I've done way too many entries that haven't included my "trademark" book review, and I just finished a winner, so I'm devoting this entire post to a review.

I just read The Secret Life of Bees, buy Sue Monk Kidd.  It was amazing.  It's the story of Lily Owens who runs away from her father and her small South Carolina town in 1964 with her black housekeeper/surrogate mother.  Lily and Rosaleen find themselves in another small South Carolina town where they are taken in by some eccentric beekeeping sisters.  During her summer with the sisters, Lily learns an awful lot about love and honesty and race relations, and also learns the truth about what happened to her mother.  Your heart will ache for all of the characters and you'll be amazed at the ending.  It's really a fantastic book.

I'm not usually this introspective, but there's something about this quote that rings very true:

"Compassion is not just feeling with someone, but seeking to change the situation.  Frequently people think compassion and love are merely sentimental.  No!  They are very demanding.  If you are going to be compassionate, be prepared for action."
--1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu 

Folks across the country tuning into the Simpsons last night were probably surprised to see a disclaimer that "Parental Discretion" was advised.  On the Simpsons??

It's true.  Patty Bouvier, Marge Simpson's chain-smoking sister, came out last night (evidently fed up with MacGyver's lack of response).  Homer, although disgusted at first, ended up becoming an ordained minister and marrying Patty and her girlfriend.  It helped that the town of Springfield decided to legalize gay marriage to boost tourism.

The show has lots of people up in arms.  One such man is Brent Bozel, III, president of the Parent's Television Council, who stated, "At a time when the public mood is overwhelmingly against gay marriage, any show that promotes gay marriage is deliberately bucking the public mood," and "You've got a show watched by millions of children. Do children need to have gay marriage thrust in their faces as an issue? Why can't we just entertain them?" according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Let's get serious here.  The Simpson's has always been out to shock -- and they've got a long history of capitalizing on hotbutton issues.  I guess I'm not sure why there's such an uproar over this episode.  Of course.  I shouldn't be surprised...these are the same people who have been screaming about Sponge Bob turning the youth of the nation into flaming queers.  (If only...) 

And let's get real.  If there's one single gay person reading this who didn't realize that Patty swung that way (MacGyver decoy fantasies notwithstanding), I'll eat my vibrator.  Now if I could just figure out why no one is trying to figure out the answer to the one really important question: What does Selma have to say about all of this?

Well, I finally had a weekend worth writing about.  :-)  Bri came for a visit from Madison -- I haven't seen her since last summer -- and brought her girlfriend Abby whom I had not yet met.  We exchanged Christmas presents (rather late, I know); Bri gave me a music stand, some sheet music and a box of chocolates.  Very cool gifts!  I had crocheted her a scarf, which she seemed to like...

They reserved a room at the Radisson in LaCrosse, so we went there and checked in before going for dinner.  (I just finished my leftovers.)  Then we went out to a couple of bars, got shitty, and danced...a lot.  It was a fantastic night.  Also fantastic was the surprising fact that I wasn't hung over at all this morning.

We came back to Winona this morning -- sorta slowly.  It had been snowing/sleeting and the highway was pretty awful.  Passing car after car that had slid off into the ditch is not encouraging.  Then we went out for a sandwich and that was pretty much that.  I guess putting it down in print makes it not sound too spectacular, but it was very cool seeing Bri again.  I miss her already.  And she definitely gets an A+ for picking out a stellar girlfriend.  As most of my friends will attest, I'm sorta fussy when it comes to partners for my close friends.  I have nothing but good things to say about Abby.  She was sweet and funny and very smart and obviously very in love with Bri.

Since I got back and they left, I spent the rest of today finishing (yet) another scarf, this time for my mom.  Her birthday is Wednesday, so I'm going to have to mail it out first thing Tuesday morning so that she gets it in time.  I'm pretty pleased with the result, though.  My first scarf was awfully lumpy and uneven; I seem to have polished my technique.  I popped in my Golden Girls DVD and half watched/half listened to that while I was working.  :-)

So I guess it's not that anything amazing happened this weekend, I'm just amazed to find Sunday night here and have such a feeling of contentment (as opposed to dread for the coming week).  My house is (relatively) clean, my mom's present is done, I got chocolate, and I got the chance to spend time with someone I haven't seen in far too long.  I'm going to sleep with a smile on my face tonight.

