People I hate: updated for 2011!

I'm what one would call a "misanthrope." Or an "asshole." I tend to think they're interchangable. In short? I can't stand 95% of humanity.

Usually I reserve my hatred for women with huge strollers who insist on standing in the doorway of the T at rush hour and Rush Limbaugh. But my cup runneth over with vitriol, and I'm singling some of you dickbags out.

People who quote themselves.

Have you ever known anyone who did this? Have you ever noticed that everyone who does this is always the stupidest fucking person you know? Your friend with the Ph.D. in English who spent three years writing a thesis on Paradise Lost doesn't quote himself. It's always the dipshit who graduated high school with 2.1 GPA and promptly got a job installing car stereos who thinks he's so chock-full-o'-wisdom that he has to share his enlightenment with the world. Do the world a favor and keep your banal observations to yourself.

People who love the Dave Matthew Band.

I might get a lot of shit for this, but I can't think of any band that is more fucking played-out than the Dave Matthews Band. It's boring yuppie bullshit, consistently enjoyed by asshats in Fortune 500 companies that spend their days figuratively pushing money around with rakes and then as soon as the five o'clock world's whistle blows, they don their khaki cargo shorts and Abercrombie polos and bang their heads to Dave Matthews like he's some fucking killer guitar player. It's like Muzak except you don't have to speculate about the singer's sexuality. Grow a pair and listen to metal, you morons. (Not that I like metal, really. I listen to Robyn.)

Hot lesbians.

What the fuck is your problem? Why do you insist on ignoring me? Why do you absolutely refuse to be swayed by my stunning looks and endless charm? Why do all of you like science so much? Why do you make me look like a plebian? Why must you keep my OkCupid inbox and my soul empty? Why do none of you find me attractive, yet any idiot with a dick and bad haircut whom I'd never screw in a million years won't hesitate to tell me they think I'm hot?

Friends who won't tell you the truth.

THIS ONE. I'm sure it's happened to all of us. You have that one friend who says "Aw yeah we're totally going to hang out on Saturday, it's going to be awesome!" Then they meet up with someone who doesn't like you or who almost got in a fistfight with your husband on New Year's Eve (whoops, whatever, I was so drunk I barely remember it) and then suddenly all that shit is down the drain and you're lucky if they even reply to your text message asking what town they're going to be in. I don't fucking care if you don't want to hang out with me, or can't, or something's occurred to offend your delicate fucking sensibilities. Just be honest about it. My heart isn't going to break.

People who fake disabilities to get money / perks / pity.

There's this guy who fake-hobbles on the train every morning. A fat guy who demands to be given the optimal seating because he's so super disabled and can't walk and has to use crutches. But, if you actually watch him and not just buy into the whole "he must be disabled and I can't question a disabled person's motives," he's using them like fucking ski poles. I long held a suspicion that the guy was faking it. Then I saw him at A.C. Moore, waddling around sans crutches like he was the most able-bodied bastard in the world, buying fabric pant and rick-rack so he can decorate his Lee jeans. Fuck that guy. Also, fuck the guy on the train who purports to be blind yet crushes the Jumble and Sudoku every morning. Blind my ass.

EVERYTHING ISN'T ABOUT YOU!

I'm pretty sure I have Premenstrual Dysmorphic Diet-Pepsi-obsessed Dayquil-swilling Distemper Disorder. Why? Well, I'm pounding even more of the aspartame treat than ever, my throat is fucking sore, my boobs have hurt for a week and I really can't stand anyone nowadays. Especially internet commenters.

Yeah, I know. "Who cares?"

I CARE. I work a boring desk job in which I have nothing to do half the day. So I read. A lot. I read Jezebel. All day long.

So the other day, this big Jez shitstorm hit, when one of the editors published an article on sexual consent that all the humorless feminists obviously wouldn't agree with, and the commenters lost their goddamn minds. You'd think they'd never encountered life outside of an encapsulated sounding board, where men can be total assholes and people don't always share your opinions. The idea that they'd even have to face a point of view not in line with their own - and ARGUE its merits - made these women more inflamed than a hemorrhoid.

