Weighty issues.

A couple of days ago, a woman came into our office to interview. She saw me and said, "You probably don't remember me, because last time you saw me, I was pregnant." I said that, yes, I did remember her. At that same time, the guy in the office who was interviewing her walked out, catching the end of the exchange. He said, "Man, I will never ask a woman if she's pregnant again. I was wrong once and it was so embarrassing." To that, the woman interviewing looked at me and said, "I thought you were! Last time I saw you, you were so tiny and now you have a tummy!". She thought, by his comment, that I was pregnant. "No", I said, "I'm not. Just 10 pounds heavier than I was last year." I'll have to admit that exchange ruined my day. I didn't want it to effect me. Really, it's just a stupid, yet honest, mistake made by a rather dim-witted young woman, who has clearly not yet faced the general metabolic slow-down. But it hurt my feelings and caused me to wonder if I did in fact look pregnant. Uuugghh.

I'm sad that women have to feel bad about their bodies if we're 10 pounds heavier than....what's the standard now....a size 6. I was a size 6 just a few short years ago. Now I'm a 10-12. I usually feel fine about it. I think I look more curvy and voluptuous, two things I always wanted to be when I was a stick-skinny teenager. Even in my 20's and part of my 30's, I wished to be more full-figured. I loved the bodies of the pin-up girls from the 1940's and 50's, big round breasts and hips. I think men (men who like "real" women and not Barbies) like fuller figures. But even if they didn't, I'd still like em. I'd still prefer a round booty to a bony booty any day. I don't' fret about it, but it makes me sad that women my age collectively fret about their weight and that as a culture, we don't consider the rounder body of the middle-aged woman sexy, or sexually viable, or healthy looking, or professional, or good.

Yesterday, the President chose Regina Benjamin, a rounder black woman, to be the next Surgeon General. Immediately there are blog comments about her weight and her body type being a bad example for the nations women and children, in an age where obesity is a real problem for national health. Seriously? We're that shallow? Despite this woman's volume of qualifications for this appointment, we have to point out that she's fat? Please. If she looked like Sarah Palin, maybe we'd feel better about her. I'm personally pleased that she looks like a "real" woman, that she has the same body type as "most" women, especially in her age category. Can we just get over it, please?

Certainly Bruno couldn't be bad for Everyone?

Guuuuuuhh. Would Sarah Palin please just leave. Just go. Just take your ticky-tacky, pseudo-leadershipness and go away. Who didn't know that she was completely unqualified for the job of Vice President and probably governorship? Who can't see right through the Republican machine agenda of putting her in that position in the first place? God. If I can see through it, who can't? But apparently we're just going to keep generating news stories about her until her book is published, then keep her in the news by talking about her book, until the next election. I'm sure it's all just part of the larger plan set in motion by the bots, that we, the thinking organisms, are unable to detect because of their clever mind tricks of confusion. It's exhausting to listen to.

OK. Important business is at hand. Is "Bruno" bad for the gays? Well, Bruno is the new Movie, created and starring improv genius, Sache Baron Cohen. In this Movie, Cohen plays a fictional and fruity, aggressively sexual, potty-mouthed, Austrian, clothing whore, who just happens to be gay. And in keeping with style of improvising with the every-man that he pioneered in past projects (Ali G and Borat), he actively seeks out opportunities to exploit the foolishness of bigots, haters, thumpers, and the small-minded from all economic strata. A true equal-opportunity offender. I have not seen it yet and have only heard of it and watched the trailer on the tubes, but from all of the froth and feather-ruffling going on regarding the movie's debut, I am getting that the press doth protest too much.

This is fiction, people. I know that it's hard in this day and age to tell the difference sometimes, when we have characters thrust into leadership roles and touted as "real". But in this case, in this Movie "Bruno", we can rest assured that we are not being duped. This is a "real fictional" character, whose words and actions are fabrications of a creative nature, for the pure effect of entertainment. It's supposed to be offensive. It's supposed to be hard to watch (hard in that you'll probably want to claw your eyes out half way through it, because you'll be so embarrassed to be in the same species as some of the poor homosapiens who fall his victim), it's supposed to blush and make you laugh. It's not touted as a documentary or an educational film about the nature of homosexuality. It's about the preying of a fictional character on the unsuspecting public. I'm sure it's painful, but I can almost promise that I'm going to laugh my way through it. Borat made me pee my pants and wince with shame, equally.

