Gender-Free Parenting

If you haven't heard, this Canadian couple has decided to keep the gender of their baby, Storm, a secret in order to free him or her from societal norms.
Check out this great MSN video: ‘Storm’ of controversy over gender-free parenting

Now, I get the concept and I understand the meaning behind this but, are they just being progressive for the sake of being progressive or what? Aside from the fact that their name choices (Storm's older siblings are named Jazz and Kio.) sound as if these two are more-suited for dog ownership than parenting, I feel their approach to beating societal norms may do more harm than good.

You want to teach your children that their gender does not define who they are and what they do? Great. I'm all for that. If your little boy wants to wear a dress or your daughter prefers football and trucks to dolls, so be it. Embrace and encourage this. But, we cannot ignore how our bodies are made. That's ridiculous. And would going through childhood "genderless" actually enable one to beat the stereotypes set in place by society once the child "chooses" its own gender? This is, after all, what this couple has planned for their kid. How is that any better than just saying, "We had a boy!" then allowing that boy child to be whoever or whatever he wants to be?

In order to break societal norms and change the world, we have to admit who and what we are and be proud. We have to face adversity head-on to prove to the world that we can. Black people do not have civil rights today because they once all pretended they were white.I don't shove tube socks or a sausage into the front of my pants when I go in to vote. (Easy.) We are people. All of us. If you're a closeted homosexual, get the hell out of there! There are people here who will welcome you with open arms and support you. We're fighting for you now. If you're a woman trying to make it in the corporate world, put on your damn fighting panties and get that shit done. And, if you're a man who prefers things typically classified as "ladies' stuff" then, great! You'll make a fantastic boyfriend. Who gives a shit what other people think.


Again, I understand the idea behind Kathy Witterick and David Stocker's decision, but how will they react if and when Storm grows up, chooses a gender, and disowns his/her parents for their kookiness? Bound to happen with at least one of their three offspring. Ignoring society's trivial expectations = good rebellion. Ignoring biology and anatomy= absurd.

Don't even get me started on what will happen if the kid decides its a boy then starts its period...

Just cook a thing, dammit.

So, from what I can tell, this woman is famous for writing a blog about falling in love with and cooking for a cowboy. Any person out there familiar with this so-called "Pioneer Woman" think I'm way off base?

Her name is Ree Drummond, and her blog states- "I channel Lucille Ball, Vivien Leigh, and Ethel Merman." Fantastic. Those were some cool ladies, I suppose. And apparently she does cooking segments on the Today Show, a morning program that I love to hate more than America loves to hate Charlie Sheen. She prepared some sort of flank steak with pasta that did not look the slightest bit healthy which means it is probably delicious. She has red hair which almost always wins me over when it comes to people.

Her gimmick is what kills me. Ree Drummond is famous for falling in love, as far as I can tell. Any cooking segment that is littered with the phrase, "The first time I cooked this for my husband..." kind of just makes me want to upchuck, which is the opposite of what you want. Okay, I get it. You like that dude. I just want to hear how long you cook this flank steak. If I try this at home, I don't need to know how terrible it was the first time you prepared it or how sweet you thought it was that your "cowboy" ate it anyway.


I have said it before, and I will say it again. No one else in the world is as excited about your love life as you may be. It just isn't going to happen. Not even your mother cares that much. Please, just cook the damn steak.

Give us news, not bullshit

Well, now you've done it, Today Show.


If you aren't spending the morning telling me what I shouldn't eat, you're telling me what I should be eating only to turn around a year later and tell me that very "healthy" thing I'd been working into my diet is now giving me every type of cancer known to man. In fact, it may have even invented two new forms of cancer in order to attack my body. Great. Your health segments! How they never cease to annoy me.

This lovely and frigid morning, I awoke to the dulcet tones of the "Eat This, Not That" guy. You know him. He wrote a set of books filled with sage advice such as: eat apples instead of ten packs of Oreos or some shit. He was chatting all about restaurant freebies and how that "little bread basket" on the table might be killing your diet. Since we are all so stupid that the Today Show took it upon themselves to give us this tidbit of info, let me dumb down my response to this: Uh...duh squared, buddy.

So what were these little restaurant freebies being ripped apart for their fat and sodium content? Really, [insert sarcasm here] shocking and surprising items like Red Lobster's delicious cheese biscuits, some Ruby Tuesday's-esque establishment's fantastical Bottomless French Fries, and Endless Pancakes from Denny's. Wow. Really? The only selections that could have possibly, maybe shocked viewers were the chips and salsa and soup and bread sticks from Olive Garden, but even that's a stretch. Why? Because this is America and, as a general rule, dining out in our country is just not healthy.

