Halloween is not that far off, you know. Lazybones and I are going as pirates. We even ordered our costumes. He’ll be Jack Sparrow (he has a disturbing man-crush on Johnny Depp) and I’ll be some broad in a very tiny outfit. I believe she is what they referred to as a “scandalous” pirate. Whatever. It’s a hell of a cute costume and it came in my size. I am always dismayed by the sizing of clothes. I’m average height (five-foot-four) and yet most “small” pants are too too long. I don’t see a lot of five-foot-nine skeleton women wandering around, which makes me wonder who those pants are manufactured for, exactly. And when I was browsing the online costume shop for stuff, I was shocked that their idea of “small” was a 7-8.

If I am an average height human female who tends to be slim (but no longer bony)… Why do I have to buy clothes in size EXTRA small? Or worse, in the kids’ section? The tights I bought for my costume are childrens’ “one size fits up to 140 lbs”.

What kind of disproportionate world is this?

I’ve never, outside of my pregnancies, weighed even 130 pounds. And before anyone decides to comment about my “luck”, let me just say that struggling over weight and self-image is not the sole domain of those who are overweight.

I can’t figure out how it is possible for me to be this little. The world has started making clothes for seven foot tall twig women, and their enormous 140-lb kids. What is this, Second Life? (The avatars there are all outrageously large and proportioned like cartoons, think Jessica Rabbit only sluttier.)

I think this is all a plot to make me think I am shrinking.

No, I am not really paranoid. Just AN-NOYED.

If my costume is too big, I will scream.

Not really, but instead of re-writing my post, I want to direct the readership of this blog to my Second Life blog.

Oh boy.

Okay, here’s the deal.

I got mobilized.

But they had a bad address for me, so I never got my orders.

I got a horrifying email with many unpleasant words like “failure to follow a lawful order during a time of war” and I went into “arrrrrrrrrrgggghhh” mode. Made a call, sent an email, stewed in my gastric juices all weekend- and heard back today.

Occasionally the Army is understanding.

So I have now got piles of paperwork and such to cope with, but at least the scariest part is solved.

I’d rather get a tan again than to be involuntarily, undesirably let out of my remaining contract.

It’s fairly unlikely, given my situation, that I will have to do that- but I will keep you, my three readers, posted.

I’ll post about it when I get it sorted out.

Originally released in April 2001. Wow.
More info at Wikipedia.

I also enjoy the Irrational Exuberance version- that’s some classy Flash.

Normally I wouldn’t bother to even link to this kind of thing, but I really wanted to point something out.

When the people involved in these things mention that the tactics are used in SERE training (which they have all presumably had, in their line of work)- remember that all these things were likely done TO them during the course of that training. These bad, nasty things that are supposedly “torture”.

It didn’t disfigure them, or kill them- so as far as I am concerned, that kind of treatment is far too good. Too good for the filth that blow up and shoot our troops. Too good for pieces of shit who would come into our country and fly planes into our cities, murdering thousands. Way too good for these swine who refuse freedom for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and would rather see their own children explode into a million pieces than to accept liberty.

Screw it. Just kill ‘em.

Of course, I don’t speak on behalf of our leaders. They’ll allow the media to vilify our fighting forces. Leaders who speak loudly and carry a… pacifier.

If we’re not going to fight to win against these despicable dogs, then it doesn’t matter who we elect anymore. The nation’s already sunk too low to be saved.

Thanks, you fucking hippie bastards, for taking a perfectly nice country (at the end of WWII troops were honored as heroes, now the only reports we get are about supposed “abuses” of BAD GUYS, whose rights the media believes are more valuable than ours) and ruining it with your sissy ways. You know what? Go ahead and give peace its “chance”. My bet is that peace will just roll over and show its soft underbelly to the wolves in this world.

When anyone starts believing that freedom is worth a fight, you know where to find me.

Double Standard When It Comes To Underage Sex?: ABC News blurb, apparently comes with a story by John Stossel on 20/20, which I won’t get to see until well after it airs at home.

Interesting reading, though.

Reminds me of the time I was visiting my in-laws and they were telling me all the tales of Young Lazy Bones. They showed me the “gift” they gave him for his 16th birthday- a “rubber plant”, some silly little plastic plant that they’d stuck a bunch of condoms to.

At that time, his sister was around 16.

She did not get a rubber plant. She was not allowed to have her boyfriend in her room with the door shut. The in-laws always knew what she was up to and where she was.

So I quizzed my dearest love about his teenage years some more (because I knew from other things he’d told me that he was *ahem* a bit of a rule-breaker). He was doing “it” not long after his parents gave him that funny little plant. He was doing it in his room while my mother-in-law was at home, no less.

And the idea that his sister might be gettin’ it on with her committed, decent, hard-working boyfriend? Oh he HATED that. Guy was “too old for her”, too (two years older, for the record) and he regarded the whole situation with much furrowing of his monstrous eyebrows.

Now as I began to get to know my young sister-in-law (who is, incidentally, the same age as my oldest niece) I learned that she is a studious, hard-working girl who reminds me a lot of my own little sister (who is, incidentally, the same age as Mr. McSnide), but much more agreeable. Her boyfriend, who is now her fiance, was a good kid who worked (at the time) as a gravedigger. I like these kids! They are good kids, not jackass teens (even if young sis-in-law had her teenage girl moments of snottiness) and they seem to be genuinely in love with one another.

And apparently they aren’t doing the horizontal tango, but are waiting until they get married (in Fall of 2009).

Well. So they say. If they are or they aren’t is no concern of mine.

Even though this girl is 18 now and a full-time college student, if my in-laws thought she was doing the deed, their heads would probably explode.

My mother-in-law, within 10 minutes of meeting me for the first time, was traipsing around my house with a video camera, and popped her head into my bedroom and filmed the bed with the comment:

“And here’s Adam and Sally Anne’s bed, where they do the no-no”

(Oh yeah, that is his name, in case you didn’t know)

Of course, I was mortified for some reason, and laughed. It was weird.

But it illustrates the point I wanted to make with all of this rambling and parenthetical craziness, that I absolutely believe that there is a double-standard.

I plan to lock all my babies away in various attics/basements/closets during their teen years, regardless of gender. Everyone can be just like mommy, and wait until they are legal adults.

(I was 19 years old, if you’re nosy like that. And that means that I only just barely beat Lazybones onto the market. Not that I would have done it with him if we’d known each other at the time. He was WAY too young for me.)