The editor apologized, noting that she put the post up right before the holiday and wasn't as attentive to the reaction as she should have been. The commenters weren't going to hear it. Someone actually said, "You couldn't do your job because it was a HOLIDAY?" How dare she travel to go spend time with her family on a national holiday when people on the internet are MAD?! The editor then posted a counterpoint article. It wasn't good enough.

So anyway, the content of the original piece was fairly vague and stupid - some American guy goes to Paris, wonders why American chicks aren't as hot and easy as French ladies, and says that maybe we USians sanitize our sex a bit too much. I didn't much care for the article, and I thought it was poorly written. I thought the guy sounded like a douchebag with a fixation on European women. He could have had a point and started a real discussion, but fell short.

But more than anything, the entitlement of these internet lurkers made me want to vomit.

The world does not fucking revolve around you. Somebody wrote something you don't like? Tough fucking shit. The Gawker Media Corporation is not beholden to you and your opinions. The editors of a web magazine do not owe you anything. If anything, they're beholden to the people who buy advertising on their site and pay their bills. People were seriously saying "I am not satisfied with this. I am owed an apology."

Really. REALLY?! You're that mad about the fucking internet? Do you know how many people in the world don't use the internet? ALMOST FIVE BILLION. Do you treat everyone you encounter in your real life like that? Oh, wait, I forgot. You don't have a real life. You spend six hours a day asking people you'll never meet what you should do about that internship that you really wanted but didn't get. 

Maybe that's the scourge of the modern age - absolute and utter narcissism. There are actually people out there believing a company that's the second largest online newspaper in the world should bow down, admit defeat, and let the 200 people who comment regularly control the content that tens of thousands of people read every hour. It goes beyond this to every element of our lives - people who make kissy faces in their Facebook profile pictures which they change twice a day, friends who get pissed off because you don't respond to their text messages immediately, women who are average weight and height and attractiveness and think they're models. I'm just so tired of the fact that everyone in my generation thinks they're some big fucking star.

I'm truly sorry, really I am, but you're going to work a boring job for 45 years. You're going to pop out a couple of mediocre children, you're going to marry someone who's going to get fat and bald, and your idea of a good time will end up being white zinfandel and a U2 cover band. You're not going to go great places and do great things. You're not going to drive a Porsche, you're not going to attend fancy galas, and when you die, there will be but a small crowd of people there to see you into the ground. Just give it up.

Obviously everything isn't about you. It's about me.

I'm even slut-shamed by my cervix.

The horror, the horror.

On Wednesday I have to have a LEEP. If you don't have a cervix, skip to the next paragraph, because I doubt you'll give a shit. Basically, I have precancerous cells, and the next step is to take an electrified loop of wire and shave off a layer of tissue, after which I can't have sex, lift anything heavy, or take a bath for a month. Woohoo!

So I'm reading up on it, and here's what the Wikipedia page has to tell me about how my lifestyle is responsible for this:

"A number of risk factors have been shown to increase a woman's likelihood of developing CIN,^[9] including poor diet, poor personal hygiene, multiple sexual partners, lack of condom use, and cigarette smoking."

Alright, here is where I want to say, fuck you very much, medicine.

Oh, you had sex with a bunch of people? Yeah, it's your own fucking fault that you're well on your way to cancer. You didn't use a condom every time you had sex? Get ready for us to remove a big chunk of your internal tissue. I find it way too convenient that what modern medicine tells us is the best for women is - hmm - EXACTLY what the patriarchy feeds us. Apparently, unless I sleep with one person, live completely sober, and pop out a bunch of babies in my twenties, I am essentially inflicting myself with certain death by terminal illness. I'm sorry, but I think this is fucking bullshit.

And here's the kicker: cervical dysplasia (what I have) is caused by HPV, which I am vaccinated against. So, something's fishy here, right? Here are the options that I'm considering:

1. Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, doesn't work.
2. Doctors are fucking idiots.
3. I have been cursed by a Somalian witch doctor at the behest of my ex-boyfriend who threw a ceramic heart I made him in a river because I dumped him for someone else and he made me a video of pictures of me surrounded by flowers with an accompanying crappy poem and I deleted it off my computer without watching the whole thing and called him a creep. 
4. The changes in my cervix are my version of normal - seeing as I've had cervical cell 'changes' since I was SEVENTEEN - and this is simply a ruse, so they're terrifying me with the C-word so they can get my insurance company to pay for a somewhat expensive, not-very-necessary outpatient procedure.
5. God is really trying to get back at me for saying "Jesus shit" all the time.

