I’m rewatching the last half season of Breaking Bad. And for those who haven’t seen it consider this your spoiler warning. 

It’s obviously a perfect metaphor for the amorality of capitalism. It doesn’t matter why you get into business. It can be for the most noble of reasons, to leave your wife and children with enough when you die, for example. But in the end you are going to be the guy who chooses future profits over justice for a dead kid. Profits first. Profits only. Profits over the wife and kids that you wanted to take care of in the first place. You could also break it down into World Systems Theory, if you’re a bit of an old school structuralist like I am. But that is bit too easy, all nuclear families break down that way. It’s even there, in the description. A core surrounded by the less powerful periphery. Nuclear.

Maybe I am showing my bias, but I hope it’s Skyler who takes Walt out. Hank has the same amount of power and privilege as Walt. Jesse does too, though the fact that he doesn’t recognize it doesn’t make it any less true. But Skyler, she can’t even keep Walt out of her bed. I think that’s why she is smoking inside the house. For now, it’s the only thing she can do. Smoke in the house where your husband, the guy with lung cancer, lives. Yes, I want the terrified wife to take Walt down. Because for anyone else to do it, it’s just a change in management. Just a name change. To break the structure, the periphery has to take out the core. 

It’s a thing I didn’t have a phrase for until recently, but something I’ve experienced since I was a kid.

Decision fatigue it what happens when every single damn choice you make throughout the day has, if not life or death consequences, then rent or food consequences. Eventually your brain just says “fuck you, I’m out.” and the smallest, stupidest decisions become paralyzing exercises in  stress and futility.

So a few weeks ago I bought a $10 pair of shoes on Ebay. The seller sent the wrong pair and wants me to send them back. She’ll even pay for postage. But the tiny decisions needed to facilitate this return have been causing my stomach churning  anxiety for the last week. My bus stop is closed for the next 6 months, so to get to the post office do I 1) Kill myself with the long uphill hike to the nearest functioning bus stop or 2) spend another $10 bucks on a cab ride that won’t be reimbursed by the seller. Decision 2 Where does the money I have to front for postage before the seller reimburses me come from? Do I borrow it from the Kid, who made a little money working for the boyfriend. No I can’t do that. That’s gross. 3) Do I even respond to the email(s) from the seller. I feel bad for her. My shoes were supposed to go to someone else. I can’t even wear them, they are the wrong size. But everytime another unread email shows up my stomach clenches.

And the thing is, these shoes are not at all important. I don’t actually give a fuck. I am freaked out because I am taking home less money than I was a year ago thanks to increased health insurance costs plus the unreimbursed expenses of working from home that I didn’t have when I worked in the office. And of course while trying to figure out how to deal with this, I stopped receiving child support. Again. Fucking fuck that fucking fucker.  Kid’s deadbeat dad is the original shit monster.

So the overwhelming non-decision about what to do about the shoes is just the result of the real freak out. I paid rent yesterday. My paycheck alone wasn’t enough to cover the whole amount. So I cleaned out the remaining balance of my savings account. Rent paid, but electric, food, and internet (which I have to pay for because of work) are going to have to wait till the 20th. I have no idea how we are going to get though the next 6 months. I would ask for a raise, but that keeps getting put off because of outside things like the company being sold or the boss being on maternity leave or the client being a big tantrum throwing baby.I’d look for a new job, but my stupid broken body won’t be able to make the daily slog up the huge hill to the bus stop to go to a new job. So I am waiting, and trying to figure out how the ever loving fuck we are gonna make it until next Spring, when I can dump my tax return into my savings account (again) and have a little cushion.

And from my neighbors, I hear the same thing. Which food bank is the good food bank and who can drive to get there. Who hasn’t paid rent and is waiting for the 3 day notice to be stuck to their door. You all know all this. You’ve heard it or said it yourselves.