Today Show, I mean this with all due respect, please shut up. These segments are bogus and as filling as a basket full of free bread. No one watching this is learning a damn thing, because your audience is not comprised of five-year-old children. Adults are watching, and any grown ass person who thinks they'll be going to Denny's for a healthy meal needs to be slapped. They also need their citizenship and right to vote taken away, because their idiocy makes their ability to function in modern society a bit questionable. It isn't the knowledge of caloric content that we need as a country. We have the understanding. What we need is to care. And we don't. We don't care about fighting with one another, we don't care about killing one another, we don't care that we regularly discriminate against our own citizens because of their love interests, their color, or their religion. And we certainly don't care that we have made ourselves physically unhealthy by eating copious amounts of delicious, buttery, fluffy pancakes.

Find a missing child, please.

I am currently disgusted by "formerly"s

The Today Show... Why do I bother?

This morning, Meredith interviewed Stephanie Dolgoff, author of the book "My Formerly Hot Life." One day, Dolgoff awoke to find she was no longer a spring chicken but she also wasn't an old bat, so she was confused, poor thing. She could have left her husband and family and gone on some pretentious, soul-searching adventure through a foreign land, but someone already wrote that book, and now Julia Roberts is portraying the author in the film. Old. Hat.

What could she do but start another movement of epically, nonsensical proportions? She decided she was no longer a "young, hot girl" she was... "a formerly." Apparently, this is something women who are hitting their 40's are realizing, and they're all pouncing on Dolgoff's book like those shiny, green flies you see swarming around dead things or a pile of shit. Which is appropriate, because that's what all of this is... a pile of festering bullshit.

I am sick of women bitching about being women. Yes, sometimes we are discriminated against because of our tits, and that is upsetting. We can also rule the world with those things because, as a general rule, straight men are kind of dumb and entranced by them, and we should use that shit to our advantage. (And I'm not talking about whoring it up. Though, if that's your thing, go right ahead.)

Stephanie Dolgoff irritated me several times throughout the interview. "...when I became a formerly..." That is not a thing, Dolgoff!! You can't invent a term and then become that thing. What gives you the authority? You're just a chick whose boobs rest a bit lower! You're still a pretty lady. Get over yourself. She pissed me off the most when the following happened:

Meredith: You became, what you called "an adult tween" and it happened while you were riding on the subway. What happened?

Adult tween? You've already lost me, but I'm too busy getting dressed for work to change the station

Stephanie: Well I met my husband on the subway and back then I was considered, you know, pretty hot and flirting on the subway was a standard...

Are you kidding me with this? But wait... there's more

Stephanie:...And um, a guy said, "Excuse me, what time is it?" And I was like [insert eye roll here], "Ugh... here we go again..." And he just really wanted to know what time it was.

Meredith: He wasn't trying to pick you up.

I'm vocal now

Me: Seriously?

Stephanie: Not in any way, shape, or form. There was a series of signs, but that was one of them.

Me: Oh, please. Shut. The fuck. Up.

Yeah, there's a stigma attached to women aging and their sexuality but, according to Dolgoff, it's something that "no one was talking about." Really? Because I think it was called Sex and the City, and I'm pretty sure it also sucked. As a woman myself, I don't think I want to take advice from a former conceited bitch who woke up one day and realized gravity happens. I am somewhat confident, somewhat quirky and weird. I was that way before I started menstruation and I will be that way when I am perimenopausal. I do not need pretentious housewives with too much time on their hands telling me how to live my life as a woman by writing books. Unless I undergo surgery, I have no choice but to live my life as a woman, because I was born with these parts.

Stephanie Dolgoff and women like her act as if there's a day you wake and realize you have T&A, soft skin, better fashion choices and, therefore, this makes you different and you should automatically fight for equality for your own kind. I'm all for fighting for that, but if you aren't being directly oppressed at the time, then what the hell are you bitching about? Rights to equal pay = an important issue. Not getting hit on by strangers on the train once you've hit 40= not an issue. You have a husband. Go drink some fucking wine and stop being such a baby. Or, if standing up for human rights is your thing, why not speak on someone's behalf? Perhaps it could be for a person (or group of persons)currently dealing with a legitimate issue.

P.S. I act every now and then and would love to be in the film version of your book, Stephanie. But, I don't have excessive amounts of underarm flap yet, so we may need to put that off for another decade or two. Think about it. Get back to me. I love a good parody.