Oh, and it goes on, for as long as we ladies shall live. If it's not a Pap smear, it's a hysterectomy. We can't give birth like our bodies were designed to, so we all have to have C-sections.  The medicalization of women's bodies in our culture is both pervasive and perverse. It's a way to reap maximum profits and ensure that reproductive power - the only kind of power that is strictly held by women - is chained down for society's sake.

All I have to say is, whatever painkillers they give me... they better be good enough to make me forget my own name and the fact that I have a vagina at all.

the motherhood malady.

Yesterday, I read a bullshit article in the New York Observer about this new "faminism" trend, which fluctuated between typical trend-piece-stretch (a couple famous women and some spoiled New York housewives do not a trend make) and backlash propaganda. It's basically a story about how feminism is out, and tending to thirty thousand snot-nosed little brats instead of working is what women should be doing!

It's in full effect, ladies. Run for your lives.

'Women are defining themselves more by their families than they are by themselves,' said Pamela Paul, a 39-year-old mother of three in Harlem and author of Parenting Inc. 'It’s no longer about something as selfish and self-advancing as abortion or the pill.'

 Oh, right, because not having a child when you can't afford one and not bringing more human beings into an already-overpopulated planet are so SELFISH.

What the article is trying to drive home is that it is now popular - nay, the status quo - to forego our self-actualization in favor of strollers, and view the personal as not political, but parental. Again, yet again, women are expected to find fulfillment only through motherhood. And we call this a "choice."

But I want to know - what choices, as women, do we really have? Settle down, become mothers - for whom? We're told we have more reproductive freedom than ever before in history, and the preponderance of prophylactics available in 2010 absolutely makes it true, in a tangible sense. That doesn't stop society from reminding women that our "clock is ticking," that "time is running out on your fertile years," that it's "biological destiny." It's backlash like all other backlash, it's just another way of attempting to force women to fit the mold. I find it incredibly disheartening that, even this far along, we only have the illusion of choice. Choice would imply that all options are equally viable and acceptable. There is only one socially acceptable option for being an adult female in America, and we all know what happens if you don't take that road.

I just wish for a society in which our worth is not purchased by a diamond engagement ring, and our future is not formed in a marital bed. We should all be able to want any kind of life as women, be it full of children or without any - but you shouldn't need a certain life to be a woman. I want to be living proof.

you're an asshole.

And you get in my way.

Being trapped in a metal tube for approximately two hours a day, plus working in the middle of what Vietnam vets like to call "the shit" - or what's known to Bostonians as Downtown Crossing -  has made me quite the people-hater. Sometimes I feel like everyone is just trying to annoy the crap out of me. Today I'll run through through all the kinds of people I encounter on a daily basis that drive me insane.

1. Bluetooth Headset Guy

You seriously can't take that shit off to have a romantic dinner with your wife?

Oh, I'm sorry for bumping into you, Self-Important Bluetooth Headset Guy. See, while you were standing on the Green Line, doing nothing at all, you were obviously waiting for some call that will be so urgent and important that you won't have 15 seconds to answer the call on your phone, or just put your headset on your head. No, no, you are SOOOOO busy waterskiing and rope climbing and holding an umbrella that you cannot actually hold your phone and have to wear your fucking headset everywhere you go. And I've NEVER actually seen someone who's wearing a headset ever get a call. These douchebags just want you to know that because they wear a little piece of plastic over their ear that blinks, they are wayyyyy more in demand than you'll ever be. The only satisfaction I get is that everyone who actually conducts a phone call on a headset in public looks like a total nutjob who is talking to themselves.


2. Incredibly, Ridiculously Loud Mexican Music Lady

I WISH it were Sugar Ray. And that's giving Sugar Ray a lot of credit.