Which is maybe why it is so hard for people to give up legacy politics. It’s a relatively easy decision. Elephant or donkey? Shit sandwich, shit sandwich with pickle. A tiny decision, built up to be some grand action of self-determination. I choose who has power over me! And my choice it right and yours is wrong and (fingers in ears) “lallallallallallalllalla I CAN’T HEAR YOU”.

So the bloggy blog is a little different. Echo, which used to be JS-Kit which used to be Haloscan is going away in a few weeks. I thought of just shutting the whole thing down rather than deal with (AGAIN) changing commenting platforms and importing and blah blah blah.

But even though I can barely be assed to write something once a week, I am not totally ready to give up on Blogger just yet. If Tumblr ever makes it so I can import this whole thing over there- IT’S ON!

Right now I am waiting to see if Discuss imports all the old comments. And if Discus installed comments on Tumblr. If you all haven’t visited me over there, where I am ALL the FUCKING TIME, I have now installed comments*. So even if you aren’t a hipster with  Tumblr full of dubstep remixes (or one of the cool kids like Vest Left, the blogger formerly known as Montag, and BLCKDGRD) you can still comment on my ridiculousness over there. And it’s ridiculous. I have an unabashed love for Avengers fan art.

*As I was typing this sentence, old friend o’ the blog tested and YES comments work at Tumblr but you can’t see the option for the dash. You have to go to the actual page to see them.

So I have this old friend. This awesome old friend. And during the 2008 elections we had some very heated debates. I’ve mellowed. I am all honey badger about the current election. I can’t believe I ever spent so much emotional energy on a party as shit-tay as the Democrats. I am now mostly a nod and change the subject type when it comes to what flavor of shit sandwich people are gonna swallow come November. At least in person. I have a lot of old friends and I don’t want to waste any time that could be spent discussing Dr. Who or “How the fuckity fuck does Pandora decide Outkast belongs on my playlist with The Pixies?” rather than discussing shit sandwich vs. shit sandwich with pickle. But still, the shit sandwich finds it’s way into discussions, because it’s that time. Not all of these were said by old friend, but he and I are both voting Green. (Lots of paraphrasing. I made fried chicken and drank whiskey. DO YOU KNOW HOW LABOR INTENSIVE FRIED CHICKEN IS?” “Hey remember when the Dems wanted to repeal the Patriot act?” “Remember when they cared about habeus corpus?” “I love the part of the platform that says abortion is between a woman and local control of her uterus, her husband, doctor, clergy”. “It’s all about eliminating the middle class. It’s a question of if you want lube with it. I vote for Democrats cause I am trying to slow the process” (me- in response to the above) “I vote 3rd party to speed up people’s recognition of how fucked we are”. I love my friends. We don’t all agree at the same time on the same things. But Obots they are not.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Courtesy of the ever lovely T.O.E. comes the word dizzling. Apparently it was a misstatement by one of her Frenchie Friends. So we put out heads together over chat, because dizzling is too perfect of a word to not have a definition. And we decided that there are not enough Lady-Only words for masturbation. But now add one more to the list. Here’s some sentences to try out for yourself. I needs double A batteries from the store. My rabbit is dead and I need it for dizzling. He was way too quick, so I dizzled myself to sleep. Alright kids, try some yourself. And remember to make dizzle happen (both figuratively and literally.)

It’s that shitty season when people of supposedly democratic leanings get on the “IF YOU DON’T VOTE FOR LESS EVIL YOU CAN’T COMPLAIN ABOUT EVIL” kick, and don’t even see the cognitive dissonance in their commandments.

4 years ago I got it from both sides, Democrats who were all “VOTE FOR OBAMA OR WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! PALIN IS SLUTTY STUPID HEAD! VOTE FOR OBAMA OR ELSE!” And of course there were the PUMAS “VOTE FOR MCCAIN-PALIN! YOU MUST VOTE FOR ANY WOMAN BECAUSE VAGINA!”

