Bombastic 'Mo

Master Cleanse: Day 1

Seeing as I have no 9 to 5 requirements, I decided I’d give the Master Cleanse a try.  I was a bit nervous, as apparently part of the process involves A LOT of defecation.  Like, invest in a book and a bunch of extra toilet paper “a lot”.

But I’ve had more than a few friends do the process, and despite their complaints, they seemed to be really glad they made it through the cleanse.

While my initial goal is to make it ten days, my willpower has always been rather bipolar so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that I’ll cut it far shorter.

Today being the first day, I cheated and didn’t start until about 4 PM.  I decided that I just had to have one last cup of coffee before I started the quasi-fast, and I wanted to make sure I was home (instead of in Olympia) to ensure I didn’t get myself in a bit of trouble while making the 70 minute drive North.

I stopped by Safeway and picked up 5 organic lemons ($1.29 a piece, there may be a better season to try this), two boxes of tea (Smooth Move for the digestion and Throat Coat just cause I like the taste), a container of cayenne and a lime to mix things up.  I started up a small conversation with the checker as she scanned my items, assuming she would guess what I was planning.  She picked up on it pretty quickly, thank you Beyonce.

I’m actually very surprised with how amazing the lemon mix tastes.  I used the following ingredients and proportions:

• 1 whole Lemon, juiced.  (On a side note, I’m not sure I’ve ever juiced a fruit before in my life.)
• 2 tablespoons of Grade B Maple Syrup
• 10 oz of water
• A dash of cayenne pepper.

The Grade B Maple Syrup has a wonderful flavor (I’ve never appreciated the normal stuff we put on pancakes) and the cayenne and lemon go together wonderfully.  My nose is tingling from the spice, but after drinking about 2/3 of my glass, I’m already feeling pleasantly full.

Tomorrow I’ll do the first Saline Cleanse.  We’ll see if I’m still so happy then.

That’s not a fucking Privilege

I’m still editing the earlier story, and listening to the Senate hearing.

I just had to spit out.

No one has the privilege to make sure that no one else has privileges.  You do not have the right to know that people you don’t like don’t have rights.

Crazy old lady just gave us a Sex Ed talk about Adam and Eve and men and women coming together physically.

Ah!

Live from Oly: Domestic Partnership Hearings

The atmosphere was tense, the temperature hot, and the crowd an uneven mix of vitriol and hope at today’s House Bill 1727 public hearing.  Openly gay Representative Jamie Pedersen introduced the bill, which will provide all of the benefits of marriage to Washington State’s domestic partners.“[I know] there are strong feelings on this bill,” Pedersen said to the crowd in a plea for civility.  “But we are not going to tolerate disrespect.  I understand that there has been some name-calling and pushing out in the halls.  We are not going to tolerate that in here and neither will security.”

Constituents against the bill outnumbered those for the bill nearly 3 to 1.  Wearing white “Vote No! on 1727 and 5688” stickers and matching pins featuring the silhouette of a man and a woman, the members of the crowd cheered, applauded, and yelled amen while their side spoke, despite repeated requests from legislators to be silent.

“We can’t have outbreaks like that if we are to have people coming up to testify,” Pedersen told the crowd.  “It’s against the rules.”

The crowd booed.  Many of the people against the bill were children who looked to have been pulled out of middle school to attend the hearing.  Pubescent youth leaned against walls, their “Vote No” stickers oversized on their small, acne-riddled forms.  Many seemed disinterested and bored.  A mother sitting next to me scolded her son for putting his “Marriage is between a Man and a Woman” pin in his mouth.

Those for the bill sat in front of the angry crowd and told personal stories about their families.  Pairs of mothers introduced their children, and a gay firefighter spoke of his fear of dying on the job and being unable to leave anything to his partner of 13 years.

The opposition to the bill spoke just as passionately, although their arguments seldom were about the bill itself.  Pastors, church groups, and concerned citizens from Eastern Washington threatened the collapse of the public school system, the dissolution of the economy due to rising gay health care costs, and burning in Hell.

Pedersen sat quietly during much of the testimony; his hands clasped across his mouth as he listened to women talk of their experience “working with the ex-gay” community.  Repeatedly, he and other Representatives would interrupt to remind those against the bill that this was not a Gay Marriage bill, nor a chance to preach about the Bible.

“I’m sorry,” Pedersen would repeat.  “I really wish that you could speak to the bill.”

I actually couldn’t finish

And I consider myself pretty callous.