Today I went to see the Vagina Monologues with Susan (a coworker) and her husband Mark.  It was performed at UWL -- and it was fantastic!  All of the proceeds benefitted domestic violence causes.  I found out about it when a couple of girls walked in to players and asked me and a couple of friends if we wanted to buy a vagina.  They looked stunned...I started to giggle.  Turned out they were chocolate -- and anatomically correct.  Of course I bought one.

For those who aren't familiar, from what I understand, the creator, Eve Ensler, had conversations with over 200 women -- young, old, black, white, straight, gay, affluent, homeless, etc. -- about their vaginas.  She then transcribed her conversations into a play which has been performed all over the country (and world), and also became an HBO special.

Just saying it like that makes it sound a little ridiculous, I know.  But it wasn't.  It was very, very funny, moving and incredibly powerful.  Many of the conversations Ensler had revolved just around the word "vagina," as well as the multitude of nicknames people have for that particular body part (coochi snorcher?).  She asked many women what their vaginas would wear if they could wear clothes, or what they would say if they could only say two words.  (My favorite: "Where's Ryan?").

The point of all of this is that women often go through life not thinking about their vaginas, or not thinking of them as a part of them, or thinking their dirty.  Or they may thing the actual word "vagina" is taboo or wrong or ridiculous.  Ensler's goal is to get women talking about this integral body part and what it means to them.  This play not only showcases many, many views on what a vagina really is, but it also makes the audience aware of a woman's sexuality and femininity in ways many people weren't before.

One of the actors played a woman who was rather disgusted by her vagina.  She was curious once as a teen and looked in a mirror and was horrified by what she saw.  She went through much of her adult life distancing herself from that particular organ until she met a guy.  In her words, he was absolutely nothing spectacular.  Until she decided to go to bed with him, that is.  After undressing her, he said "I have to see you."  She didn't understand, and he repeated himself.  She got exasperated and turned on the light.  He just looked at her vagina in awe.  (hmm...)  She was extremely embarrassed at first, but he continued to just stare at her vagina in worship.  It did eventually turn her on, and it also changed her outlook -- her vagina was amazing, not disgusting, and it took this otherwise completely uninteresting lover to prove it to her.

Another woman talked about how her vagina was angry -- angry at tampons, angry at "cold duck lips" (a gynecologist's speculum)...  She shouted at the audience that such an important body part should be revered and pampered: the should fina a way to lubricate tampons, they should provide her with furry stirrups and a velvet nightie at the gynecologist's office -- not to mention warm up the duck lips.  And she ranted that she smelled just fine, thank you very much: she doesn't need to smell like a country garden.  "You don't wash the fish after you cook it!  I order fish because I want to taste the fish!" 

Another woman talked about the trauma of being raped over the course of several days by many, many men in Bosnia.  She was in what might be termed a concentration camp and was tortured for over a week.  She spoke of the poison that was forced into her body, of the men using bizarre implements to rape her (like guns and broom handles), of the raging infection that ensued, of the burning pain in her vagina that she had to endure...  She talked about how she was a sexual being before she was taken prisoner; she had a lover, she had masturbated.  After the torture, she closed off her vagina and no longer thought of it as part of herself.

And there was so much more.  An old woman discussed "down there" for the first time in her life.  A transsexual told of the pain in being born without a vagina, and how finally receiving one through surgery completed her.  Women talked about their first periods.  They discussed genital mutilation and short skirts, hair and moaning and the word "cunt"...the list goes on.

