Since I got all dark and angsty with that last post, here’s something way more fun. Again, I’m stealing shamelessly from Feministe. Jill’s dead-on that it’s the greatest narcissistic procrastination tool EVER.

Below the fold: my results, compared to a photo from last week. Read the rest of this entry »

Updates below.

Damn, I think I need to form a band just so I can use that name. I’d better get right on it teaching Maya guitar. Or maybe she could be the drummer.

Via Feministe, this suggestion made me shake my head and laugh (something I do more every day, it would seem):

Is there a way to radically decrease abortions without asking the government to do it? Adoption is often suggested here and that is a good alternative but I think there is another as well.

Marriage. I am not talking just about a return to the “shotgun marriage”; rather, I think an offer of marriage from a man who is not the father but will assume all the traditional responsibilities of fatherhood would be accepted by many unmarried pregnant women. The motif of a man proposing marriage to a woman pregnant with another man’s child is a common one on soap operas that are a fairly good gauge of female fantasy. These stories represent the truth that many pregnant women don’t really want to abort, and would not, if marriage and commitment were offered to them.

Oh. My. Fucking. God. Where should I even begin? The crowd at Feministe, no surprise, focused on what I, as a pro-choice woman, find to me a little closer to reality — my reality anyway — that many women simply have no. desire. whatsoever. to marry purely for the sake of being married, pregnancy or no. There’s lots of good rifting on the “soap opera” motiff (best example here), and on the simple reality that many of us wouldn’t come anywhere near the sort of man who’d volunteer for this “program.”

But here’s where my head started to lift off my shoulders and rapidly spin around. I read the comments on the actual article. Here’s a summary of the basic points:

• Waaahhhh. This means the good guys (trans: pro-life) would be taken by the nasty, icky sluts!
• Icky slutty single pregnant women would use this to force a non-bio-father into paying child support. Those manipulative bitches! After they trap him, they’ll dump him, sue for support, and go back to fucking lowlifes.
• Why can’t women take responsibility for their own lives (instead of taking on the good-boy-groom-for-life)? What happened to “hear me roar”?
• (this one’s verbatim) Uh… no. I’m not going to obligate myself to raise some other schmuck’s kid, with a flaky woman whose only accomplishment in life is to get knocked up.
• (verbatim again, because it’s just so…*ralph*)No man, good or bad is going to take burned-out trash and her bastard offspring without big compensation.
• What you fail to mention is that the area of sexual and reproductive rights has always been totally dominated by women. At best men have been treated as little more than helpful bystanders. (…) If you want to have a lower number of abortion then either give back 50 % of all sexual and reproductive power to men or have it forcefully taken from you by the development of the artificial womb. (Ed: shudder)
• Women would use up the generous donors and not appreciate it at all. Women, in general (at least the kind who get knocked up) are selfish and always make bad decisions.

I now see that this article takes pings, so I’m going to give the URL rather than linking:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/2006/06/29/grooms-for-life/

I’ve already seen what happens when this sort of people come to my site. Presumptuous judgement! Woo-hoo! Let’s have a party and tell Allison what a nasty, slutty, selfish whore she is!

SIGH. I’m remembering now why I shy away from dating conservatives. Besides simply disagreeing with them politically, why in the world would I want to come anywhere near someone who would make so many assumptioins about who I am and what my life is all about?

