3.05.2007
Theatre of the Absurd at Casa Annamaria
La Famiglia does Albee proudFriday night dinners are a tradition for La Famiglia; all the Mitten State dwelling siblings congregate every other Friday at Mama and Papa G’s house for pasta and political discussions. Okay, so the political discussion is a relatively new thing, and one that only happens when we’re feeling particularly feisty. Mama G hates it when we talk politics, mostly because the four siblings that usually show up to dinner are Republican Brother, Fundie Sister, Liberal Brother and Me. Needless to say, discussions quickly turn to arguments which often give way to bedlam. In deference to Mama G’s hypertension, we do our best to temper discussions with humor, despite the heartfelt desire to jump across the table and settle the issue mano a mano.
Last weekend Liberal Brother had prior engagements that prevented him from joining us for our biweekly brawl. As a result, the righty faction was in high form, tossing about their particular brand of religio-conservative inanity. I present Friday Dinner, a Comedy in Four Acts:
ACT I
Fundie Sister brings up the case of a California girl who was suspended for saying “that’s so gay” in response to a boy who was taunting her for being Mormon. Actually, I take that back, the girl wasn’t suspended, despite Sister’s protestations to the contrary; she was given a warning and a notation was made in her permanent record (are they still using that one?). The school instituted a zero-tolerance policy on hate speech (including what some—not me—consider innocuous phrases like “that’s so gay”) after two boys were paid to beat up a gay student the prior year. Sister immediately starts on the persecuted Christian tip, and lambastes the school for not equally punishing the boy who used anti-Christian hate speech, all but arguing that the incident is proof positive of the homosexual agenda’s attempt to eradicate and marginalize Christianity. Had the boy asked if a Muslim girl’s father was a terrorist, Sister argues, he would have been punished for his anti-Islamic hate speech, but anti-Christian speech is just fine and dandy in today’s godless and secular world.
Remember, I’m without the assistance of Liberal Brother here, and am trying not to further stress my poor mother’s already beleaguered heart, so I’m silent as a church (ahem) mouse while my sister does her best impersonation of the severely unhinged. Finally, I agree that suspension is too harsh a punishment* but argue that some kind of correction or punishment was necessary. Even if, or perhaps because, the girl in question did not understand that “that’s so gay” is never an appropriate euphemism for “that’s stupid,” someone at that school needed to explain to her that homophobic language has no place in the public square. Further, I agreed that if indeed that boy was making anti-religious statements, he should have received an equal punishment or correction. Sister rolls her eyes to indicate that I am so naïve if I really believe that anyone cares a whit for the poor, persecuted Christians. I bite my tongue and restrain my hands so that I don’t smack the smug look from her face.
ACT II
Dinner is served. I erroneously assume the conversation will turn to less controversial topics. I am wrong. Republican Brother can’t help but bring up the plight of the poor Mormon girl again, only this time to weigh in and declare that he doesn’t even consider Mormons to be Christians anyway. Fundie Sister agrees.
Seriously, read that last sentence again: Fundie Sister agrees that Mormons are not really Christians. Then whence the fucking anti-Christian hate speech? Honestly, I know that it’s folly to expect consistency, but I have to wonder if anti-Semitic speech is somehow going to be used as proof of an anti-Christian bias in her mind. After all, Christ was a Jew!
ACT III
Somehow the conversation turns to Anna Nicole Smith. Don’t ask. Sister tells us that John Travolta was on TV saying that if only Anna Nicole had been a Scientologist, she would still be alive today. Sister and Republican Brother then take turns mocking Scientologists for their “crazy” beliefs. Annamaria bleeds from the mouth as she bites her tongue some more; apparently mocking (the beliefs of) religious folk is just fine so long as you can claim the moral high ground of being a Christian.
ACT IV
Dinner ends. I set about clearing the table to get the hell away from my siblings and avoid further mouth injury. Unfortunately, I can’t help but overhear them discussing the Republican presidential candidates. Republican Brother distrusts McCain and Giuliani; Sister agrees and vows to vote for Romney in the Michigan Primary.
Mitt Romney is a Mormon.