But The Stranger’s feature on the Pedophiles of Alaska actually outlasted me.  I couldn’t get to the end of it.

Read on if you dare.  It’s heavy.

Last 8 years: Remixed

Sorry, I know I’ve taken to posting silly audio snippets, but sometimes I can’t help myself.  These kids are so entertaining.

Emergency: Domestic Partnerships a danger to “Public Peace, Health or Safety”

The gays have had their fun, and after two years of state-sponsored domestic partnership, it’s time to preserve “public peace, health, or safety, or support of the state government and its existing public institutions”.

So says house bill 1980, the brainchild of Representative Jim McCune R-2,  whose district I couldn’t find on a map.

Co-sponsored by like-minded Republicans Shea, Crouse, Schmick, Cox, and Roach, the bill is “AN ACT Relating to reaffirming and protecting the institution and benefits of marriage as a union between a man and a woman”.  In doing so, the legislation would revoke all domestic partnership benefits to already registered same-sex couples in Washington, as well as denying any future benefits that could be granted to the gays of the future.

Citing “serious concern” over the recent California Supreme Court “imposition” that ruled domestic partnerships were unequal to marriage and violated the state’s constitution, the representatives have decided they should nip all problems in the bud by declaring domestic partnerships illegal.

The good news, there is only six Republicans signed on to the bill.  In contrast, house bill 1727 (which expands all rights of marriage to domestic partners) has support from Representatives Pedersen, Walsh, Moeller, Johnson, Carlyle, Quall, Sullivan, Maxwell, Roberts, Chase, Upthegrove, White, Conway, Nelson, Cody, Hudgins, Morris, Eddy, Liias, Kagi, Ormsby, Rolfes, Clibborn, Dunshee, Pettigrew, Springer, Hunter, Williams, Blake, Darneille, Goodman, Dickerson, Hasegawa, Linville, Kenney, Appleton, Van De Wege, Kessler, Santos, Sells, O’Brien, Ericks, Wallace, McCoy, Kirby, Haigh, Takko, Hurst, Seaquist, Wood, Flannigan, Orwall, Jacks, Finn, Hunt, Simpson, and Driscol.

From Lemons to Lemonade

For those of you who were heartbroken to learn that Christian Bale is actually a total dick, here’s a refreshing new take:

Lesbians Arrested after Kissing in Mall

Maybe this is why they grow up to be separatists in the woods.

Two girls were arrested after an altercation that stemmed from a security guard catching them kissing in a San Antonio mall.  After the guard told the girls their kissing was innapropriate for the mall setting, they were evicted from the mall and subsequently arrested for re-entering to fast track it to their car.

A spokesman for the mall holds that the mall has an anti-kissing policy on the books that they apply to all couples, regardless of their orientation.

One girl was charged with trespassing, and the other was charged with trespassing, resisting arrest and assaulting a peace officer.

Full story care of Texas based chron.com.

America’s Amazons: Lesbian Separatist Communities Dying of Attrition

The New York Times has a great article on one of the remaining Lesbian Separatist communities still in existence, although their ranks are dwindling.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/fashion/01womyn.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1

As a child raised by lesbians, I was aware of the contentious debate between lesbians of the time as to what place men could have in their lives.  Although I had my supportive pack of lesbians dubbed “the Moms group”, there were definitely times when I felt estranged due to my genitals.

But I had no idea that there were actually communities of lesbians living together, man-free, in the woods.

“THEY called it a lesbian paradise, the pioneering women who made their way to St. Augustine, Fla., in the 1970s to live together in cottages on the beach. Finding one another in the fever of the gay rights and women’s liberation movements, they built a matriarchal community, where no men were allowed, where even a male infant brought by visitors was cause for debate.”

“BEHIND the gate at Alapine, about five miles from the nearest town in the southern Appalachian mountains near Georgia, the women live in simple houses or double-wide trailers on roads they have named after goddesses, like Diana Drive. They meet for potluck dinners, movie and game nights and ‘community full moon circles’ during which they sing, read poems and share thoughts on topics like ‘Mercury in retrograde — how is it affecting our communication?’”

“There is strident debate within and across the womyn’s lands about who should be allowed to join. Many residents subscribe to strict lesbian separatism, meaning that men are permitted only as temporary visitors and that straight, bisexual and transsexual women are also excluded.”

The article also has a great audio slide containing interviews with the womyn, and describes the difficulties they are going through attempting to recruit younger women into their ranks.

