I just celebrated my 55th birthday and yes, I am indeed turning into a weepy man who can’t wear a belt. This is all part of what the Catholic nuns used to call “the miracle” of being a woman. The first “miracle” started when I was eleven years old and I remember thinking: “Are you kidding me? I’m going to BLEED every month?” To all the good-hearted (and sometimes really mean) fundamentalists who preach the notion of “creationism” and “Intelligent Design” as code for “God made the world and everything in it, in seven days no less” – I have a few words for you including: menopause, periods, mosquitoes, prairie dogs, and gruesome diseases.
Gilda Radner, the queen of Saturday Night Live in the 70s, created a character named Roseanne Roseannadanna who was a loud, ignorant, opinionated and somehow loveable mensch who would come on “Weekend Update” news show and rant like this:
“What’s all this I hear about endangered feces?” Her hair stuck out horizontally and she spit a little bit, “From what I can tell, there’s feces all over the place!”
And she’s right. There’s feces all over the place. There are also so many useless life forms I’ve lost count. Whenever I ask somebody about why bats exist they say “To eat mosquitoes.” OK, I’ll bite. So why do mosquitoes exist? “To infect innocent kids with malaria,” they’ll say, “So thank God for the bats.”
Intelligent design my ass. Whoever put this whole planet together and stuck us into these ridiculous earthsuits ought to be shot. Not only are we zipped inside skin which holds together a bunch of gross organs doing “remarkable” gross things but we’re surrounded by cute but useless organisms like badgers, prairie dogs, and Sarah Palin. And every one of these damn things, except Sarah, is on the endangered feces list.
Like a badger, Sarah is cute and guys across the board love her because she’s, well, so “fuckable.” Cowboy Bob once explained that “there’s two kinds of women in this world: the ones you would (have sex with) and the others.” Wow, how’s that for depth? Yet I married the guy – he married me – I guess because I’m in that first category. What I love most about Cowboy Bob is that he actually says things that most men have the smarts to censor. Like yesterday, he asked me if I thought I had Tourette’s Syndrome (an interesting brain disease that involves random barking and cursing). He thought I was asking too many questions. Now, most regular guys would think such a thing or at least say it quietly but there was Bob, while having lunch with me by the river, just being his uncensored self.
Back to Sarah and Intelligent Design, which she promotes. Do you remember in 2008 when she was nominated for Vice President and the whole Republican National Convention erupted in mighty cheers for this woman? All those old, rich white guys suddenly became feminists! It was a miracle. Thank ya Jesus. Sarah believes the world was created about 10,000 years ago and dinosaurs and people shared the earth at some point. The Republicans wanted to give this woman access to the Red Phone. Now you tell me about Intelligent Design. Listen, the Dems are not much better. A post mortem on any one of these guys from either side of the aisle would likely show a great deal of air space.
A gnat flies up my nose as I write this, and I’m sure there’s an ecological reason for his existence, along with those huge wormy parasites that get inside your skin and guts when you visit very hot places with jungles. I won’t ever go south of Arizona, which has its own brand of menaces in scorpions, snakes, and Harry Reid. See? The whole species/feces thing kind of runs together after awhile but what’s amazing is that despite these scourges inflicted on us by nature and our bodies, we get up every day – often rejoicing – and do it again. Walk the earthsuit to the bathroom, (always a pleasure), feed ourselves, engage in conversation, look at the sun, breathe in the big sky, go to work, laugh plenty, and eventually tuck the whole thing back into bed.
I went to a fabulous class at Upaya called “Zen Brain” where a panel of neuroscientists explained about the new research that shows how plastic our brains are, how much we can change and grow and be happy and make things right. Their science suggests that we are robust, resilient creatures who are much more inclined to compassion than rage – believe it or not – and if rage is our “go to” we can train otherwise. We have come along way from the knuckle-dragging Cro Mags (well, most of us have) who lived on “fight or flight” but even those cave dwellers felt love for their babies and each other. That’s hopeful, right? So in the midst of grousing about bats and menstruation I wake up to remember that it’s gross but kind of fun being human; that I know what it feels like to hurt badly and I know we heal and recover. It’s our specialty. And no, I don’t have Tourette’s, Cowboy Bob, though if anyone can make me bark and curse, it’s you honey.