Sheesh. When I started writing, I planned to make light and joke about this ridiculous idea, but now I’m just pissed.

~~~~~

Updates:

The inline URL *still* created a ping, so I might as well give you guys — all two of you — a direct link. I can only pray there aren’t many new MND readers of this article since it’s not from today.

Kyso has posted commentary at punkassblog here about what great satire this would make…if only the auther weren’t serious. Also see this, about the idea that men somehow have no say in reproductive issues.

punkass marc (also at punkassblog, imagine that) wrote a brilliant demonstration of what a utopia this would create in real life. It’s hillarious, but the ungrateful-whore-in-question is called Allison, nicknamed Alli. I’m not sure if I should giggle or throw up?

We went grocery shopping this evening, and as we waited to check out, I indulged in the guilty pleasure of scanning the tabloid covers. Just after I rolled my eyes at the booklet Astrology for your Cat (really, it was on the end of the aisle, complete with an adorable Himalaya gazing out from the cover), I saw this book, and nearly lost it laughing:

I shouldn’t be surprised, really. I’ve had dates with men who were newly single after a long relationship or marriage who were bewildered by the whole online dating scene. When we didn’t “click” dating-wise, it always seemed I fell into tutor role, helping them know what common mistakes to avoid.

But still…seriously?

*snort*

Now that’s more like it — reply from a different contact.
Now *this* is how to tell someone why you decided to send them an email:

Thanks for the reply. I was really impressed by your profile. My masterpiece is someone such as yourself who has beauty as well as an intellectual side. Physical attraction is only part of the equation. I need mental attraction as well. Meaningful conversations about life, love, and interesting topics are what I want. That is why I wrote you. Your bio was more in depth than most and you are quite beautiful too. Also, I have a six year old son and I saw that you have a young daughter. That is important also to meet someone who understands the responsibilities of being a good parent. I would love to know more about you as well. You should know my match account expires at the end of today. You can respond to my personal account at (email address).

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he threw the word “beautiful” in there. I admit it, I like ego snacks. Another bonus for me is that he sees my daughter as a benefit, not something to put up with. Many times, I’ve received emails from people who “make an exception” to their “no kids” rule for me. Even though I want to believe their intentions are sincere, I find myself mama-lion-defensive of my girl — I never, ever want to be involved with anyone who sees her as something to merely tolerate. She’s worth celebrating, damn it. Yeah, I think I’ll reply to this one.

~~~~~

Coffee dates.
On the single parent note, I have decided that coffee dates are just not something worthwhile for me. In another time, I would have gladly (and spontaneously) hopped in the car and headed to a local barrista to meet up with a new prospect. It’s just not that simple now. Between being a full-time single mom and living about 10 miles north of town, I have to go through a lot of work in order to make space for what typically becomes a 5-minute size-me-up session. No thanks. If I’m arranging babysitting, I’m at least going to take *myself* out for a nice dinner. This isn’t about trolling for meals; I’d be just as happy going a hike or doing something that I otherwise would do. It’s about the use of my time.

