Winnie! The Poo...

Last night after dinner I let the dogs out as usual and when Winston affectionately known as Winnie, came back in, the smell of dog-doo filled the kitchen. Oh my god, he must've stepped in it or something, and he was trotting off toward the rug as quickly as his soiled little feet would carry him. Of course by little, I mean large!

"Winston! Come here!" I called out in a panic. I ducked into the bathroom and grabbed one of the "dog towels" and spread it out on the floor. He walked all around it, careful not to step on it trying to get to me. Finally I was able to grab him and navigate him ONTO the towel. I wiped each of his feet on it, and nothing came off, but the odor was stronger than ever.

Fearfully I looked in the direction of his butt, and lo and behold there it was, lots of it, soft and hanging is his long hair and on his tail. I pulled the towel off the floor and attempted to reach toward the offending end of the dog. Winnie doesn't like anyone including other dogs to go near that area. He has a strange social phobia for a dog. I tried again, he ran away from me.

I gave chase through the living room swiping at him when was within range. He ran around in circles to avoid contact, and little pieces were dislodging and flying all around the room and onto the rugs. I was expending a lot of energy and went through quite a selection of towels. I never worked so frickin hard to do something that so deeply repulsed me in my whole life.

Finally, he laid down and let me finish trying to clean him up. I was down to wash cloths by that time. Then I had to run around with a scrub brush and soapy water looking for all the little spatters throughout the kitchen and living room. Ah, the joys of pet ownership. Tomorrow, Winston is getting his summer hair cut!

Virtually Me

When I joined facebook...I was a little afraid it might eat my life. I set up my profile and kind of left it for a while. I collected a few friends and went in there every so often to accept things, and add new applications, it was all pretty manageable. I even started a "green patch" to help save the rain forest. That is a worthwhile use of my time while I drink my coffee in the morning.

Recently, someone, I won't mention any names here, sent me an invitation to YoVille. A virtual town where you create your virtual you, and wander around interacting with others, trying to make some money so you can fix up your apartment.

Okay, this seems kind of fun. I have an apartment, very plain and boring with a living room, bedroom and kitchen. No one pees in YoVille. There's a coffee shop, and when you buy coffee you move faster. There's a diner, where you get your energy, a clothing store so you can look hip. They have a furniture store for all the stuff you need to make your place cool, and a flower shop. The night club where you can go buy a drink and things get blurry and your character is harder to control, and a widget factory where you work. You can only report to work and get paid every six hours (real time). It takes a long time to get enough coin to buy what you want, but you can also earn money by playing tic-tac-toe, or rock paper scissors with the other cartoon people.

When I went to make my virtual me, I had issues with the choices they offered for a female virtual person. My AOL weemee is a girl, and it looks pretty much like me...


Note the short hair, the well hidden breasts, but they are there, and of course the ever-present coffee cup letting people know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is me! I even change clothes to suit the time of year.

In YoVille, none of the girl's hair choices looked anything like my hair! None of the clothing options were clothing I'd wear, and even the super curvy body shape (the same for all the girls) did not resemble my body at all. I decided to use the male character, so it would at least be close to what I really look like. I named my character "tom-boi". Boi is the gay way to say, boyish girl. Not in the bull-dyke, I want to be a guy, kind of way, but in the, I'm a girl who does stuff boys do, kind of way. Anyway...this is what I ended up with.
So, I'm confusing some people in the game. Some of the young girls come throwing themselves at me, so I tell them I'm a gay woman, and they scatter like roaches. It's actually funny to watch. I went to the nightclub, and said, "Hi, I'm a lesbian. Did anyone notice a gay bar in town, because I can't find it?" Little virtual people actually ran away from me! Some left the bar completely. I had this large empty radius around me, so I made my character dance.

Despite the cold reception I've gotten in YoVille, I am addicted to the game. Why? Because it's about fixing up your place. That's right down my alley. Here's what I mean. When you start, your bedroom looks like this:


Now, my bedroom looks like this:




So, Obviously I have been working hard at playing my virtual life. Of course, sacrifices must be made, so my real life is in a hopeless downward spiral. The virtual me is just as obsessive-compulsive as the actual me. Why would I do that? Tic-tac-toe anyone?

Offended By the Easily Offended!

Political Correctness; I am for it, and against it!

When it comes to stereotypes and broad generalizations, I think we all know that that's wrong, but we also know that most stereotypes are based in fact. It may not be true of all of the people in that classification, but it's true of a lot of them, or was at one time.

When it comes to advertising slogans, spokes models, or signage, all kinds of groups protest all kinds of things. The same is true about characters in the media. Casting the stereotypical gay guy, or construction worker, or Beemer driving ass-wad, pisses people off. I get it. I even understand it, and would like it to change. But when it comes to humor, let it go a little, I mean come on. The funniest stuff is based in fact, and the fact is, the stereotypes are at least partly true...admit it!