This bitch lost her hearing in 1995, which is the only explanation for why she plays her incredibly obnoxious music so loudly that people 20 feet away can hear it. And, without fail, the music itself is stuff that no one in their right mind would ever listen to. It always sounds like a mariachi band that's been put on an Autotune. Why can't these people blast the Rolling Stones? Or Elton? If they're going to make everyone else in a half-mile radius listen to their iPod they should be forced to play something that most people actually like.


3. The Tourist

I don't even care about your contribution to our economy.

I'm sure you all knew this was coming. But tourists drive me up a wall. Is it so hard, Mr. and Mrs. Southern-Drawl-and-Walmart-Denim-Shorts, to not ride the subway at rush hour when you have no idea where you're going? Is it so impossible for you to not stand in front of the door with your thirty-five stupid children when people have trains to catch? I don't fucking understand why these people cannot fathom that while they are meandering around a city that doubles in population every weekday, people have things to do.

4. Foghorn Nose-Blower Dude

The leader of the free world blows his nose quietly, why can't you?

I have no idea how these guys make blowing their nose into the world's biggest racket, but they do it. They must have this weird arm arc that allows them to blow and apply pressure at just the right point so that while they shoot snot out of their schnozes, they simultaneously delight us with a blowhorn worthy of a college basketball game. COME ON.

5. IPhone Cultists
 

Sprint 4life.

I read something in Elle the other day that said iPhone users judge other people based on their gadgets. Well, I judge you based on your iPhone. I know my friends have them and they may be offended, but God, everytime someone gets one of these things, it's like they don't even bother to have human interaction anymore. They spend all their money on stupid applications that distort pictures of themselves and calculate how much they should put down for a tip on their overpriced brunch at The Beehive. Every iPhone user does nothing but look at their iPhone and think about how many times they want to blow Steve Jobs for creating such a beautiful masterpiece of technology. They will no doubt ensure eventual complete isolation in any and all social situations, since no one wants to hang out with someone who can't even bother to put their stupid phone down to engage in a conversation. But hey, what do they care? Now they don't even have to pretend to actually care about your life - they can just periodically maintain the friendship via Facebook!

in the words of my mother, go fry your ass.

In the wake of the most sweeping social legislation in decades, I'm fucking ragey.

I'm ragey because suddenly every idiot in America - and certainly every moron on my Facebook news feed - has an opinion about politics and government. And none of them know a god damn thing.

I have decided that I'm no longer going to even respond to anyone who is all about "free markets" and "small government" and "personal responsibility" unless they swear, at pains of perjury, that they will not accept Social Security or Medicare when they turn 65. Because you know when push comes to shove, everyone in America is a greedy bastard. That's why they're so concerned about paying taxes to begin with, conveniently forgetting the fact that without tax revenue, we have no roads, we have no police, we have no schools and we have no government that you can heckle and spit at when they try to do something to help people that are poorer than you.

And I'm sick and tired of the sugarcoating of this bullshit Tea Party movement. Oh, you're so mad about how Obama is spending your tax dollars? Where were you when Bush launched two wars to which $1.03 TRILLION DOLLARS have been allocated so far, that have no end in sight? Oh, that's right. You didn't care. Because he wasn't black.

I saw this gem of a status update today by a self-avowed libertarian:

"Thank God for the states suing the Govt after the egregious passing of the health care bill. Burn in hell liberals, I want America back."

Now, I'm going to spare you the unsightly details of my relationship with this person - whom I had a one night stand with in college, a rendezvous that can surely be blamed on the Southern Comfort. But what you should know is that this guy graduated from a $35,000 a year university and sleeps in a tent in Harvard Square because he thinks it makes him "edgy." He doesn't work - unless you call emailing me three times after I got married to ask me if I wanted to buy a knife set from him 'work' - and dumpster dives to feed himself. So I'm fucking DYING to know - what America are you talking about? The one which you support with your tax dollars - um, nope. The one you support through consumerism, rent, utilities - oh, whoops. Yeah, sorry, it's kind of more my America than yours, considering that I PAY FOR IT.