Commenters, what do you think? Is this too narcissistic or self-absorbed for me to think this way? Who knows, maybe the guy I’m about to turn down (for said coffee date) just doesn’t interest me enough, and I’d find a way to meet someone who fascinated me.

~~~~~

Sex and Dating
Sarah, a frequent commenter over at Hugo’s place, has her new blog up and running. She recently wrote a letter to Focus on the Family’s Brio Magazine about sexual activity before marriage and posted both her letter and a reply from an employee at FotF that didn’t *quite* address her questions.

I’m honestly not too concerned about the premarital sex aspect from a religion standpoint. If you’ve read enough of these pages, you might get the idea that I’m not particularly conventional where religion is concerned. That said, from my past experience, I do agree that sex is something best left to a deep, monogamous, and possibly committed relationship. Sex-as-Sport is a fun idea, and I dabbled in it more than a little during my mid-to-late twenties. Again and again, though, I found that it left me feeling unfulfilled, lonely, and empty. In my attempts to “be a guy” (stereotypical guy, in a love-em-and-leave-em way), I began to lose bits of myself and refill the void with false confidence that needed constant refilling with sexual approval from outside. Oh, add to that, I hurt a few guys who were NOT typical guys in the process, but that’s a whole ‘nother post about how gender stereotypes hurt guys too.

Ironically, I’d gotten past this at the point when I conceived my daughter — but while I was no longer a predator and no longer treated sex lightly, my earlier experiences left me less prepared to indignantly yell NO when my boundaries were pushed.

Back to sex. As I start to seriously consider dating again, I’m now wondering what role physical contact will have for me. I say “will,” because frankly, at this point, I’ve been on the sexual equivalent of the top pantry shelf (hiding behind the extra bags of flour) for more than two years. It’s all kind of academic to me, and I’m starting to think that I’ve shut that side of myself down. What would it take to rekindle a nice blaze without burning down the entire forest? To get more corny with it, I’m in a drought, and I’d hate for someone’s haphazzardly thrown cigarette butt to start an out-of-control wildfire on now-protected land.

Okay, that was stretching it.

Anyway, this is something I’m considering, and I have no answers. Yet. But I do have an attractive, intelligent, creative man who wants to at least say hello. That’s a start, right?

Head over to Intueri, and enjoy a banquet of fromage. Maria commissioned several of her fellow med-bloggers to write a short story:

Write a super cheesy, super dramatic, and super nauseating piece related to clinical medicine. Make your readers roll their eyes, groan out loud, and rush to the nearest bathroom with your histrionic work of art. Leave them no option but to feel absolutely overwhelmed with emotion or shake you for your smarminess…

I suggest you finish your lunch before reading a few of them.

Okay, I’ll ‘fess up. I decided that if I’m spending any of my energy on dating, I might as well take a broad focus about it and make my match profile visible again also. The one caveat: I’m not going on the hunt, but rather just looking at what comes my way.

Of course, going active on match again *could* just be an excuse to troll for bloggable material since even my list of topics to ponder hasn’t been inspiring lately. This arrived this morning, and I found myself shaking my head:

I have to say….I’m attracted to you, but I just don’t know exactly how and why?!?!?.

You seem fascinating to me…

I hope your night goes well.

J

Gee, I’m glad to know that your attraction to me confuses you, buddy. Figure it out, and let me know what you decide.

As I recently wrote, I’ve been on a dating hiatus. I’m easing up on that a bit (already?), and taking up my father’s offer for six months on eHarmony. So far, I’m finding that eH has a (much) broader audience now than it did in the early days, when it was almost exclusively conservative Christian. That’s a start. The format works well for avoiding time-suckage, since you don’t “shop” for matches, but rather, they provide them for you. Only time will tell.

The problem is this: once I finished what I was “working on” (heh) on eHarmony, I found myself drawn back over to match. I’ll just to look around a little. Oh, and I’ll update my profile…just in case I decide to make it visible again. Oooh, after updating, they give me a list of my current “good matches.” Browse, browse, browse…WTF?

Dude, I just stumbled upon the profile of a guy who lived down the hall from me in college — a California boy who’s now somehow landed in Denver. He’s hot as ever, but seems more interesting than I remember. That said, he’s still way. out. of. my. league. I shot him a note anyway, just to see if he remembered the annoyingly goody-goody girl who lived down the hall and scored a 98 on the Rice Purity Test as an incoming freshman. Okay, I admit it. I lied about the masturbation questions, but even then, I probably was still in the mid 90s.

Anyhoo, it could be fun to meet up with someone from so long ago. If I keep an open mind, I might actually create a friendship. First, though, I think I’d need to get past this sudden flashback to who I was then: trying too hard, overly earnest, so-smart-yet-so-dumb…yipe, yipe, yipe!

Update: 26% D’oh. Of course, I AM nearly 35, have lived with someone, and have a child. I’ve also regained a few points over the past few months/years.

Since I’m usually on the viewfinder side of the camera, I thought I’d poke a nose (and an eye) out to say hello. If you care, you can see the rest of my face here.

I couldn’t pass this one up — click the image:

h/t: BitchPhD

From wordsmith.org:

This week’s theme: fear and desire.

theomania (thee-o-MAY-nee-uh, -MAIN-yuh) noun

The belief that one is God or specially chosen by God on a mission.

[From Greek theos (god) + -mania (excessive enthusiasm or craze).]

This mania often strikes rulers of nations and is highly recommended when planning to attack other nations. It soothes conscience, clears the path, and removes all doubts. After all, if one is channeling God, why worry about rules and conventions of mere humans?

Somehow, I don’t feel a comment is necessary for this one.