Neither party had earned my vote. I voted, instead, for the only candidate that had my own interests at heart. Cynthia McKinney. I don’t regret it, not for second.

And now, Obama still hasn’t earned my vote. Lilly Ledbetter is not enough to earn my vote. The Insurance lobby give away that is the Affordable (ha) Care Act is CERTAINLY not enough. The fact that Obama grew a set of ovaries regarding “legitimate rape” is not enough from the man who let the abortion conversation get pushed so far to the right that someone fighting for rape and incest exceptions looks positively Rooseveltian in comparison to the shitmonsters on the far right.

Not even the dude and I having the same “if I had a superpower” wish is enough.

I cannot overlook drones. I cannot overlook a president, who in the midst of the biggest financial catastrophe since The Great Depression, can’t  bring himself to utter the words “poor” or “poverty” in his State of the Union speeches. I can’t overlook a president who let the austerity alligators decide the terms of our becoming their dinner.

The Dems haven’t regained my trust since the last election. In fact, they’ve reinforced the knowledge that I do not matter to them. My kid doesn’t matter to them. My friends, neighbors and community don’t matter to them. Except at election time, and then it’s all “OMG IF YOU DON’T VOTE FOR THE PEOPLE WHO JUST IGNORE YOUR EXISTENCE THEN YOU’LL BE RULED BY MEN WHO ACTUALLY HATE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!”

Maybe that’s true. I can live with it, because I do not vote against my own self-interest. I do not give my stamp of legitimacy to those who don’t care if I live or die. Obama hasn’t earned my vote. The Democratic party hasn’t earned my vote. In other words, they just haven’t earned it yet, baby.

Now you might notice something about all those paragraphs above. Not one sentence is a “YOU MUST” sentence. I use my words. I use my “I” statements. Those are my feelings about my little vote. I got a lot of sheepish “I know he’s a douche but I think I have to vote for Obama” statements from friends last election. And not one single one of them got a “FUCK YOU! YOU HAVE CAUSED THE DOWNFALL OF SOCIETY WITH YOUR VOTE” from me. Because it’s your mother-fucking vote. Vote your interests. Maybe you are ok with Obama. Maybe you are just afeared of a Romney presidency. I don’t know why you vote the way you do. I don’t care. It’s your vote. You do you.

But if you go around telling people that they must “VOTE FOR LESS EVIL BECAUSE IT’S STILL LESS EVIL” I am going to call you a bullying shitmonster to your face. Because you are. You can list in bullet points why you are voting Team Less Evil! But you don’t get to tell someone else what their own best interests are and how they MUST VOTE OR OMFG WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE IN A FIERY REPUBLICAN RAPTURE!!!!!!!

So you all have probably heard about the shitmonster Rethuglican, Sentator Todd Akin, who said that victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant. As if our bodies have a magical defensive mechanism for blocking rapey sperm.

And a lot of the reaction to this ludicrous assault on women has been to treat the man as if he is stupid. Actually that is the first response of left-leaning folks when the right says yet another outlandish thing. Think of how Bush Jr. was talked about.

That’s a mistake. Treating the racists, the homophobes, the misogynists, etc. as if they are uniformed rubes. They aren’t. What they are is liars. And that is how they should be treated. Stupid can be accidental. Stupid can be fixed with better knowledge. These people, who hate with every fiber of their being aren’t stupid. They are lying. They know better, but knowing better doesn’t get them what they want. What they want is to remain firmly entrenched at the top of the pyramid.

We need to call them on their bullshit. We need to stop letting them control the debate with these ridiculous claims that have no basis in fact. We need to stop giving them the benefit of the doubt and treating them like the whole difference of opinion is because they lack knowledge. They know the truth. They live in the world, same as we do. But the truth doesn’t get them what they want.

So this is the comment I left on Akin’s Facebook page:

I can’t believe you are actually as stupid as you pretend to be about biology. No one believes women have magical anti-pregnancy defenses against rapists. So you must be liar. A woman-hating, pro-rapist liar.

