Dating sites

Some questions brought up by my pathetic self trolling dating websites mere days from my 39th(!) birthday.

What the hell happened to all those guys who say, "Any honest women?" and "no games" or my favorite, "no drama." They might as well say "no relationships" if they think that they're not going to have lies, drama and games. No one is that honest or laid back.

How many inches should I take off of a guy's listed height on his profile? Is that guy who claims to be 5' 7" really 5' 6" or 5' 5"? Or are guys honest about that?


And what does all this mean?
I'm a good guy. I open doors when necessary but won't go out of my way. I will pay for the first date but am counting on you to be a big girl and take care of yourself. When I say I will call I will but won't call you five times a day. I can listen to you gripe about others just don't gripe at me. I respect your space...please respect mine. I'm witty but not going to show someone up.

Here's my interpretation:
If I feel like it, I'll be nice.
My ex spent every dime I made, and there's nothing left.
Don't call me.
You aren't allowed to complain about anything that I do.
You aren't ever going to stay the night.
I'm not that smart and I don't like it when people get the better of me in conversation.

I'm feeling a little mean. That's probably not the right mood in which to find a date.

My Girl

My first cat's turning 17. That's older than most of my students. Here's a blurry but cool photo of her that I took the other day.

Comic-Con, International

Total dork that I am, I have already purchased passes to Comic-Con in San Diego. There will be a lot of special guests, and in buying the passes early I get to go to the preview night.

I'm hoping to meet some of the creators of my favorite comic books. I know that last year it was a showcase for lots of movie and tv show crap, but mostly I want to meet writers and artists.

My brother, my niece and I are going to rent a house on the beach and stay for a couple of weeks. It should be pretty cool, except that Chloe and Cletus can't bring the little Cletus, because by then Chloe will be almost nine months pregnant with future little Chloe.

At least I know that since the Texas state legislature has interfered in school start dates I won't have to start work until the end of August instead of the beginning.

I have to go run some errands now, because tonight I have an appointment with an XBOX 360 guitar controller and Rock Band. I'm the fill-in bassist for the band, and I'm practicing so I can take over when the regular guy gets carpal tunnel.

Sexist Attitudes

So the niece was over the other day, and she picked out some movies to watch. These included Blade Runner and Chasing Amy. We watched Chasing Amy over at Brad and Jenny's house.

Near the end of the movie, the protagonist, Holden finds out that his girlfriend Alyssa has had more sexual experiences than he, and with multiple partners. Male partners. He previously had thought that she was a lesbian with no experience with men, but he didn't flinch at that.

He confronts her at a hockey game, and they have a screaming fight about it. He tells her that he doesn't understand how she could have those kind of sexual experiences as a teenager, and how could she do it, those guys were using her. She screams back at him that, no, she was using them. He admits later on a feeling of inadequacy, that he somehow must have an equal number of sexual exploits and also they must be somehow equivalent in kink as well.

And after that scene I had to do engage in some self reflection. I realized that I've bought into that attitude of misogyny that teenage girls are unable to consent to sexual encounters, that only the boys possess the agency to consent. That only boys really want to engage in sex when they're teenagers. Though I know intellectually that's not true.

I don't think that I blamed boys for any sex acts that I engaged in, I haven't been resenting any of my former partners for "making me" do things with them. I had the ability to consent in my life. But at the moment that Holden tells Alyssa that those boys were using her, I agreed with him. I couldn't see the other side of the dynamic there, that Alyssa wanted or needed to explore her sexuality, and that she hadn't somehow been degraded and used by the experience of having sex with two boys at once.

I've been struggling with myself, trying to figure out not only what I think about myself and sex, but also why I think it. And what influence have movies and popular culture had on these attitudes? Do I think, as many in America seem to think, that women are submissive victims and that men are predatory?

I was watching Law & Order SVU last night. It was the one from this week about a teenage boy who sodomized another boy and raped three little girls. The defense attorney blamed an ever-present media that obsesses over sex and argued an insanity defense. The boy saw sex everywhere and merely wanted to emulate what he saw. Which might have worked as a defense for me, except that seeing sex everywhere doesn't correlate, in my opinion, with wanting to do violence. Sex and rape are two very different things, and to say that exposure to images of sex makes a child want to brutalize and rape other children ignores the difference between the two.

On the show, Detective Stabler speaks to the ADA about the prevalence of sex on TV and the internet, how it's available all the time to anyone who wants to see it. But he doesn't talk about porn movie theaters or the availability of DVD's or HBO and other cable stations. He mentions women. He says that his boy grew up right because he, the detective had protected him. He had protected his son from "girls who wear Hustler t-shirts" to school, Jenna Jameson and the evil Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

So, I'm confused. Which is it? Are girls unable to consent to sex or are they responsible for the corruption of boys? Are Britney and Paris undermining the morals of the nation? What about all the male celebrities who carouse and drive drunk? Are they only not noteworthy because they don't flash pussy? Surely there are some paparazzi out there who've captured some of the men whipping it out.

