You are browsing the archive for 2011 May.

Wordsmoker Anthropology – Apparently the Covers Actually Matter

May 31, 2011 in Wordsmoker Anthropology

Last week, I decided that I needed to reread The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. In case you’ve never read William Shirer’s historic classic, it’s exactly what you think it is: 1500 pages describing in great detail the events of one of the most despicable epochs in human history. Whether or not you care for historical narratives, if you are an adult human being and the book is printed in your language, it’s well worth the investment. I don’t often reread books because I can’t possibly live long enough to get to all of the books that I want to, but I often cite this text and I feel that I should probably be more familiar with it. Read the rest of this entry →

How to Make Curtains: Part 3

May 30, 2011 in How to Make Curtains

If you’re just joining Wordsmoker’s award-winning multi-part webinar on how to make curtains, you may want to review lesson one, which covers some basic information about country shower curtains, the who’s, what’s and why’s of showering, and Harley Davidson cravings, and lesson two, which is generally more about martial arts, the aspirations of the middle class, and how we can keep showers exciting.

If you have that material down, then you’re ready to continue on to lesson 3, which begins the intermediate section of How to Make Curtains.  In this lesson, we’ll be discussing living room curtains, how the curtain world has changed for 2011, and pink curtains.  Read the rest of this entry →

Avatar of Vaquero

by Vaquero

Book Fight Club Reminder

May 30, 2011 in Wordsmoker Book Club

Please remember that Book Fight Club meets Tuesday, June 7 at 9pm EST to discuss What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt. You still have time to read it if you haven’t started yet!

Climbing Trees

May 29, 2011 in families

Sunday is a very important day in my family. It entails going to my mother’s house, sitting around a table and eating enough food to feed a small country—like Tuvalu. It’s been an Italian tradition for some time so I can’t argue against it. Last Sunday, I had just finished up the first course, which is a large bowl of pasta and meatballs, with a salad. (Yes, I know; it doesn’t make sense to me either.) Anyway on this particular night, round one was finished so I decided to walk outside and loosen my pants in anticipation for the next course, which happened to be a large plate of ham. Read the rest of this entry →

The Smokies: Alphabet Soup Edition

May 28, 2011 in The Smokie Awards

When I first read Nora Darling’s OMGigi, I thought, “Hey, what a clever name for a great article.” I almost immediately asked her for permission to draft an homage that I was going to entitle ZOMAndy. About halfway through writing my tribute piece, there was a glut of other similarly named articles—not just scribed by newbs coming into feed off of Nora’s fame, but written by battle-hardened veteran writers. I realized now that if I didn’t change its name, ZOMAndy would be lost in the alphabet soup. Naturally, I had to act fast. I switched the name and the article was saved. Okey, that looks like enough text to go beside the Smokies logo. I’ll quit writing now so that you can see your awards. Read the rest of this entry →

Micro-Fiction Roundup XXXVIII: We Are Totes Doomed

May 28, 2011 in Micro-Fiction Roundup

So apparently, the world is coming to an end tomorrow. Well, more specifically, all the good Christians are going to be swept up to Heaven in some super spectacular fashion, leaving the rest of us heathens to loot and party and prepare for the inevitable zombie invasion. In between games of Naked Twister, making breakfast with our stolen waffle irons, and maiming the undead, we’re going to need a creative outlet to keep our brains from turning to mush. Read the rest of this entry →

A Consumer’s Guide to Artificial Sex Partners

May 27, 2011 in NSFW, Pure Thoughts

My first artificial sex partner was manufactured by Mannequin Land, purchased during a Zayre’s department store liquidation sale in the eighties. The Sandy 3/F (Sandy Pose 3 with Left Hand on Hip Standing, Fleshtone). Hard plastic, kinda quiet—I actually also purchased her male companion mannequin, Julian Pose 4, but due to a certain lack of boldness on my part, I would only prop him in the corner to act as a spectator. I went through an assortment of mannequin companions throughout the decade: Mary Sunshine, Donna Reed, Velma Kelly, Teena the Prego, various rentals, dressing dolls, and of course the mannequin from the movie Mannequin (starring Kim Cattrall before she became a hideous star on that tacky HBO show). Read the rest of this entry →

Dong of Shame: Rep. DeGraaf, May the Forced Birth Be With You

May 26, 2011 in America The Fucked

I am a very busy lady. I have appointments to keep, shift exchanges at work to track, and even the occasional date. I have to use a calendar because of my awful memory, and it looks like I’m going to have put one more item on my To Do List: Get raped.

We ladies plan for everything else, so it only makes sense for us to also plan for the little inconvenience of having our bodies violated, and be double extra certain we have insurance in the event we get pregnant from the rape and decide to terminate it. At least, that’s the level of planning expected by Kansas Representative Pete DeGraaf ( R )—who also happens to be a man. Read the rest of this entry →

OMQueasi

May 26, 2011 in Not Safe For Lunch

I’ve become hyper-sensitive to Whiteness.

A few weeks ago, I attended a Saturday brunch party at an American friend’s house in a little Mexican beach town. Having lived in Mexico for the better part of two years now, and having had very little contact with Americans or Europeans or even white Mexicans, I’ve had enough distance to notice certain habits, mannerisms, quirks, tendencies, peculiarities and particularisms more common to white people than, say, full-blooded indigenous people from remote jungle villages so out of the Western World’s reach that their first contact with things like antibiotics and Catholicism and the Spanish language is still well within living memory. Read the rest of this entry →