Not all men are only interested in sex. Not all fathers try to get you to pull their finger. Not all mother-in-laws are horrible control-freaky-bitches. Not all hillbilly's have had sex with a family member. Not all gay guys secretly want to be Barbara Streisand or Cher. Not all CPAs are socially inept nerds. Not all rednecks are homophobes.

I can't tell you how many times I've almost been run off the road by a vehicle, and before I could get a visual of the driver, I would say to myself, "Please don't be Asian, please don't be Asian", and when I finally see the driver...Asian! Do Lesbians really wear a lot of flannel shirts? Maybe not as much now, but there was a time, and most lesbians I know still have a flannel or two in their closet...

I was at a party a couple years ago with a bunch of lesbians, and had recently relocated from California to the very lesbianish uptighty community of Northampton. I was telling a story which required me to describe a t-shirt. The ribbed tank top kind, which my friends and I always called a "wife-beater". When this expression came out of my mouth it was like that scene at a party where the needle scratches across the record and everything stops, and people stare at you in disbelief and horror. I was immediately scolded for my use of that term, and I scrambled to correct myself, and finish the story which suddenly seemed stupid and pointless.

I do issue a warning at the top of blog stating this blog is not for the easily offended, and is for the socially retarded, and this is why. I have a rule, it is a universal rule for humor, or it should be. The rule is: If it's twice as funny as it is mean...it's okay to say!

The accuracy of this chart is heavily dependant upon your "sense" of humor. My blog fits neatly into the blue when I write it. I follow the rule. If you are heartinsanfrancisco who's sense of humor is my sense of humor's identical twin, you know that this is true. If you are someone who does not share my humor perspective, some of this may dip into the yellow for you. I'm still okay because I did issue that warning I mentioned earlier. If you think that I am in that grey area, well...we aren't a good fit dear reader. Perhaps you should seek you humor elsewhere. Don't leave mad, just leave!

Lesbian to English Dictionary

Lesbians have a culture and a language all their own. As a lesbian, you don't realize this until you are trapped in a room full of straight people and try to engage in conversation with them. Not small talk, but a real conversation.

In season 4 of The L-Word this was demonstrated by a game of celebrity played by a room filled half with lesbians and half with straight men and women. Celebrity is a game where everyone writes down the names of celebrities on separate pieces of paper, they are all thrown into a hat. Two teams are formed, one person on the team draws a name and has one minute to give clues that would lead the team to guessing the name.

The two different cultures didn't even know many of the other's "celebrities". Yes, they are all famous, but more famous within different groups.

I have always found that being around my lesbians is so much more enjoyable to me because they "get" me. They understand my references, and my humor and they can accurately assess what I'm saying.

Here's what I mean:

"Face" Your Fears

When I was a wee lesbian of four, my older wiser five year old friend, Satan, dared me to pet a neighborhood stray dog that was busily eating a bone. It was a black retriever mix, and we had always had dogs and I had no reason to fear this one. I reached my hand out toward the dog, and faster than you could say "years of therapy" that dog was attached to my face, by it's teeth. To my bottom lip to be exact, and it did not want to let go. I thought to myself, what should a four-year-old do in the situation? So I let out a blood-curdling scream. Kimmy, the evil five year-old ran towards my house, yelling for my mom. We were in the neighbors yard raiding his rhubarb prior to the dare.

My mom came running out in her robe with her hair up in curlers, swinging a broom, and bellowing some kind of sadistic war cry as she pummeled the animal into releasing me and getting the hell out of Dodge. I could not have been more embarrassed, but since I was in dyer need of saving, I decided not to make a big deal out of it at the time. She ran to the Kimmy's house with me in her arms. I had hopes of revenge in my tear filled eyes, but instead a wet wash cloth was jammed into my mouth, and Kimmy's Dad was frantically driving us somewhere while my mother said things like, "What happened? No, don't talk!" We got turned away from a couple places before finding a doctor willing to stitch me up. Even then, doctors were afraid of law suits and facial stitchery was a dangerous area for them.

I told you that so I could tell you this. I love animals, I've always had dogs and would risk my life to save one, even one I don't know, but if a dog is acting aggressively towards me, I get scared.

When I was in high school I had a friend named Sally. Sally was cool, she played the guitar, she was gay, in fact you could say she was the Melissa Etheridge of our neighborhood. She had a dog. A large German Shepard named Bear. Bear was always on a chain in the side yard. Every time a group of us would walk past Bear, everyone would greet him, "Hi Bear." they'd all say walking by while he sat and watched the line of girls pass, but when it was my turn, the phrase wouldn't even be halfway out of my mouth, and he'd spring at me, held back by the chain, straining and growling and barking at me. I did not know what I'd done to offend him, but thanked the heavens for that chain.

