Based on the myriad feedback I’ve been getting for my previous post I guess I should re-iterate what this site is and isn’t for..

This site is for me to have a place to write semi-coherent opinions, thoughts, feelings, photos of my pets (and now knitting). Mostly because I’ve been quoted back to myself several times (no, in a good way) with no memory of having said it in the first place so I thought maybe I should be saving this stuff somewhere.

My mother, sister, best friend in San Francisco, and good friend in the Netherlands read this site on a daily basis to make sure I’m doing well and that I’m not being buried alive by cat hair, books, and crippling depressive episodes. My father and husband do not read it - in fact, as far as I know none of those women’s spouses read the site and other than thinking how weird it is that it might well be the only thing they all have in common I’m ok with it.. Dad says he “doesn’t want to know,” (I imagine what he doesn’t want to know is all the stuff I’m exhibiting to the world - my parents tend to support a very low profile) and Cody thinks I should be able to write without worrying what he’d think about it - bless him he trusts me to not use this as a forum where I complain about him. And he’s right because, with very few exceptions, I don’t. (Mostly because I honestly don’t have much to complain about. Seriously.)

Aside from what I wrote for Women in History month there’s really no rhyme, reason, or consistency whatsoever to what or how I post. I’ve been trying to limit quiz and meme posts to Saturdays (for some arbitrary reason) but that’s about it.

I’m going to talk about religion and politics. It will lean to the left. Period. No apologies. I don’t claim to be a political scientist or expert. Granted they’re well-written and fairly coherent for a person with a Bachelor’s degree in sculpture and a minor in art history but let’s just use that tired old expression that equates opinions with arseholes and leave it at that.

I’ll admit I have pretty extreme opinions about organized religion. And while I’m not a Christian I have a fairly high standard where Christianity is concerned. I went to a Catholic boarding school my freshman year in high school. My art degree is from a Christian Brothers school and I took a lot of required religious academic and non-required religious art classes. I have read manymanymany religious texts (about religions all around the world) and attended a great variety of religious services and ceremonies (also all over the world). While I may be critical of organized religion it’s not like I don’t know what I’m talking about here.

To be honest if you wanted to believe that the earth was created by a giant pink boobah that lives in a shack made of licorice sitting in the middle of the Sea of Tranquility, communicating with you through magic rainbow dixie cups to tell you that that cinnamon graham crackers and apple juice are sacred and should only be eaten while standing on your head on Tuesdays at 4:43 eastern time I’d giggle a bit but be just fine with it. It’s when you start telling me or anyone else to believe in, or vote for the chubby pink guy (or eat graham crackers that way) I start getting my hackles up and will begin growling - or get my quills up and start huffing…whichever animal metaphor you want to use.

I do not pay the bandwidth bills and post on this site to gain your approval. If you find what I have to say interesting (even if you don’t agree with it) that’s great I’m delighted. But if you think I pay dreamhost, registered three domains, licensed a copy of movable type, paid two great designers, taught myself html, css, and php by the seat of my pants, and maintain and write in this thing in order to assuage whatever guilty feelings you might have or reinforce whatever bullshit you want to believe, you are quite mistaken.

I do not consider myself the perfect example of a woman, southern expatriate, New Mexico transplant, artist, wife, pet mom, tea drinker, weblog writer, homeowner, liberal, American, pagan, chubby chick, knitter, or shopper. I do not claim to be better than you, more religious than you, consistent or fair.. odds are good I’m smarter than you but that’s just sheer numbers talking.

So with a great deal of respect and no small amount of humility I’d like to say to anyone who thinks that I’m supposed to consistently represent any stereotype you might derive from the above paragraph: Suck my dick.

For more information you can read this, this, or this.

That said, here’s this week’s friday random ten eleven.

I’m not your stepping stone - The Sex Pistols
Somersault (Danger Mouse remix) - Danger Mouse & Zero 7 feat. Doom
Bored Teenagers - The Adverts
Barefootin’ - Robert Parker
Another World - Poe
When I look to the Sky - Train
The Look of Love - Dusty Springfield
The Reflex (only child mix) - Duran Duran vs FakeID (Cropstar)
The Monkey Time - Major Lance
Do Me, Baby - Prince
I Loves You Porgy - Billie Holiday

Oh, and don’t freak out if things aren’t showing up on the right menu for a while my annual blogrolling bill came due today and I’ve decided that rather than pay for another year I’m going to switch to the MT Blogroll plugin now that there is one. The good news is I backed up all my rolls and there’s a handy import feature so they’re all loaded. Now I just have to figure out how to reference them in the includes. Since the blogrolling account is now effectively closed it shouldn’t affect the load time - in fact, now that it’s not trying to reference a server that seems to go down seemingly every other day it should improve the load time. Not like I can tell since Comcast is still being wonky as all get-out.