I'm not sure that this post is cohesive. Maybe it should be split into two different topics, but it was all on my mind. What do you think?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

It's been almost six months since my last post here. Wow, time flies. And stays extraordinarily still at the same time.

So, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. Raise a glass to my mom, if you're so inclined. I think she'd like that. Maybe have a smoke too, just to taunt the gods, and then say "fuck" to make it a Kate's mom trifecta.

It was hard to not talk about her today, but harder still to say more than "Here's to Mom." I am however, grateful to all the friends and family who've supported me/us in the last six months. It would have been so much harder without you, and I love you all.

My Mother

My mother died two weeks ago. She had a heart condition, and at the end of June she went into the hospital for valve replacement surgery and didn't come out.
These are the words that I spoke at her memorial.

My Mother

Not everyone loved my mother.
The cashier at Wal-Mart didn’t.
She bought a magazine, then remembered something else she wanted and went right back to the front of the line.

The nurse at her doctor’s office asked my mother's doctor a question when my mother left. “Why was that woman mad at you?”

My mother got mad at me once for putting a supermarket cart back in the rack.
“What are you doing that for?” She said.
“Because my mother taught me to put things back.” I replied.
“No, she didn’t.” She said.

My mother gave me a tip about dating, that she said she got from her mother.
“Go out with anyone who asks you, because you never know who their friends are.”

My mother took us to get library cards the moment we moved into our house.
She went to the library every week and would get at least a dozen books.
She'd have to take at least four of them back because she’d already read them.

My mother grew up on a farm, and she hated home-made things.
Books were the best gifts, so we got her a club card from Barnes and Noble.

We loved her. Anyone who spent time with her remembered her, and they appreciated her. Some of the things people have told us over the past few days have included these words: wonderful, infectious laughter, voracious reading, quick wit, proud of her family,
interesting subject for a biography.

My mother loved Judge Judy, and Solitaire and Free Cell. She loved pictures of flowers, yellow roses, and grilled cheese sandwiches.

She loved her family, and raised us in a way that helped us to be who we are, independent and self-sufficient.

One day as we watched Oprah talking to a mother and daughter having problems, my mother said she didn’t understand why the mother would spend all of her time obsessing about and interfering in her daughter’s life.

I told her, “Well, you could be like that mother, but then you’d have to put down your book and get up off the couch.”
Then my mother laughed, her loud laugh, and admitted that I was probably right.

Carolina

Carolina told me a story today. She's 15, and she was born in Mexico. She had an argument with her history teacher about whether or not she's an American. She says she's not, she's proud to be from Mexico and to have lived there until she was ten.

One day, right after her fourth birthday, Carolina and her cousins felt eyes watching them while playing on the patio of her house in Mexico. Something watched them from the trees. Her cousins got frightened and started to run away. They yelled at Carolina to run away too, but she wasn't fast enough. A bruja flew down from a tree and swooped her up.

The bruja flew Carolina to a cave, put her down and made her sing and dance and tell stories to the other witches there. Carolina did what they told her, and after a while she lay down to sleep. She woke in the grass of her backyard near the patio of her family's house. She had been with the brujas all night.

Carolina went indoors to see her mama and papa. They said, "Which cousin took you home?" Carolina told them what had happened, that she'd been gone all night. She asked her cousins why they didn't tell her parents about the bruja. The cousins all said that they were afraid they'd get beaten if they told what happened.

Then Carolina looked at me and said, "No one believes me when I tell that story, but it really did happen to me."

Tales of Teenage Trouble

I got invited to prom today. One of my male students told me he doesn't have a date. Then he said, "Miss, will you go to prom with me?"

I said, "No offense, but ewww. I'm way too old for you, and I'm your teacher."

The girls at the table closest to me started to giggle, and said, "Miss, that was mean!"

I didn't think so, but when I told my mom she said, "You didn't say 'eww' to his face, did you?"

My students seem awfully concerned with my personal life. Who am I dating, and if not, why don't I have a boyfriend? Do I go to the clubs? How do I dance? Do I like cheese?* Do I think the principal's hot? Would I date the principal if he wasn't married? Would I date the principal and break up his marriage if I knew he was the love of my life?

Perhaps their next step will be to set me up with their relatives.



*For those of you that don't know, cheese is a drug combination of heroin and Tylenol PM. They were trying to trick me into saying that I do drugs.