One day I went to see Sally. I arrived, and went to the front door to knock. I was standing there after knocking and peeked around the corner to get a visual of Bear. He was not there, but he had to be...I knocked again, no answer I turned to go down the stairs and who came trotting around the corner to greet me? You guessed it. Bear, unfettered and larger than life. The second I saw him, I felt the rush of adrenaline course through me. I must've been beet red. I said to myself, this is it, I'm going to die now. I decided since I was surely about to be eaten alive, I'd let him start with my hand, so I held it out... as an appetizer. Bear sniffed it rather than digging right in, and then licked it. Slowly, I sat down on the step and began to pet him. We became friends, he never growled and barked at me again, what the hell was that about anyway?

My Hospital Trip

Some random guy-definitely not me!

It happened late Wednesday night. I felt sick, it was around midnight. I got up and went to the bathroom, I found myself wondering which end to point at the toilet. "This is a bad situation", I thought. I decided to have a seat, and grab the waste basket. I was in intense pain, that made my cry out and I began to sweat profusely. This lasted for quite a while. It must be food poisoning, I reasoned to myself. I went to bed and in the morning, of course felt sick again, I still had intense intestinal pain and this time I noticed blood. Quite a bit of it, and an hour later, I had to go again, this time...all blood. I was scared. I called my Mom and told her about what was going on. I'd had dinner with my parents and wanted to find out if they felt sick too.

My sister has Crohn's disease, so of course my mother had me diagnosed with that in about 3 minutes. I was more of the wait and see, because I'm not dead yet school of thought. I made it through the rest of the day, but the next morning, I felt like dying. Mom called to see how I was, and when I told her, the conversation went like this...

Mom: I'm coming to get you and you're going to the hospital. This is nothing to screw around with, you could die.

Me: No, I don't want to go today...

Mom: What day are you going to want to go?

Me: (chuckling painfully) Never...Maybe I just need antibiotics.

Mom: You don't know that. You have to go to the hospital. I'm coming to get you!

Me: At least give me some time to prepare, and pay some bills and call people I have dealings with in the next couple of days...how about after lunch, say, 1:00?

Mom: I'll see you at one. Pack a bag, they are going to admit you. We'll take care of the dogs.

Okay, this seems manageable, that's what you're thinking right now...right? All except for one teeny tiny little detail. I have an unreasonable fear of hospitals and doctors, and, well...all things medical. I'm the polar opposite of a hypochondriac, I never feel sick, or if I do, I don't believe it hard enough to make it go away. Something literally has to fall off my body, for me to admit there's a problem, and if I could, I'd just staple it back on, rather than go see someone about it.

One of my greatest fears is being in the hospital to have my tonsils out, and waking up to find one of my legs amputated. I do not have a great deal of faith in medical professionals, and I have never ever had surgery, or been admitted to a hospital. The very idea of this sends me into a full fledged panic.

Maybe a cocktail or two with lunch, maybe I could just hide, or leave until my mother goes away.

These all seem reasonable to me. I begin to make phone calls and cancellations, and explain that I'm going to the hospital, which sounds like a death sentence to me every time I say it, "Yeah, I'm going to the gallows in a couple of hours, so...I can't make our appointment tomorrow."

I decide to go ultimately, because the pain is stronger than the fear. We get to the emergency room and before too long, I am in an examination room. I am told to remove all of my clothing and put on the gown. The dreaded gown, with the opening in the back. The gown that you see on terminally ill people with tubes and machines hooked up to them, that gown. I tell my story to several people and am forced to answer very detailed questions about my poo. This too, is painful. I get to enjoy a rectal exam, and they take blood, I am poked and prodded, my vitals are being taken repeatedly, and then they bring me a large container of orange fluid. I'm told to drink 8oz of this every 15 minutes over the next hour and half, and then they'll come get me for a cat-scan. They also leave me a plastic specimen container called a hat, that they'd like me to fill. I am delighted with the request but don't seem to be able to comply, not then, and not for my entire stay.

I was in the little room for 8 hours. After the cat-scan the doctor came and told me it was infectious colitis, and they were going to admit me. They did not yet know what caused it, but seven inches of my intestines were inflamed. They put me on an IV, and know I was one of those people wandering around in a gown with a metal coat rack on wheels that has bags of goop hanging off it that are attached by tubes to your arm. It's like a nightmare. I feel like I'm in an episode of The Twilight Zone. After the Doctor leaves, I begin to cry. My mom hugs me and tells me it'll be alright. I feel like a total baby. They take me to my room, and I am relieved to find that it's empty. It's just me, thank god!