In my oh-so-humble opinion, if you live in Massachusetts and you don't like the health care reform, you're a fucking idiot. Nothing about your life will change, except for the fact that if you happen to come down with cancer, your insurance company can't stop paying for treatment. Which, if you actually use your brain, should be a given. If you want to bitch and moan about how it's going to 'bankrupt America,' why don't you protest what is actually bankrupting America - $663.3 million in defense spending just this year, which, if you didn't know, is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined.

I could spend hours going off about what Obama's ridiculous executive order may mean for the future of abortion, and how pissed off I am that no public option is included, but I'll save that for another day.

All I have to say is that I've got my finger on the "defriend" button, and I ain't afraid to use it. Luckily, this doesn't have to apply to what many would call 'real life' - I don't have morons (or ugly people) for friends.

I don't think Beyonce is so great.

According to the Daily Fail, "Single Ladies" was voted the best video of the decade. Let me first just say that I, being a married old hag who only listens to Oldies 103.3, only first viewed this video several days ago. Now, I know Kanye is going to come out of the shadows and start walking on my keyboard or something, but I really don't get the appeal.

Yeah, she can dance. Who gives a shit? I mean, Diana Ross (my lord and saviour) was doing this shit forty years ago, and though she didn't involve so much ass shaking, she also didn't dress like an instructor at Miss Tina's Studio of Dance.



I found this video very repetitive and lacking character. Where are all the animated cats following her up flights of stairs? What about the dudes shakily drawn in colored pencil? Watching this even made me miss the bumblebee girl from that Blind Melon video.

All of this reminded me of how little social currency music videos have anymore. The impetus to go "viral" far surpasses the desire to create unique, visually stimulating works. Since MTV is now where intellect and originality go to die, I doubt we will ever see anything like the Pop-Up Video gems of the 1990s ever again. Directors who function as artists - see Chris Cunningham - are long gone, but so are the conventions that made the majority of music videos so watchable. I used to spend hours watching these things, and now they're relegated to the far reaches of the world wide web.

I present to you: five masterpieces of music video, the way it used to be.


Meatloaf - I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)

Three words: Totally. Fucking. Epic. The only downside to this video is that it is soooooooooooo long.




Taylor Dayne - Tell It To My Heart

This is where Beyonce got it wrong. If you want to do the whole dancing-and-singing-on-a-white-background-with-accompaniment, you need to do in color, wearing bright red lipstick and you need a guy doing cartwheels in ripped jeans. Oh, and you need to move your mouth in completely ridiculous ways.




Toni Braxton - I Get So High

This video made me dream, when I was nine, about having my own apartment with an elevator and giant playing cards with which to rate various grown men. Toni is the master of weird haircuts and standing in front of blue bubble backgrounds. I have to say, this video is a great mix of storyline and frames of singing, a delicate balance that made the videos of the 90s so perfect.




Jamiroquai - Virtual Insanity

Jamiroquai rules. This is what videos should be like - aesthetically interesting, kind of weird, futuristic, with a little bit of casual footwork and an underlying dark element. The only reason this isn't my favorite music video ever is that Jay Kay is really not very attractive, and they hired a fourteen-year-old ICP fan to be the stylist. I don't know which is worse - the stupid hat or the Old Navy Performance Fleece.




Cranberries - Zombie

On a more serious note, this music video has a political message - one that made most of America almost understand what was going on in Northern Ireland. It's a powerful piece of imagery that actually means something, unlike 'If you like it, you shoulda put a ring on it.' Sasha Fierce ain't got shit on Dolores O'Riordan.

get a spine. please.

Today in Dumb Young Women Who Don't Know What the Hell They're Talking About and They're Making the Rest of Us Look Bad, Eva Lorraine Molina busts out some bullshit about how women nowadays aren't "ladylike" enough.

I bet this girl just read "Modesty" by Wendy Shalit and thought she'd chime in with her own narcissistic, implausible, poorly written diatribe.

"On college campuses telling the difference between liberal and conservative women is nearly impossible when they behave in an equally undignified manner. Conservative women should display their values through their lifestyle. This means acting like ladies, because the difference between conservative and liberal women should not just be the way we vote."

Conservative women wear modest clothing. Liberal women dress like they're competing for Miss Hawaiian Tropic. I'm sorry but I can't take anyone seriously who makes sweeping generalizations and divides people into two categories.

