giving up the ghost.

At least the majority of the American people don't think I'm an unqualified moron. Yet.

This morning, sleepily, after hearing extensively about my menstrual woes, my husband remarked:

"You make being a woman sound like the worst thing, ever. It seems like you're barely holding it together all the time."

He's right.

I'm quitting, you guys.

I guess you could say this is a long time coming. Since I've gotten married, my hygiene has slipped significantly. I don't wash my hair nearly as much as I used to. I cut it off for a bob, which I intend to gradually snip away at until my hair resembles Edie Sedgwick's. I only wear makeup if I'm actually going somewhere (anywhere public any time before 6 pm doesn't count as 'somewhere'). I've worn high heels two times in two months. I'm just fucking tired of being female, and I don't care anymore.

I'm tired of not being able to shit regularly. I'm tired of haranguing my breasts into a wired felt-cotton trap every morning. I'm over worrying constantly if I'm knocked up. I'm sick of concerning myself with how I look and wondering if I should censor what I say.

You see, women are in a constant pursuit of looking as attractive as possible. Always. We are told from childhood that our purpose is to decorate the earth, to light up men's faces as they leer at our chests and appreciate our delicate features. We are on display 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We're supposed to diet and keep up with trends and have huge breasts and no wrinkles and not be smarter than the men we're involved with and we should be mild and passive and motherly and cheerful and just fucking perfect. If we're not doing everything we can to impress dudes, then we're under fire for being fat, ugly, man-hating feminazi lesbian shitasses (Scott Baio's wife's words, not mine - though I wish I could take credit for such a zinger). And if we happen to be too attractive, it's our fault that we led men to rape us, because we're sluts and whores. We have to be slaves to a society and then get backhandedly fucked by said society just for doing what they tell us.

But you know what? I'm not doing it anymore. I have a nice place to live, a job that's tolerable, an awesome cat, and a man that loves me even if I have chipped nail polish and have been wearing the same bra for four days in a row. Even so - what is the point where we say enough is enough? Is that aging? Recognizing that you're not the hot chick, the ingenue, the demure doll who men bend over backwards for? Or is the recognition that you don't even care enough to try to play that game anymore?

Women deal with enough blood and shit and tears. We owe it to ourselves to be honest. And to love ourselves for that honesty alone.

brides are f**king crazy.

Since I've started planning the wedding, I've been looking at a LOT of stuff online. It's been really helpful and the internet is responsible for my awesome self-designed wedding postcard invitations, our paper lanterns/fans, my parasol, and my DRESS! (which is still in the works).

I never realized all of the things you have to think about when it comes to a wedding - where people are going to sit, how to decorate, how to do vows & readings, music, thank you cards, etc. I've spent a lot of time looking at different sites for advice, checklists and the like.

As a result, I've come in contact with maybe the greatest site ever, and the site that maybe the signifier of the coming of the apocalypse.

Offbeat Bride is soooo bomb. They celebrate unique weddings that stray from the original rules, which is exactly what I'm going for. Their associated ning community, the Offbeat Bride Tribe, is a great community where people can share their weddings *without judgment* and get inspired by others' creativity. There's lots of DIY, lots of people with ridiculously small budgets (like my own) and lots of like-minded people who don't buy into the WIC.

The WIC, or wedding industrial complex, if you're not familiar, is otherwise known as the wedding industry and its completely fucking inane constructs. The diamond engagement ring is a product of the WIC and the invention of a female copywriter from the 1940s. A diamond is forever? Not really, only about 65 years.

Another invention of the WIC is the concept of lavish white/ivory gowns which you HAVE TO WEAR. White was only made popular by Queen Elizabeth I; prior to that, gowns were blue. Blue was actually meant to signify purity, while white was used to show wealth (ie., you could keep a white item of clothing clean). The furthest any bridal magazine will stray from white/ivory is a light champagne. If you are getting married, you will be told by society that your only option is white. Too bad for those assholes, because I'm wearing black.

But the whole idea of the WIC - spending $20,000 or more on a super-formal wedding that includes elaborate flowers, three course meals, videographers and giant fondant cakes - is crap, in my opinion. And no place is a bigger cheerleader for the capitalistic, material shitshow that is the modern wedding than theknot.com.

To be frank, the women on The Knot are evil. Okay, so maybe they're not possessed by Satan, but if you dare to speak on their community and do not have professional engagement photos, they will proceed to call you tacky and cheap and try to get you kicked off the site simply because you are not a spoiled little bitch with daddy paying for your $4000 Vera Wang gown.

I am not resentful of these women with unlimited budgets and dyed-to-match bridesmaids. I'm really not. I am happy to have a small, intimate, casual wedding. That's exactly what I want. I just don't understand why these women have to be so fucking mean to people who don't like what they like. It's like high school, all over again.

These women spend all day on The Knot's community forum, asking about whether or not they should buy chocolate fountains. These grown women make avatars of themselves in their wedding dresses and write bios about their relationships, as if anyone gives a shit. They are pretty much the most self-absorbed, bitchy, stereotypical wedding-and-baby-obsessed female products of our patriarchal, greedy society that exist. If you meet a woman and she says that she's getting married and then goes on to spend 10 minutes talking about her "colors" and whining about how her maid of honor actually has a life, RUN. Just run. These women make me embarrassed about being engaged. They don't care at all about marriage, just having their "perfect day" that they won't even remember when they're fighting over the china during the inevitable divorce.