I was moved into my room at 10:00pm. They took my vitals, I met the nurse, met the doctor, they did an assessment, hooked me up to more hanging goo, and promised me something for the pain, and something to help me sleep. I needed both. At 11:00 there was a shift change, so they took my vitals, did an assessment, I met the new nurse, and the new doctor, I asked for the meds for pain and sleep, they had to check...I asked a few more times, and finally at 1:30am they brought me the pills. I got to sleep at around 2:00am. At 4:30am they wheeled in my room-mate. A Hispanic woman who seemed to be in great pain. They turned on all the lights, they talked in tones you'd expect to hear outside, not in tones one would want in a room where someone is trying to sleep. There were about 900 people setting her up and she was moaning and groaning loudly and chanting "dios mio". I felt sorry for her, yes, but I wanted to sleep...

I got back to sleep at around 5:00am, but was awakened by a screaming baby in the room across the hall a half-hour later. I got up and wheeled my coat rack over to shut the door which was left wide open with all the lights and noises of the non-stop busy hallway flooding in.

I dozed off again just in time for a someone to wake me up so they could take more blood. That was at 6:00am. I hoped to sleep a while longer when my room-mate began to hurl, and in a very noisy way. I cannot hear this without joining in, kind of like yawning, so I quickly grabbed my ipod and jammed it in my ears cranking the volume to avert the disaster. Then more vitals, another assessment, more new staff...they brought me a menu, and wanted me to choose my meals for the next couple of days. I filled it all out, and someone came around to collect it. The doctor (a specialist) came in to examine me, and he told me about the possibilities and probabilities. They brought me a liquid lunch, said the doctor had put me on a liquid diet, so I drank my meals and didn't get any of the food I had carefully selected earlier.

Some friends came to visit me, and by that time I was unfettered, so we went for a walk around the hospital. I was in my own pajamas by this time. When I returned my extremely noisy room-mate was being relocated. Yahooo...peace. They left, and then around dinner time some more friends stopped in. They were on their way out to dinner, and felt bad when they saw my unappetizing tray of liquids. So did I.

I was feeling a lot better, and didn't have much pain anymore, but I made sure I got my sleeping pill before the shift change. I was exhausted. I shut the door and went to sleep, only to get another room-mate at 1:30am. This one was an older woman named Adelaide, but her friends called her Babs, who'd fallen and broken her hip. I officially met her the next morning, and I really liked her. She was quite a character, very funny and a great attitude. The nurses assistants were kind of ignoring her, so I helped her with some tasks, brushing her teeth, eating breakfast, answering the phone. When they told me I could go, she begged me not to.

"I can take you with me, but I've got to go!" I said smiling. It was Mother's Day. I made sure she had people coming to see her, and I got a ride home from some friends. I drove to my parent's house to make my mom dinner and collect my babies (Cody and Winston).

My visit to the hospital was not as bad as I thought it would be in some ways, and much worse than I thought in others. All in all, I'd have been glad to skip it altogether.

My Top Ten Sci-fi Women of All Time...

Creampuff posted her top 10 (8) women of Sci-fi, and needed suggestion for the last two, I found so many I liked, that she didn't have, that I decided to just do my own top 10. I tend to like the kick-assier women, so here they are in no particular order...

1) Kristianna Loken. This should come as no surprise, I have already discussed my Kristianna-crush in great detail. She has a way about her that says, "yeah, I could totally kick your ass, but then again, I might just kiss you."

2) Sharon Stone. Sci-fi or otherwise, Sharon is an obvious favorite. Here she is at forty, looking like she's about to pounce! Are you feeling lucky?

3) Halle Berry. Isn't it obvious?

4. Lucy Liu. Looks like a flower but she stings like a bee... She bangs!

5) Jessica Alba. No Sci-fi's sexiest list is complete without Jessica, leaving her out would really chap my ass! She is amazing, and gorgeous.

6) Linda Hamilton. Yeah, it's the arms, but the eyes, lips, and jaw line aren't doing her any harm either. Don't try sneaking up on her.

7) Milla Jojovich. If you're already dead she'll dispatch you with speed and style. I'm not already dead, but she kills me! She's dead sexy baby.

8) Uma Thurman. She slices and dices, she flips and spins, the way she moves, like a graceful cat, she'll kick your ass, and hand you your hat. Don't let her see you swoon, she'll know you think she hung the moon.

9) Lexa Doig. Hello. Lexa is from Ontario, and is on the Sci-fi show Andromeda. Lexa is short for Alexandra. She's not as well known as the others, but just look at that tummy!

10) Kierra Knightley. She's got more fight than a bag full of kittens, and she's pretty hot, in a Disney kind of way.

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Honorable Mention

Pink. She rocks! She's Pink! I love her music, and she can hold her own in mid-evil cool chick gear too, so there you go.