Why should you buy Girl Scout Cookies this year? Because assholes don’t want you to.
Mark your calendars for Feb. 13. That’s the day Girl Scout cookies start showing up in the hands of adorable uniformed girls and on tables in front of Safeway.
A girl named Taylor, living somewhere in California, doesn’t want you to buy any. She, and a whole hot mess of other bigots, have started a campaign against cookies because of the Girl Scouts USA’s stance on the inclusion of transgendered girls. It all started when the Girl Scouts of Colorado issued a statement about why they were accepting Bobby Montoya, a transgendered 7-year-old, into the organization.
“We accept all girls in kindergarten through 12th grade as members. If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.”
Taylor doesn’t like this one bit. She is petrified that some 18-year-old man is going to say he’s a girl in order to sneak into her tent and steal her special sash with the award-winning Fire Building badge.
Here’s her frightening video:
Update: The video has been made private. Sorry if you missed it. You can still read the ignorance here.
What a great reason to buy a shit-ton of Thin Mints.
In Arizona, you can do a lot of things.
Like drive 80 on the highway while talking on a cell phone held in your hand. Like walking around with a loaded pistol. Like getting a marriage license in the morning and being married that same afternoon.
When Mark and I first talked about visiting Arizona over the holidays, we weren’t thinking about eloping. But one night while googling places to stay in Bisbee, a defunct mining town turned artists’ haven set in a hillside about 20 miles north of the Mexican border, I saw a motel with an absolutely stunning mural on one of its walls. The mural was inspired by a Spanish poem about gypsy bandits, drunken civil guards, mortal wounds, dying regrets and suicide. What a perfect place to get married, I thought. And so we did.
Our officiant started the ceremony by reading a passage from the author Edward Abbey about the desert and love.
It seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna; life not crowded upon life as in other places, but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.
Our witness, Linda, who had been a stranger until that day, cried like she had known us all her life as we said our vows. Her partner, Cindy, also a stranger but now a friend, held my Mexican paper flowers when the ring exchange began just like a good maid-of-honor.
From this day forward I promise to encourage and inspire you, to laugh with you in times of joy, and comfort you in times of sorrow and struggle. I will share in your dreams and support you as you strive to achieve your goals. I promise to love and remain faithful to you for better or worse, in times of sickness and health. I promise to cherish you and to always hold you in highest regard. You are my best friend and I will love and respect you always.
Afterward, we celebrated with champagne and pie. Linda told us Bisbee ghost stories and about how the woman, Rose Johnson, who had painted the mural, died from drinking poisoned beer in Bali. Reverend Kent told us about how he had gone to Humboldt State but hadn’t finished even one credit. He did help restore the Madaket, though. Cindy chain-smoked, and we all talked about marijuana, heterosexual privilege and art. One hour after the ceremony had begun, the whole event was over.
Later, curled up in Mark’s arms in our tiny little room, I started to reminisce emotionally about our relationship- where we’d started, how far we’d come, how our love had seen us through, and various other Hallmark chest-clutching cliches. In the midst of this magical moment, my eyes brimming with tears, I looked up at Mark. He smiled and lowered his gaze to my chest.
“You know, I think getting married made your boobs bigger.”
And that’s why I married him.
Lighted palm trees and desert air
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been out of Humboldt County at Christmas. Even when I wasn’t living here, I always found a way to make it back to the redwoods for the holidays. Until this year.
Mark and I are traveling to Arizona to visit his Grandpa. On the way, we stopped at a friend’s house – a friend who I’ve known since preschool, and who I’ve always considered to be one of my best friends. We haven’t been in touch for the past eight years, and I feel particularly blessed this year that we have reconnected. He is happy, healthy, making a difference in the world and living life on his own terms – something it’s taken him awhile to do. We stayed up too late talking about past times – the illicit bar set up in the Fortuna High newspaper darkroom….the time I hit a parked car, and he had to lift my huge ’65 Ford Galaxie off of it….how we ganged up on our 2nd grade teacher and made her cry. We laughed and cried while our partners yawned and smiled politely. It is wonderful to have the chunk that has been missing from my heart placed back in.
We were due to arrive in Southern Arizona today, but Mark’s Grandpa has been having some health issues and wasn’t up for our visit quite yet. We found a cheap hotel near the Arizona border and a great barbecue joint for dinner. Mark’s reading; I’m writing, and soon we’ll be watching bad Christmas t.v. (not that I’m implying there’s good Christmas t.v.) and eating tres leches cake with plastic forks. Instead of Christmas trees, outside our room are perfectly lighted palms. Christmas without redwoods and nephews and crab? I miss them all, but this year the desert air somehow feels just right. Happy holidays.
