works), and a chloraspetic tab later and I feel much better, if still fried.

And when I had to pee, the pain god woke up and said, "You didn't sacrifice a goat to me, you must die." So I sacrificed 2 pain pills and the heating pad.

That's how brain dead I am.

Random things -

Why can't people pronounce my name right? KAY-AY-EYE-TEE-ELL-WHY-ENN. Kaitlyn!
Not Kathleen, not Katrine, not Katherine, KATE-LYN. (Not that spelling, but that's as phonetic as I can get it.) I know I have bad handwriting, but this was somebody reading my name off a computer or medical chart. There is no R in my first name. There is no H in my first name.

There are Rs and Hs in my middle and last name, but you're not getting those. Except my last name is simple, it's a dictionary word, and people mispronounce that, too. And it's not ethnic, unless European-WASP-mutt names are too ethnic now.

Nobody mispronounces my sister's name, and it's longer than mine!

They do mispronounce Wickett's. They call him Wicked.



Usually after he's screamed at them.

Somethings confusing and conflicting about gender stereotypes -

The woman is supposed to be the cook in the family, but the man is the only one allowed to grill. (In our house, the only ones who are not allowed to grill food are Becky and the dogs.)

The woman is supposed to care about flowers and the garden, but the man's domain is the rest of the yard, the grass.

Women can't make decisions while pregnant (like whether to have the kid or not), but they're the ones who should raise the kids.

Most slang names for male genitalia mean a strong, if jerky guy, when used as an insult. Except for weenie.

And the two common nicknames for female genitalia are contradictory when used as insults.

And, why doesn't our upstairs bathroom have a vent? Because it has a window? That open window leads to wasps in my hair and wasted air-conditioning. Before we turned on the AC, my room was 80 degrees. Of course, it's on the western side, and the house to the west is one story, while ours has 2, so it could have been baking all afternoon, I guess.

That's it, I'm tapped for ideas.