She goes on. "A lady does not tell dirty jokes along with men and she does not tolerate men telling dirty jokes in her presence. She does not swear, and she is not considered 'one of the guys.' In spite of new fashion trends, a lady always dresses appropriately, leaving a lot to the imagination. When at a social gathering, a lady does not do things she will regret the next day. Above all, a lady is well-mannered, dignified, gracious, and kind."

A lady has no sense of humor. She does not have fun, and she is not considered "someone you hang out with." In spite of new fashion trends, a lady wears the frumpiest clothes possible, hiding behind her baggy shirts and long dresses because she refuses to be seen as a sexual being. When at a social gathering, a lady sits around as a bored designated driver while her husband drinks thirteen Budweisers. Above all, a lady is passive, quiet, desperate and a doormat.

"Our society holds conservatives to a higher moral standard."

Let me repeat that, because the first time I read it, I choked on my water in a fit of laughter.

"Our society holds conservatives to a higher moral standard."

No wonder the Bush administration tortured prisoners, Larry Craig solicited a man for gay sex in an airport bathroom, Ted Haggard did meth with his hustler boytoy, Tom DeLay laundered campaign money, Mark Foley sent lewd messages to teenage Congressional pages, Jim Bakker served jail time for fraud and Jimmy Swaggert hung out with a prostitute at a hotel in New Orleans.

Really living up to that standard, let me tell you.

"I have heard many of my male peers place women into three categories: 'the ones to mess around with, the ones to date, and the ones to marry.' Though this is a rather crude way of categorizing women, it shows that men do recognize and value the qualities that make a woman a lady. Ladies are the kind of women that men can take home to Mom and Dad and that most men want to marry."

Sweetheart, he might want to marry you, but he's sure as hell not going to want to sleep with you. It doesn't matter if he puts a ring on your finger, you'll sit home barefoot and pregnant while he's sleeping with one of those women who's there 'to mess around with.' Sorry, but party girls always win. Get a grip.

What all of this boils down to, essentially, is this: Women are supposed to be perfect, happy, attractive helpmeets at all times. Any incidence of women showing INDEPENDENCE, any self-actualization, any time women show dissatisfaction with their lot in life or desire to change said lot, we are being "unladylike." And naturally, it's all OUR fault that society has changed and we've been labeled "sluts." It has nothing to do with the fact that men have been responsible for the hypersexualized female image in modern media. It isn't related to the fact that our society is entirely focused on the male gaze. And, in Molina's world, it's up to us to change in order to be respected by men - of course, it's not the responsibility of men to progress past patriarchy's "fuck them, date them, or marry them" axiom, and change to earn OUR respect. Get off the floor, Eva. Have some dignity.

yeah, I'm getting married, you jerks.

Okay, so this has basically been the strangest/oddly hardest thing I've ever done.

The last thing anyone thought I would do. Aside from spawn. No worries, folks. My uterus has no plans of serving any purpose in the near future.

All I seem to get is faux excitement from most people. Which is fine. Believe me, when I start talking about centerpieces, I want your eyes to glaze over. Please, everyone, make sure I'm not one of those women. I still will never be able to care about the difference between a princess or an asscher-cut diamond. I could give two shits about whether ivory or champagne is the right color for a veil.

To anyone that was genuinely hurt or bothered by the fact you found out on Facebook - I'm sorry, I really am, but I wasn't going to call everyone in my phone and gush about my impending nuptials. I know I should have contacted some of you, but I really don't know how to handle all this stuff and I don't want this to be the focus of my personality for the next 6 months. It's hard enough dealing with my mother's reluctance. Yes, I am young. No one is more aware of this fact than I am. But I met someone that I know I want to hang out with forever. What's the point of waiting when I'm more sure about this than I've ever been about everything in my life?

Okay, /wedding-related rant. Upward and onward to bigger things.

HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEW JUNIOR BOYS? Um, crap. It's awesome. They're playing at the middle east in may, so I finally found some use for my Ticketmaster giftcards. If you're not familiar, let this blow your mind:




I just found out IAMX is releasing a new album in may as well. My heart bursts.