FIN
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* I also take this back. Having not read up on the case of the Maligned Mormon Miss, I was unaware of the specifics of the case. Turns out she was not 8-years old as my sister claimed, but fifteen at the time of the incident. At fifteen, you know better. Suspension is a completely appropriate punishment (even though the school thought otherwise).
Labels: Bitch Bitch Bitch, Fundies Say The Darndest Things
annamaria at 2:50 PM
11.15.2006
Interior with a Lady
Interior with a Lady by Wilhelm Hammershoi1901 Oil on canvas
One of those happy memories involves the painting above. A few years ago, Rich and I spent a lovely afternoon at the DIA, and we noticed this fantastic piece tucked in a corner of the European Masters room. It looked bereft and humble, almost as if it was embarrassed to be sharing space with the Rembrandts and Renoirs. It seemed to know that hundreds of people passed it daily, perhaps giving is a passing glance but never their full attention.
We must have spent a half-hour staring at that painting, and the rest of the afternoon talking about how much we loved it. I'm sure I spent ten minutes alone discussing the dirt and scuff marks on the bottom of that interior door and how lifelike it was in its dereliction. Rich was impressed with the paintings within the painting, and they way the light from the window lit upon the cold, hard floor infusing a drab and depressing existence with its only source of life.
About a year later, Rich sent me this article about Michael Palin's 20-year obsession with Hammershoi; accompanying the article was our painting. We both laughed, blaming our 20-year obsession with Monty Python for somehow leading us to give a lonely painting a second glance.
This summer, Rich and I went back to the DIA and discovered that Hammershoi was a victim of the DIA's ongoing renovation project and ever-shrinking European collection. It's been relegated to wherever it is that art goes to die. Inexplicably, this is still taking up valuable wall space. I'll take Danish realism over ironic pop-solipsism any day.
More melancholy: The Magnetic Fields - All My Little Words
Labels: Bitch Bitch Bitch
annamaria at 6:30 PM
10.20.2006
Who needs lunch when I have anger to feed me
Kurt asks if my absence from blogging is due to Tiger Fever; unfortunately, not being a baseball fan, I’m unable to use such a great excuse. Then Kerri emailed me to tell me that she hates my job, because it’s preventing me from blogging. You and me both, babe.
So I looked at the blog the other day, and realized it’s been over a month since I’ve written anything. Probably explains all the pent up anger I’ve been feeling lately, since I haven’t had an outlet for it in weeks. Here is a summary of what I’ve been thinking lately on topics of major (and minor) interest:
The Amish School Shooting: Will someone please tell me why the MSM refuses to characterize this as a hate crime? If an unhinged racist walked into a school in Detroit, ordered all the little white kids out of the building, carried with him 600 rounds of ammunition and a lynching rope, and proceeded to murder five little black children, I think the racist motivation for the crime would be fairly obvious. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would be giving interviews left and right decrying the overt and violent racism of American society which allows men like our hypothetical killer to exist. And they would be right. So why is it that when a man separates the girls from the boys, brings tubes of lube and restraints, and shoots five little girls in the back of the head, execution-style, only one MSM figure notices that our sexist and misogynistic society allows for men like Charles Roberts to exist?
The Torture Bill. Fuck you, Debbie Stabenow. I know that you’re up for re-election, but as of October 9th, you’ve got a 17% lead over Republican challenger Mike Bouchard. And with 79% of Michigan voters citing the economy as their chief concern this election year, your stance on securing worker’s pensions seems like a winner. Not to mention that Governor Granholm is currently kicking Dick DeVos’s ass on the economy issue, as well. So why the need to suddenly overthrow any progressive credibility you might have by granting a corrupt president the power to ignore the Geneva Convention? Granted, he’s been ignoring it for years, but your vote has just given him, and future presidents, both the legal and moral authority to continue to do so for years to come. Congratulations. For the first time in my life I’ve actually considered voting for a Republican (don’t worry, it was a fleeting thought); instead, I’m just not voting for Senator at all. You might win, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that the true Michigan progressives support you.
