Too Bad it's Not Michael Palin

I spent my afternoon tubing down a gorgeous river, with shorebirds, turtles, and yes, even an otter lining up to take turns showing off their adorableness. Quite a relaxing journey.

Then I come home to find out that John McCain has selected for his vice presidential running mate an anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-guns, anti-science, creationist, anti-gay rights, inexperienced nutbag...who just so happens to have a vajayjay.

I then spent the rest of the night fuming and developing horrible cramps and lingering gas. But that might have been all those figs I ate last night. Column A, column B?

I already distrusted McCain, but this is a major, MAJOR slap in the face to women everywhere. It's in line with all the conservative rhetoric about how women are incapable of making important choices for ourselves -- c.f. the decision the Roberts Supreme Court made last April to uphold the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Just like women might, in the rush of emotion, not be able to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, women are also unable to differentiate between a progressive candidate with decidedly liberal politics, and a right-wing posterchild with absolutely nothing in common with the Hillary Rodham Clinton whose "disaffected supporters" the McCain campaign is so blatantly and infuriatingly trying to woo across the fence.

As a Reluctant Former Clinton Supporter, may I officially register my absolute outrage and insult over this disgusting farce, and over all the ridiculous party-line-towers who really should be just as outraged that their 72-year-old candidate has just selected a running mate with a mere 20 months of gubernatorial experience under her anti-feminist belt.

Did I mention she apparently opposes abortion even in the case of incest or rape? I didn't think people with daughters were capable of even pretending to hold this belief, but somehow Sarah Palin has proven me horribly, horribly wrong.

This election is now that much more important. I know I'm talking to myself here, but sometimes it's fun to pretend I'm on Feministing or someplace with an actual readership: Get out and talk about this. Write to HRC and tell her to take a stand against Sarah Palin. Don't allow the Republicans to turn Clinton's historic run into a disgrace. And don't let this dream team of human destruction make it to the White House.

Go Obama. Please, go, go, go.

Genes and Aesthetics

The other day a friend pointed out that I had a noticeable streak of gray in the bun I was wearing.

(This friend is excused from this particular faux pas because the other day some mean asshole douchebag McGee told her she thought she was pregnant. Oh, charming! How delightfully funny, a true comedy of errors! DIE.)

So today in a fit of existential crisis I pulled 7 long, gray hairs out of the back of my dark brown head. They're sitting next to me at my desk tied in a knot, looking up at me pleadingly like abandoned children. I can just hear them sighing "I didn't ask to be born gray!"

The way I see it, this fine foray into premature aging can be due to one of three possibilities:

1. It has been a stressful few months/years.
2. They're all from the same dead follicle I've had since I was a teenager.
3. I did not inherit my mother's magical perpetual youth gene.

I know that at this stage of my life #2 is the best bet, since all the gray hair is concentrated in one spot, but it was still something to muse about. Mainly because I've been reading a lot about genetics lately, and since I'm a huge dork I enjoy applying these ideas in silly situations. According to my mother, my grandfather is the one who carries the magic perpetual youth gene (we'll call it MPY for short). So, since my mother displays the trait for MPY, we know it's X-linked. This gives me a 1 in 4 chance that I have inherited MPY, but it gives my older brothers a 50/50 chance of inheriting it.

I'd say that my 1 in 4 chances are a lot worse -- unless I'm twice as lucky as the guys, I'm going gray by 30 -- but my brothers also have a 50/50 chance of inheriting my grandfather's amazing, never-balding head of hair (also X-linked) or my grandmother's family history of baldies. At least I should have that one in the bag.

Salt and pepper hair can be quite alluring. If not that, I always thought I'd look nice in auburn.

This post brought to you out of a desire to replace crisis with vanity. Mission accomplished?

Overheard in Old Navy

...in the fitting room while trying on various ill-fitting clothes, because dammit you made big sizes, but did you bother considering the extra bits that girls this size carry around with us?

A song over the loudspeakers that begins with the statement: "You change your mind like a girl changes clothes."

Is the singer implying that the object of her affections changes his/her mind from a standard-issue school uniform into a one-piece swimsuit when Mom picks him/her up for swim practice on Thursdays, and into a leotard in time for dance on Tuesdays? If so, I'd say that person should be applauded for having a relatively strict adherence to a medication schedule, though perhaps the dosage should be altered so that the levels aren't so obvious. And so that said person's mind will stop donning tutus on Tuesdays. Those mind-wedgies have gotta kill.

A quick Google leads me to Kat Perry's "Hot n' Cold." Besides the blatant disregard for apostrophe rules (PUT AN APOSTROPHE IN PLACE OF EACH OMITTED LETTER, YOU IDIOT -- what, is your song called "Hot nd Cold"?), a quick run over the lyrics beyond that rather annoying first line led me to what is arguably a million, gajillion, brazillion times worse:

Yeah you, PMS
Like a bitch
I would know

If I were to list the reasons to egg Kat Perry's house and/or expensive car, I'd need a new blog just for the first third of said list.

Thank you, Old Navy, for enlightening me to the ever worsening state of popular music.