Gilda Radner, the queen of Saturday Night Live in the 70s, created a character named Roseanne Roseannadanna who was a loud, ignorant, opinionated and somehow loveable mensch who would come on “Weekend Update” news show and rant like this:
“What’s all this I hear about endangered feces?” Her hair stuck out horizontally and she spit a little bit, “From what I can tell, there’s feces all over the place!”
And she’s right. There’s feces all over the place. There are also so many useless life forms I’ve lost count. Whenever I ask somebody about why bats exist they say “To eat mosquitoes.” OK, I’ll bite. So why do mosquitoes exist? “To infect innocent kids with malaria,” they’ll say, “So thank God for the bats.”
Intelligent design my ass. Whoever put this whole planet together and stuck us into these ridiculous earthsuits ought to be shot. Not only are we zipped inside skin which holds together a bunch of gross organs doing “remarkable” gross things but we’re surrounded by cute but useless organisms like badgers, prairie dogs, and Sarah Palin. And every one of these damn things, except Sarah, is on the endangered feces list.
Like a badger, Sarah is cute and guys across the board love her because she’s, well, so “fuckable.” Cowboy Bob once explained that “there’s two kinds of women in this world: the ones you would (have sex with) and the others.” Wow, how’s that for depth? Yet I married the guy – he married me – I guess because I’m in that first category. What I love most about Cowboy Bob is that he actually says things that most men have the smarts to censor. Like yesterday, he asked me if I thought I had Tourette’s Syndrome (an interesting brain disease that involves random barking and cursing). He thought I was asking too many questions. Now, most regular guys would think such a thing or at least say it quietly but there was Bob, while having lunch with me by the river, just being his uncensored self.
Back to Sarah and Intelligent Design, which she promotes. Do you remember in 2008 when she was nominated for Vice President and the whole Republican National Convention erupted in mighty cheers for this woman? All those old, rich white guys suddenly became feminists! It was a miracle. Thank ya Jesus. Sarah believes the world was created about 10,000 years ago and dinosaurs and people shared the earth at some point. The Republicans wanted to give this woman access to the Red Phone. Now you tell me about Intelligent Design. Listen, the Dems are not much better. A post mortem on any one of these guys from either side of the aisle would likely show a great deal of air space.
A gnat flies up my nose as I write this, and I’m sure there’s an ecological reason for his existence, along with those huge wormy parasites that get inside your skin and guts when you visit very hot places with jungles. I won’t ever go south of Arizona, which has its own brand of menaces in scorpions, snakes, and Harry Reid. See? The whole species/feces thing kind of runs together after awhile but what’s amazing is that despite these scourges inflicted on us by nature and our bodies, we get up every day – often rejoicing – and do it again. Walk the earthsuit to the bathroom, (always a pleasure), feed ourselves, engage in conversation, look at the sun, breathe in the big sky, go to work, laugh plenty, and eventually tuck the whole thing back into bed.
I went to a fabulous class at Upaya called “Zen Brain” where a panel of neuroscientists explained about the new research that shows how plastic our brains are, how much we can change and grow and be happy and make things right. Their science suggests that we are robust, resilient creatures who are much more inclined to compassion than rage – believe it or not – and if rage is our “go to” we can train otherwise. We have come along way from the knuckle-dragging Cro Mags (well, most of us have) who lived on “fight or flight” but even those cave dwellers felt love for their babies and each other. That’s hopeful, right? So in the midst of grousing about bats and menstruation I wake up to remember that it’s gross but kind of fun being human; that I know what it feels like to hurt badly and I know we heal and recover. It’s our specialty. And no, I don’t have Tourette’s, Cowboy Bob, though if anyone can make me bark and curse, it’s you honey.
1 comments:
So, is it safe to presume that you are not the first woman on the Sarah Palin bandwagon? Great blog Phyl!!!
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