The Buzz is Wearing Off….
let the rehydration and surliness begin.
So Mark and I started watching a movie from Figueiredo’s Video (on the computer…because of course the 17-year-old working there couldn’t be bothered to check to see that the dvd was not scratched all to hell and wouldn’t play in the dvd player,) called Fears of the Dark. It’s an animated French film described by whatculture.com: “The five part movie has been put together by six graphic artists and cartoonists (they all worked on their own segment) whose inter-connecting stories touch on our deepest fears, phobias and nightmares for an intense and raw filmic experience.”
First there was a story about bugs. I’ve had a nightmare or two about creepy crawly insects, spiders, those 7-foot-long potato bugs and the like.
But I can tell you one thing I’ve never been afraid of: a dog attacking me by sniffing under my skirt and killing me by ripping apart my vagina.
I liked this movie about as much as I like motherfucking French misogynists. And that ain’t much. And really, is filmic even a word used by anyone but a bunch of pretentious fake-artist assholes?
Death by canine vagina attack coming soon.
Cheese…
The first fight Mark and I ever had was in San Francisco after a few too many gin and tonics. I can’t even remember what we were fighting about, but there was a lot of crying (me,) and a lot of shoulder-shrugging-sighing (him.) Then, because I’m always hungry after a few too many gin and tonics, I started thinking about cheese.
I looked at Mark through tear-filled eyes and asked, “Do you like cheese?”
End fight. Begin hour-long conversation about all the various kinds of cheese we love. Continue love affair. Activate Saturday Night activities (bomp chicka bow bow…..chicka bomp chicka bow wow.)
The End. Thank you, cheese.
Trust me, this is not the kind of cheese we were talking about.
Dear Heraldo,
Why aren’t you here pouring my champagne and giving me a backrub?
One bottle of champagne – all to myself
I see that two of you have gotten here by searching for “Mickey Mouse having Sex” and “Spank-Her-Ass.com.”
I love you people.
Drinking alone while waiting for hot dogs
Yep, that’s what I’m doing. You see, Mark and I are going on a road trip in a few days to Southern Arizona where there will be sun and….um….cowboy boots and…um…good barbecue and some other fun stuff, and on the way we’re going to stay with my friend Jeff who is awesome and super awesome, but who I haven’t seen in eight fucking years, so I’m really excited, so needless to say, we are a little short on cash right now, and I just happened to have some leftover hot dogs from a beach picnic in the freezer, and so that is what we’re eating, and Mark is insisting on cooking them on an open fire because he apparently hasn’t realized it’s 20 below out there, so he’s out in the yard hovering around the fire pit, cooking hot dogs and broccoli and carrots and generally being his sweet adorable self, and I’m in here drinking a lot of champagne (thank you, thank you Christmas elves,) because I love champagne. I’ve only drunk a half bottle so far, but I’m hoping to down the rest before he comes in because I don’t want to share, and besides, we’ve got whipped cream vodka he can drink, even though I think whipped cream vodka plus hot dogs might be a recipe for disaster.. Oh, and I’m putting my fire-cooked hot dogs and broccoli and carrots in some Annie’s white cheddar mac n’ cheese, even though that completely grosses Mark out (look at my 80′s lingo) because I love mac n’ cheese with hot dogs. Because I’m 12.
Hey, is anyone else sitting on their couch hurriedly drinking champagne? We should talk. I’m going to drink some more, and then I’m going to tell you about some thoughts I’ve had this week. See you soon.
I read once that every blog post should have a picture. I like this one.
92
That’s how old my Grandma is as of yesterday. She also had her first margarita. I asked her how she liked it.
“Goooooood. I can’t believe none of you have ever given me one of these before.”
Her grandchildren have more gray hair than she does.
A few weeks ago Mark and I visited her. She’d had a bear in her yard recently, and we could tell by the dozens of unattractive piles, just what he’d been binging on. We were picking all of her apples so his feast would be gone, and he’d stay away. Never one to stay inside while someone was working in her yard, Gram came out to supervise the apple picking. It was cold, windy, and she had been sick, so I told her that we were just fine, and that she should go back inside where it’s warm.
“Kid, don’t you tell me what to do. I’ll go inside when I’m good and ready. I’ll stay inside when I’m old.”
Then after a long pause where I had shrugged my shoulders because there’s really no point in arguing with Gram, “How old am I, anyway?”
“Gram, in two weeks you’re going to be 92.”
“Oh hell, I’m old. I’m going inside.”