Nice Guys. Amanda is tackling the "Nice Guy" issue again, and I’m left shaking my head wondering why this is still an issue. Nice Guys, for people who aren’t me and don’t spend hours reading feminist blogs, are those assholes who incessantly whinge about how women are only attracted to men who treat them like shit, and look at me, I’m so great, I don’t rape or beat women, and why can’t these dumb bitches realize that I’m the perfect boyfriend because I only fantasize about how to get one over on women, rather than actively doing it. Amanda’s take is, of course, spot on: Nice Guys are misogynists in sheep’s clothing who cling so desperately to their privilege that they fail to recognize that the Asshole vs. Nice Guy debate makes about as much sense as the belaboring the oh-so-important question of potato vs. potahto.
Last March, on International Women’s Day, I was in Ann Arbor for a Ted Leo & The Pharmacists concert. For those of you who haven’t spent much time around A2, allow me to overly generalize yet fairly characterize the student population: rich, mostly white kids who read Foucault once and think they understand oppression; such knowledge is then usually presented to members of an oppressed class as a statement of the rich kid’s understanding and, of course, moral superiority: "See, I’m better than those other rich kids, because I recognize racism, which means I’m not racist, which means that you, oppressed person, cannot accuse me of using my position of class and race privilege as a bludgeon. What’s that you say? I benefit from an oppressive system even if I don’t personally engage in acts of oppression? Fuck you, Darky, can’t you see I’m better than those other assholes?" Ann Arbor is full of Nice Guys. At the TL/Rx show, there was a guy walking around with a T-shirt that said "I don’t oppress women." The first time I saw it, I kind of chuckled. The second time the kid walked passed me, I wanted to rip his arms off and beat him bloody with his own desiccated limbs. I finally decided that the next time I saw him, I was going to ask if his "I don’t kick puppies" t-shirt was in the wash. Luckily for both of us, he managed to avoid me for the rest of the night.
Michigan Proposal 2*. Speaking of Ann Arbor, the rightie-tighties in the Mitten are apparently not content with the Supreme Court decision in Gratz v. Bollinger which gutted U of M’s undergraduate affirmative action program; proposal 2 would amend the Michigan State Constitution to ban all affirmative action policies in school admission and employment. I was driving with my sister-in-law the other day, and we noticed signs all over the neighborhood (the very wealthy, very white neighborhood) which read "Fairness, Equality, Yes on 2." At the time, I was so overwhelmed with work and whatnot, I didn’t even know what the proposal was. But I turned to my SIL and said "How much do you want to bet proposal 2 reinstates slavery or something?" Nice to know that in our crazy, post-ironic world, I was kinda right.
Vanished What does television have against the pretty, pretty Gale Harold?
Pretty
First Queer As Folk takes my beloved Brian to the brink of spiritual healing, only to push him headlong back into the life of an overgrown club boy. Then I watch that crappy Vanished show for the sole purpose of spending an hour a week with a very hot man, only to watch in horror as he gets pumped full of lead and left to die in a pool of his own blood. It almost makes me want to start watching shows for their plot and not their hot actors.
The Crane Wife. Not to totally change gears or anything, but I’m burned out on being angry right now. Does everyone have this yet?** If you don’t have it, might I suggest that you get yourself to the nearest independent music retailer and purchase this sublime work of musical genius?
And speaking of The Decemberists, Ann at Feministing as an interview with Colin Meloy wherein he riffs on the violence of pregnancy and why his kid is doomed to be a Republican.
Okay, that’s it for now, since my lunch hour is up. I hope you are all happy that I forwent sustenance in favor of writing (arguably) witty and pointless things for you all. You can make it up to me later.
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* I've decided that the number "2" is the new mark of the beast--the last Michigan proposal 2 amended to state constitution to ban gay marriage and civil unions.
**Well, everyone but Rich since the album won’t be released in Europe until January 27th (haha!).
Labels: Bitch Bitch Bitch, Feminism, LGBT, Politics, Pop Culture
annamaria at 2:49 PM
8.16.2006
We interrupt this brief work-related hiatus to bitch about work-related things
Here’s a little bit of insight into my psyche: I have no respect for authority. It is a daily struggle to keep from telling people to fuck off, particularly when those people try to tell me what to do. I also don’t like repetitive questions, of which I am guaranteed many when the new program rolls out in a few months. On top of that, I don’t like being put in a position where I have to break rules or do someone a favor, unless I will personally benefit in some way. I’m a selfish bitch like that. I can foresee many attempts to get me to work around the system in the near future; couple this with repetitive requests and lack of respect for authority, and I’m seriously concerned that the addition of 200 new executives is going to break me. Or that I might break someone. All I need is one comment from my manager about my tits and the way that mere fabric sometimes has trouble containing them, and I think I might lose it.