A week's worth of TV

I've been lying around all week learning how to be a human again...as you do when you get the sickness. That means a ton of television. Bad, bad television. Most of it was old episodes of "Roseanne" but I had to find something else to watch when the Conners weren't around to keep me happy.

Here's some shit I heard this week:

HER: We chose TJ Maxx for our destination wedding. I love the store. Every time I walk into the store I might run into my mom, or my aunt, and, well, he knows how important the store is to me.

HIM: Every time we go anywhere...

HER: Hotel has to be within five miles of a TJ Maxx...I'll be walking down the shoe aisle. It's going to be really tempting not to stop for shoes, but...he's better. He's better than a pair of shoes.
- from The Today Show theme wedding segment




"I'm getting ready to go out...with Anthony. I always looked at him strictly as a friend. And then, every time we hung out, we would just always kiss. Ya know? And it was just like...I don't get it. What are we? Friends that kiss? It wasn't until very, very recently that the wheels of my mind...started to turn and it kinda clicked that... I may have feelings for him." - Angela from True Life: I'm a Staten Island Girl

Wow. Amazing. (This title is sarcastic.)

The Today Show will never cease pushing my buttons. I guess that's why I love to hate it so.

This morning they featured a woman who has lost 100 pounds. No easy feat! I don't recall the woman's name or how long it took her to lose the weight, and I'm too lazy to go to Today's website to check it out myself. But they asked all the important questions when interviewing a weight loss...victim? Recipient? I don't know...insert proper word and continue...

"How on earth did you do it?"

This nameless woman started by cutting out the SIX SODAS she was drinking per day. She then moved on to eliminate the TWO JELLY DOUGHNUTS she ate for breakfast each morning. Oh, and then she exercised. Really? Jelly Doughnuts? Out of the vast array of fried, sugary goodness, jelly doughnuts don't even come close to the top of the list! That's not an opinion, that's just a fact. Look it up! If you're going to screw up, do it right!

Ah. Another success story from a follower of the No Shit Diet.

Are you kidding me, 'Today'?

Some wise guy at "The Today Show" has decided it'd be a swell idea to use Jenna Bush Hager as a correspondent, and we're all suffering because of it.

I hate "Today" as much as the next person, yet I can't stop watching, because I love their antics. But this just takes the cake. Bush Hager is the worst choice for this job ever. Period. End of sentence. And then here comes another one. A conservative three toed sloth with buck teeth and a lateral lisp would be more interesting to listen to, in my opinion. Actually, that's a terrible example, because that'd be amazing as hell.

But seriously! Have you heard her speak? Or, wait, not "speak,"...monotone her way through a story? I highly recommend checking it out so that you can be as charmingly pissed as I.

I do have a theory, though. I think this is old Bushy's way of still fighting the "terr-rists." I imagine a group of d-bags sitting around with some bombs thinking the US is due for some more pain, but then catching a segment of Jenna's on "Today" and saying,

"Oh. So they're into torturing themselves now? Eh. Nevermind."


And that, my friends, is looking on the bright side of things.

Some Guys Have All the Luck

Look at this little SOB.

I'm ecstatic for someone acheiving their dreams and goals, nine times out of ten. But this situation has kind of pissed me off. Here's why:

In case you don't know what this kid is all about, he's 13, youngest to reach the top of Mt. Everest and wants to reach the top of all the world's highest peaks. His
first appearance on the Today Show left me interested. I thought, "Hey, great for him!" Then I went on about my day.

This morning, he was interviewed. Someone stated that, when he was 9, he saw a poster of the world's highest peaks in his elementary school and said, "I want to do that." That really got me thinking--- How much money has it cost to get this kid around the world to do this? I'm all for accomplishments, but it is a bit unfair that spoiled rich kids are more likely to realize their dreams simply because their parents had the means to put them in all the right places. Show me a hobo who has done what this kid has done, and then I'll throw an effing parade!

Also, Matt Lauer asked, "What advice would you give to parents who are watching who have kids that want to attempt what you've done?"
His response? Don't do it. It was hard and dangerous.

Sounds like someone wants all the glory. Suddenly he's the He-Man of mountain peaks and he refuses to let anyone step up to his level. Selfish and spoiled on so many levels. I'm now only 1/3 impressed.

What a 13 year old jag!


(Just for the record, I'm only half kidding by posting this)

Bad Choices in Pop Culture, Vol. 1

The Today Show thought it'd be fun to show some amazing photos of the Icelandic volcano that's been getting recent buzz. Though, during their photo montage, they chose to play "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" by R.E.M.

Bad choice. Was this a joke? A failed attempt at being light hearted, Today.