I suppose you might think it sounds like a bit much, but out of everyone in the audience I could see, I didn't see anyone that walked out or even looked offended.  It was very artfully done.  I took away from it a real sense of moving forward in this country -- something I haven't felt in a while.  If we (and not just women) can embrace our bodies (every last part), acknowledge being sexual, flawed, needful and amazing, we can move past the sophomoric behavior our society has been exhibiting.  We won't giggle at the word "vagina."  We won't use "cunt" as a perjorative.  We won't look at people who aren't straight as being "less than," only different but still okay.  Obviously people have to do a lot more than just look at their vaginas in a mirror and talk about their repressed sexuality, but even thinking about these things is a step in the right direction (in my opinion).  So is seeing this play -- if there's a performance near you, make a point to see it.  You won't be sorry.  It's outstanding.

I'm irritated.  I signed up for this tax-free savings account through work, where I can have money taken out of my paycheck before taxes and then apply it towards medical and dental expenses.  It's a great benefit.  All I have to do is fill out a claim form every time I spend money on medical stuff, fax it in, and then be sure I save my receipts.  Then the money is deposited directly into my checking account.  It should be very easy.  However, they company that's holding this account mailed me my PIN number early in January so that I could go online and review everything, and I immediately lost it.  No big deal, right?  I called them up and asked them to remail it.  They did.  In the meantime, I had submitted a claim -- this was, oh, a good two weeks ago.  I got my PIN and check online a week later, and saw that I didn't have any claim activity at all, not even anything pending.  So I called.  They asked me to refax my form, even though I had a confirmation that it went through the first time.  I checked online today and still don't see anything.  And the best part?  I got something in the mail from them yesterday.  I just opened it now, and it was a letter reminding me to only submit a given claim form once.  Aaahhh!!! 

It just hasn't been a good day for me and technology to mix.  My pharmacy switched to an automated telephone system a few months ago.  It's kind of funny -- it's a really tiny independant drug store run by a bunch of really old men, but I guess they were spending too much time on the phone.  I can't imagine how much it must have confused all of their elderly customers.  Well, that's neither here nor there.  The system malfunctioned today.  While I was half-way through calling in a couple of refills.  Wonderful.  It's not like it's a huge hardship calling them back tomorrow, but with as crazy as it always is on Mondays, I know they'll manage to hose something up.  You know, if one of the refills managed to get entered in properly today, and then I call it in again tomorrow, it might just be too much for them.  If it wasn't for the proximity of this place to my job, I would never use them -- they average about one medication error every 3 months with me.  (And I'm definitely not the only one who's had that complaint.)  I just try so hard not to confuse them; looks like that's not going to happen this time.

I can't really complain, though.  Matt got his December electric bill a few weeks ago.  It went from being $77 in November to $1400-something for December.  Yikes.  I think it's fairly clear that someone mis-read his meter, but when he called the power company didn't seemed to inclined to fix it.  Evidently they finally agreed to send someone out to reread the meter.  Two weeks later (yesterday) he got another bill -- for $1400.  He called back and the girl on the phone was snotty.  If it was me, I would have opened that envelope and dropped dead of a stroke right there on the spot.

I went out last night -- it was most bizarre.  First of all, some girl from UWL sold me a chocolate vagina.  She was promoting V-Day and domestic violence issues, and also UWL's upcoming production of the vagina monologues.  I thought it was really creative, and a really good cause.  It also turned out to be delicious (and anatomically correct).  Maybe I'll go to the play.  At any rate, I'm sure it'll be the last time I'll be eating a vagina.

I also saw Joe (see my ranting post from a week or two ago).  He was the one who was stalking Mike and was convinced I hated him, since he spurned me (sort of) like 7 years ago.  He walked up and started talking to me, and I had absolutely no idea who he was.  It was a little embarrassing (although I'm not sure what would have been wrong with simply introducing himself).  Once I finally figured it out, I laughed out loud, told him he was a huge dumbass who shouldn't be so stuck on himself and we sat down to have an interesting conversation.  He hasn't grown up much in the last 7 years, sad to say.  He seems to have a rather different recollection of what happened between us back then (but, whatever...who am I to burst his bubble?).  Best of all, though, Mike was right: he is fat.  :-)

Just finished a really good horror book: Summer of Night, by Dan Simmons.  Although I don't usually like to compare books, it did remind me a little of It, by Stephen King.  There's a group of 6 young boys that have to band together to save their town (and themselves) from an ancient evil.  Definitely creepy.