So…resume is updated and job searching has commenced. Unfortunately, this is Michigan which has had one of (if not the) lowest job creation rates in the country. Since Person X has been beating off potential employers with a stick lately, maybe she can throw one my way. I’m emailing you the resume right now, girl.
Labels: Bitch Bitch Bitch
annamaria at 12:56 PM
6.28.2006
Annamaria update, for anyone that cares
As you will recall, former co-worker Psycho quit, leaving me with all of her job responsibilities (plus my own) until a replacement can be found. This sucks. Her work is boring and labor intensive and, frankly, far below my own capabilities. The mind-numbing nature of her job has left me feeling completely lethargic—it’s not even doing two jobs that’s exhausting me, it’s doing my own job plus a bunch of data-entry bullshit which is stripping me any ability to form coherent thought. I honestly feel like I’m dumber just doing this kind of work.
So, we did end up hiring someone to fill the open position—she was here for four days and then they promptly fired her for lying on her application. I had four days to train her and get used to the idea of doing only my job again, and then I came to work one morning to find all of her personal effects boxed up to be sent to her home. So much for my brief respite.
I do have good news, though! First, we transferred someone from within the company to fill the open position, which will relieve me of the boring work and give me time to be funny and smart again. At least I hope whatever sassiness attracts you to my ramblings will return at full strength forthwith. My new co-worker (who I’ve worked with in the past and is absolutely delightful) will start at our office in July. Yay!
And more good news—I’ve got a week off! The first week of July is a mandatory vacation for us (Major American Automotive Corporation shuts down every July for two weeks*), so I’ll be work-free for a glorious seven days. And even better than that—Rich is coming for a visit! An entire week to show our favorite Liverpudlian all of the fun that can be had in the fine city of Detroit. Alright, an entire day to show him all the fun that can be had in Detroit, and six days or so of sitting around bitching about how damn boring this city is. So if any Michigan BOMT readers would like to hang out with a beleaguered blogger and her British companion, let me know and we’ll definitely be up for whatever fun can be had in your neck of the woods (Helllloooo Westland!).
*Usually we get both weeks off, but this year they are making us work the second week. We've already got barbecues planned for all five days, since I can guarantee there will be fuck-all to do.
Labels: Bitch Bitch Bitch
annamaria at 10:12 AM
3.14.2006
She's baaaack!*
I’m sure you can see where I am going with this. We were all wrong.
It is March 14th, which means that we have had exactly fifty working days since the beginning of the year. Psycho has missed fourteen of those. She’s also been late twenty times. Sometimes being late means showing up at 7:37 when you’re supposed to be there at 7:30. For Psycho, being late means showing up at 8:15.
She called in yesterday, claiming the flu. Then she called our supervisor to let her know that she wouldn't be in today either. This is the best part: when our supervisor asked if she had seen the doctor, Psycho told her that she didn't go because she had to go to school last night. Fuck! She's well enough to go to her little interior design** classes, but heaven forbid she get her lazy ass out of bed and make it to the job that pays for her fucking tuition!
Our computer systems have just been upgraded (which is another thing I've been bitching about around here), and for the next few weeks we're running dual systems to make sure that all the information we put in the new inventory system is backed up in the event that the whole thing crashes. In Psycho's absence, I've been doing her job, which means that I have to do my own job twice (dual systems), and then her job twice. I'm angry and stressed and I'm pretty sure that I am going to hurt her when she finally shows up to work.
Okay, end rant. Deep breaths. My doctor has already scheduled me for a stress test, and it wouldn't do to have a heart attack before then. In the meantime, I'm going to find a picture of her and tape it to my wall...as soon as I can scare up some darts to throw at it.
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*Isn't it funny that Psycho's absence corresponds with Jen's triumphant return to blogging? Hmmmm...
**No offense to interior designers. Some of my best friends are interior designers.
Labels: Bitch Bitch Bitch, Douchebags
annamaria at 12:59 PM