Word of the Day: Defalcate

The US Government has defalcated more than anyone could imagine.

Craigslist Cover Letter: Volume 1

In response to another vague offer in the Writing and Editing Section of Craigslist, I sent the following snippet.  Pretty please?

Hi, I saw your craigslist ad and wanted to throw my hat in the ring.  I’m an avid writer, and super-unemployed during this recession.  Please find my attached resume, references, and writing samples.

Rather than provide a cover letter, since it’s kind of unclear from your post what I’d be describing, I just wanted to shoot out an e-mail begging for your attention.  Hire me.  I just unlocked the last Xbox Live Achievement in Fallout 3, so I have NOTHING to do each day.  Would love to write for your company.

Thanks,
Devin Glaser.

The Unemployed

For those of you who haven’t been following my descent into madness, I’ve been unemployed since 11/20/08.   I quit, and I’m still damn happy about the decision.  I just kinda wish it was 1990.  Or 2000.  Or optimistically 2010.

So now that I find my place among the packs of people trying to find work during the biggest recession my 25-year-old brain can remember,  I’m trying to dream up bigger and better ways to get noticed by job recruiters.  I applied for a News Editor position for a local website about a month back, and they received 3,000 other applicants.  My resumes and cover letters seem to be going unread.

The other day, my two favorite muses, a friend named Gary and a Heineken mini-keg delivered unto me the idea that I should document this tumultuous moment.

So with that in mind, I give to you a new category:  Unemployment.  Watch my voyage into bankruptcy and hunger from the very front row!

Thanks Bear!

Domestic Partnerships >= Marriage?

Well, just equal.  But you get rid of all that crazy religious guilt and saving yourself for marriage.  And you still get to have the party!

Right now the Domestic Partnerships we have in Washington are a start, but they provide a small fraction of the benefits that true marriage provides.

HB 1727 intends to change that.  The 110 page bill will provide all rights that marriage provides to state-sponsored Domestic Partnerships.  The bill is accompanied by Senate Bill 5688, which would do the same thing.

The bill digest reads:

“Declares that for all purposes under state law, state registered domestic partners shall be treated the same as married spouses. Any privilege, immunity, right, benefit, or responsibility granted or imposed by statute, administrative or court rule, policy, common law or any other law to an individual because the individual is or was a spouse, or because the individual is or was an in-law in a specified way to another individual, is granted on equivalent terms, substantive and procedural, to an individual because the individual is or was in a state registered domestic partnership or because the individual is or was, based on a state registered domestic partnership, related in a specified way to another individual.  Provides that the act shall be liberally construed to achieve equal treatment, to the extent not in conflict with federal law, of state registered domestic partners and married spouses.”

Anyone wishing to either listen in on the hearing, or give testimony should attend the public hearing Thursday, February 5th at 10 AM (the house bill) or 3:30 PM (senate version) in Olympia, Washington.

Does Watching TV increase depression? Reading blogs?

The Seattle’s PI has an interesting article up regarding the correlation between watching TV and playing too many video games and a potential link to increased risks of depression later in life.

Which is interesting, but if anything was depressing me this morning, it was the PI’s 911 Blog.

 Man Shot, Dies in West Seattle Shooting Last Night.

Three-Year-Old Child Dies in Car Accident & Other Fatalities.

Three teens assault Lake City Man for his iPod.

Police still trying to find suspect of Greenwood Armed Robbery.

Shit, I’m afraid to leave my house.  Guess I’ll just sit at home in the dark playing Fallout 3 and listening to musicals.

Maybe I’ll start watching football afterall

I skipped this year’s Superbowl, as I’ve never been one to take an interest in watching sports. Or eating nacho dip and drinking Bud Light.

But apparently this year I missed out.  Viewers in Tucson, Arizona were given a brief intermission from the normal ball-play shortly after “Larry Fitzgerald’s heroic comeback(ish) touchdown for the Cardinals” (reports i.gizmodo… I’m not even going to try to report on the actual football).

The video feed cut directly to the Club Jenna channel, and showed porn star Evan Stone bouncing his junk back and forth across his thighs like a game of pong.

Comcast has yet to give a concrete reason for the err, although their poor Call Center employees are likely never going to hear the end of it.

Anyone wishing to experience the blooper themselves can catch a video on http://i.gizmodo.com/5144199/comcast-tucson-airs-graphic-porn-during-super-bowl-nsfw