No more arguing. No more debate. No more letting liars and shitmonsters* control the agenda with their lies. It works with women-hating, pro-rape liars. It works with climate change deniers. It works with “MEN WILL MARRY THEIR DOGS” homophobes. It works with the assholes who try to create Trans* panic by screaming about “OMG WHAT IF A TRANS LADY USES THE WOMEN’S BATHROOM”. It works with the douchenoodles who are all “POOR PEOPLE AREN’T REALLY POOR CAUSE THEY HAVE CELL PHONES”. 

They are liars. Straight up. And they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it for one second longer. They deserve our disdain. They deserve to be called a liar straight to their lying faces. They deserve to be held accountable for the mountains of shit and grief and pain they cause.  

*FYI shitmonsters is my new favorite insult. Collecting insults has long been on of my favorite pastimes.

That’s how much money the Banksters are getting from qualitative easing.  Enough for every single man, woman, and child would get if we had the same access to government money as the crooks and thieves in the tacky suits.

That’s enough money to pay my rent, electricity, internet, and cell phone bill for an entire year.

Or enough to finish all of the Kid’s dental work (one more root canal and crown. 2 wisdom teeth extractions) except for orthodontia for his “vampire tooth” and make a reasonable start on my own dental needs. (I need multiple root canals/crowns, extractions and implants).Plus pay a lingering bill for my IUD (GAH IF ONLY I COULD HAVE WAITED 6 MONTHS I WOULD NOT HAVE THIS BILL).

Or enough to……?

If you put money into the hands of people who are desperate to spend it, you get the economy going. My landlord would benefit. So would Comcast, Tmobile and Seattle City Light. Or the small business that is my dentist would profit. Etc, etc.

But giving debt relief to the banksters only, that tiny one percent of one percent, will never work as an anti-depressant. They simply don’t have the purchasing power (or purchasing need) of the hundreds of millions of us who don’t belong at the top of the pyramid.

This post is probably not going to reflect well on me. But fuck it. We all gotta admit that we’re all a little (lot) racist sometimes.

So there is this family that lives in my building. Young (early 20’s ish) couple and the lady-half of the couple’s dad or grandfather. (He’s old enough to be my dad, she’s maybe 5 years older than the kid). They are Asian, and from my limited knowledge I guessed they were Korean. I think it’s cause they are all super tall and for some reason all the Korean people I have met have been super tall. Grandpa paces around the courtyard everynight having deep discussions on his cell phone in a language that isn’t English. It didn’t sound like it was Korean (or Mandarin or Cantonese or Japanese) either. It sounded kinda like Russian, from the snippets I caught. I’ve been trying to figure what the hell language it is for over a year.

Now it is certainly not impossible for a person of Asian ancestry to speak Russian. Russians be conquering just like lots of other countries and they are sharing the same continent, after all. But it just sounded kinda Russian. 

Tonight, Dude and Lady were standing outside the back gate that I have to walk through to sacrifice my lungs to the nicotine beast for the sake of humanity. (Seriously, I smoke to save your life, and yours and yours and yours, from the ravaging nico-beast). I finally caught enough of a conversation to know definitively what language they are speaking. Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese, I think. Same unfamiliar vowels as Russian but will all the fun that is a Romance language.

I have lived here for over a year. The fucked up thing that categorizing people by race first means that my tiny brain could not conceive of Asian people speaking, as their native language, something that was from the Americas and wasn’t English. Even though there is a HUGE population of Asian people in the Americas. Even though Peru had a Japanese-Peruvian president. Even though (until Friday) I worked just a block away from the International District (aka Chinatown, which is wrong because most of the people in the neighborhood were Japanese or Korean and not Chinese). Racism makes us stupid. It makes us limited in understanding people as they actually are because we are wrapped up in the narrow vision of humanity that racism creates.