Totally swiped from Shakespeare’s Sister and possibly not work safe.

Click on image to see what I’m talking about and then get down with your bad self.

You may remember how this works. I put out some song lyrics and you all guess who it is (googling is cheating). First person to guess wins a giant virtual cookie!

Since I am still feeling like a silly, giddy 15 year old girl with a mega crush on very cute boy, the cookie is a giant pink heart and the song was one of my faves in high school. This should be easy.

Show me how you do that trick
the one that makes me scream she said
the one that makes me laugh she said
and threw her arms around my neck

What for it.

What for it.

He ex-Foley-ates !

Maybe astrologer extraordinaire Deek(tm) can answer this for me: Why has every single boy I never wanted to talk to again decided this is a good week to check in with me?

It started with my high school boyfriend, who is actually cool and we still talk every now and then, but I think he unleashed the floodgates. Then there was flakey unavailable why don’t we talk boy. Then there was a boy I went out with exactly once on the worst date ever. The date was so bad I wrote an essay on it for Salon.com and got published (anonymously- it was that bad). Now it’s a boy who I dated very briefly. We parted after a fight in which he said something so vulgar I won’t even repeat it, but it’s a common insult in trailer parks and red neck bars. It just reminded me why I don’t date uneducated mid-western hicks, even if they claim to be artists. Of course before this there was the married guys phone stalking (3 of them- blahhhh).

So Deek(tm) is there something in the stars that says it’s time for me to change my name and leave the country? Or maybe just my phone number and email addresses?

My favorite band has a new album out! I would have Colin Meloy’s hyper-verbal babies if given half the chance. Who else would write an album about a man marrying a crane? Who else writes songs that sound like a Dicken’s novel? Who else uses the words elan and dolor in songs to my inner word geek dance?

No one.

Lately I’ve been listening to My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist over and over. It’s got the French resistance, a communist who becomes a punk rock tobacco grower in South Carolina, and a boy lost in a game of high stakes canasta. What is not to love about a story line that dense in a song that lasts only a few minutes.

Now I will have a whole new set of songs to obsess over and dissect. Oh goody goody goody!

There was a reason for the libertarian post and the uneven playing field post, besides my need to rample and rail against stuff. Now my reasons shall be revealed.

The Naughty Professor, (aka my Mexico travel buddy) thinks of himself as a lefty libertarian. According to him the only job government should have is the redistribution of wealth. He thinks people should be given credits for things such as water and food and education if they are to poor to afford them on their own. Now I adore the Naughty Prof, but he is a bit of a priveldged git who has never in his life had to apply for the kind of things he’s talking about and doesn’t know the process.

As it stands now, every different type of assitance requires a different appliccation process and a new investigation into someone’s finances even though the information required for each application is virtually identical. For example, the same application is used for food stamps, medicaid, and TANF (temporary aid to needy families) grants, but there is a seperate application for any kind of housing assistance, day care subsidies, WIC (the women, infant and children’s food program) utilities assistance, job training, college grants, etc. The beuracracy is huge.

Everyone who qualifies for food stamps or TANF qualifies for housing assistance via HUD’s Section 8 program because they must be at or below the poverty level. Hud usually requires that people be at 50% or less of the local median income to qualify for Section 8 (generally a much more economically succesful program than public housing because it allows tenants to rent market rate private units instead of being trapped in often dangerous and run down public ones). That means in Seattle a single person has to earn less than 27,000 a year to qualify for housing assitance .

Today there is a benefit to the insomnia that has been kicking my ass lately (I’m a long time insomniac- this ain’t nothing new but it sure is tedious). I ended up awake to watch the very early local news and got this little dose of schadenfreude. I could quote Alanis Morrisette and ask “Isn’t it ironic?” but at this point Republican hypocrisy is as tedious as insomnia. But pay attention to Foley’s last line. Is it just me or does he sound a little scared himself.

They had to go and do something seriously fucked up.

First, the good news. There was that happy making moment a few months ago when Wal-Mart fired a pharmacist for refusing to dispense birth control. That was a hell of an improvement over Target’s craptastic policy. Then a few weeks ago Wal-Mart announced a pilot program starting in Florida to offer generic versions of many common medications for $4 per prescription to both employees and shoppers. For one of the medications I take, that would be a savings of $192 a month. They plan to expand the program in the near future, but for now I should totally get Wonder to pick up my Rx’s for me.

But Wal-Mart just announced a plan to increase it’s part time employees to 40% of the total workforce and to cap wages. First, Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the US and where Wal-Mart goes everyone else will follow. This has the happy effect of making 40% of all retail employees just part-time in an industry where wages are traditionally below a living wage at full time hours. Hello massive increase in the working poor!

My own employer (a state college with the misfortune to be run by a private community college district) has long held the keep ’em part time and screw them philosophy. Unlike tenured faculty or unionized employees, us part-timers are left with perpetually changing rules meant to keep us from ever being eligible for benefits or retirement. I am so about to go Norma Rae on this place, but I digress. The point was, I am painfully aware of what Wal-Mart’s employees are about to experience. It sucks.

So if you are still shopping Wal-Mart (powers that be please forgive me for the $7 watch I bought there last Christmas- I blame Wonder’s sister!) you should stop right now. Really.

Move On is sending out free copies of the movie Iraq for Sale to people willing to host viewing parties at their house. If any of you locals would want to see it I would totally hold a viewing at the Royal compound.

Just gimme a yes in comments and if there’s enough interest I’ll set it up.

I am in a fantastic mood. I’ve been giddy and smiling so much for the last 18 hours or so that my cheek muscles hurt. You know when you meet someone and you want to talk to them again so much that you have imaginary conversations in your head with them (or is that just me and the voices have gotten out of hand;)) that’s where I’m at. I just thought I’d share since you all have been so patient through the summer of crap. I’d feel really dumb about the giddiness, but his co-worker asked him why he’s smiling so much. Ha.

Anyway, on to the topic of the day: strippers and the sex industry in general.

I have a unique point of view on the legalization of sex work. We had a recent issue here on the ballot to remove a law that was trying to eliminate the things about strip clubs that make them fun and the people that opposed the law were touting it as a woman’s rights issue.

There are basically 2 schools of thought on feminist circles on sex work. Either it is a degrading occupation that oppresses every woman involved in it, or that as long as it is a woman’s choice to do that kind of work it is her body to do with as she pleases.

I’m in the second camp for a very specific reason. There are only 2 professions where women consistently make more money than men. Wanna take a guess at what they are? They’re related.

Wait for it

Wait for it

Ding ding! It’s modeling and sex work. Who knew that the only jobs women earn more than men in involve being valued almost exclusively for their bodies. Well, I did.

So when people start getting all huffy about strip clubs in their neighborhood, I don’t see it as a moral values issue but as another example of the patriarchy trying to keep us girls subservient and broke. Give a girl more earning power than a boy and the establishment feels threatened.

But there is another part to this equation, and it’s a bit of a chicken and egg issue. The more legitimate the industry, the fewer people there are working in it and the more competitive it is For example, there are certainly more strippers than models, and there are more prostitutes than strippers. So is it that legitimacy is only bestowed on those industries where competition will be high and jobs will be scarce? Or is competition high and jobs scarce because it is viewed as a more legit job to have?

Now I’m going to go back to being giddy.