Bad for the gays....let's ponder that for a moment, shall we. What kind of movie could be bad for an entire group of people? How could it? "Bad" for? I take this question to mean, does this movie show an unfair and stereotypically negative image of mannerisms and affectations of gay men? Even though I haven't seen it, I can almost certainly guarantee that, yes, it does. And would that representation have the unfortunate side-effect of swaying the average pin head to believe that all gay men behave that way or that gay men agree with or are complicit with those behaviors? It's conceivable that some pin heads that already believe that will have their fantasies confirmed, but other pin heads will feel the mirror of irony being held up to their mouth-breathing little faces and will wince with the pain of recognition. I find it unlikely that Bruno will recruit new haters of the gay, due to his fruitiness. Haters already hate. I also find it unlikely that Bruno will be viewed as scathing commentary on this age of civil discourse on the rights of gay citizens. Non-haters already non-hate. I think that we'll see exactly what we expect to see. Some will chuckle gleefully at fagginess, some will storm out in righteous indignation, others will watch and wince, like me.

I hate to see that newsy blogs like Salon are making Bruno their feature story today. Who gives a shit, Salon? It's a fucking movie. But I get that people are so paranoid about hate right now. Gay citizens have really had a rough time of it lately and we're all kind of wishing things would just chill out, that we could jump ahead two years and see full marriage, military and benefit rights for ALL CITIZENS, and that the focus could turn to more pressing and potent issues in the world. But we're Americans and Americans love a good soap opera and we love to get on a righteous band-wagon when we can because we've been beat up so badly in the world view as being haters of everything except Disney. We could all use a break, but especially our gay friends. So let's go escape to the movies this weekend! And if we really want to put our brains on autopilot and engage in a little schadenfreude, let's go see Bruno!!!

So much weird and vexing news over the Independence Day weekend! First and foremost, Sarah Palin, wacky and intellectually challenged Governor of Alaska, resigned on Friday. Then there was a bunch of horrible rioting in China and stuff, but let's talk about Palin. What is going on here? From every account on the internet, the only thing that I can assume from her incredibly swift weekend departure is that there's some kind of trouble brewing somewhere, and she's getting out while the getting is good. The pit bull in lipstick decides to retire to care for her family? That sounds strangely unlikely. Life in public service and politics is not very conducive to raising small children...certainly she knew this and this can't be the first time a mother in office faced the very hard juggling act of family and post. Maverick individualist leaves office to pursue even greater opportunity in national politics? Sure, plausible. But quitting your day job in hopes of stardom doesn't really speak much to responsible decision making, and says even less about commitment to obligations, and says even less about being tough enough to see your term through to the (bitter) end.

Even weirder than her speedy departure was the interview her spokesperson gave to Anderson Cooper, where she talked that crazy "Palin speak" to tried and describe how the governor was leading by dropping out to accomplish her personal and political goals (????) and how the governor was weighing many offers for her future (???). I'm telling you, you have to be able to detach yourself completely from your intellect to understand the logic of Palin-speak. When Palin or her people start talking, you have to be ready to go into a murky trance, where anything you've ever known or believed about logic and transparency just don't apply. You may drool a little, your brow may furrow, your gaze will fix on some far away dream of a place where words actually mean what they mean and not the opposite of what they mean.

Here's one hazy-dazy statement, "I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint," Sure...all things that Republicans like. Sounds almost reasonable taken line by line, even though I'm not sure who the "we" is that she refers to, but then she goes on, "How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country. And though it's honourable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term ... for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make." OK, now we've left the path of reason for Crazy Town. In Crazy Town, words have meaning of rubber-like flexibility and imaginary scenarios are recalled as historical facts. It's fascinating. "Countless others"? I'm pretty sure we could count the others, there have been so few. "Higher calling"? What, pray tell, could this be? I'm sure it will be revealed and it will be awesome, but it does beg the question in this elusive statement. Honestly, I think the only reason she needs to care what "Washington" thinks of her actions is because anyone left there with an ounce of support for her, will now commence distancing themselves the way that people on a bus distance themselves from the unfortunate souls who pee their pants in public.

I'll tell you what makes me really, incredibly nervous, to the point where I stay awake at 2:00 in the morning plotting my escape from the Death Star: It's the certainty that she actually has an active political fan base. I'm not really threatened by the thought of thousands of military housewives and Bible belt matrons who love her for her folksy cookiness, sassiness, and fecundity. I'm terrified that there is a growing base of GOP good ole boys, oil and chemical power bots, ferocious right-wing spin doctors, homophobic, xenophobic, oppressors of the free press and white men in very influential positions who see her float to the top as an opportunity to again control this country through the same magic and puppetry they enjoyed during the Bush Jr. years. Although, let's be strait, a Palin-lead country would far outflash the Bush years in craziness. That's what scares the bejeezus out of me.

I had a horrifying dream Saturday night that she actually became the President and life as we know it began to crumble.