Bad Romance: Part II

How to Sexually Harass a Woman (Or Anyone, Really) as Seen through the Lens of a Lady Gaga Video

If you've known me for any length of time, you are probably sick of hearing about Lady Gaga. I am a Monstrous Fan...for a number of reasons: she shares my lone superpower of wearing heels so high that we breathe clouds (not plain air like all you plebeians...I kid...mostly), she doesn't take herself very seriously (she falls down in those heels on stage all the time and gets up laughing), I find her songs imaginative, and, sue me, I love the added layers synthesizers can bring to a piece of music in the hands of the right musician. But I'm also a fan because of her videos, which are rich with complex meaning.

The video for "Bad Romance," however, has always stood out for me above all others, even "Born This Way," which is the video responsible for completing Lady Gaga's very own cosmology, another world that exists apart from the quotidian for the short bursts of time she performs live. There is something about "Bad Romance" that practically eviscerates me. After the news broke about my sexual Harasser being arrested for taking upskirt shots of women in a local big box chain, the first thing I did was watch videos of him taking videos in the store. Surreal.

Then, I watched "Bad Romance," and I realized what it is about the video that elicits such a visceral response, and it's the constantly shifting point of view. When the video begins, the person whom we call Lady Gaga is a sleeping queen on a throne—an example of "subjectness" although, a, perhaps, lax subjectness. In a  plot twist, she touches a button on a console next to her (actually a Parrot by Stark speaker) and is shaken awake into a dream. The facts of this dream are what shock because as she morphs (the way I do when I'm dreaming) into the different people who populate the dream, she becomes a different example of the dark side of objectification (ending with the darkest of all). I realized that day, after seeing the news and subsequently watching "Bad Romance," that I was being shown a movie about my own existence. And this is where our instruction on sexually harassing a woman begins.

Step One: Kill Her
After pressing the button, the queen is projected into the Bath Haus of Gaga. Make no mistake: this is not a spa; it's a morgue. Gaga emerges from a sleek white coffin in the form of a ghost in white latex. In current popular culture ghosts possess two characteristics. First, watch any reality show that attempts to prove the existence of ghosts, and you will learn they don't speak. Second, they are beings whose ability to act upon the world is severely limited, if possible at all. 

For the typical sexual harasser, who is a misogynist, to be successful at his project, he must first "kill" his victim, rendering her into a ghost-like figure. The guy at the table who talks over a woman trying to speak during committee meetings is a sexual harasser in the making if not one in fact. In my case, the harassment began discreetly the summer before the Harasser felt comfortable enough to make an open display of it. To recap, I was taking part in the professional development workshop that I would later help administrate. As part of that workshop we handed in pieces we had been working on that were in draft stage. I had asked that no feedback be given on my work. The Harasser's response was "Well, how are you going to improve if you don't receive any feedback." 

True, but having taught writing for 17 years, I know there is a time when feedback is valuable and a time when it isn't, and the writer should be the one to decide when it's time. Additionally, verbal feedback is better because it tells the writer something about this one audience member's attitude, emotions, and frame of mind. Not only that, but I had a bad experience in graduate school with a male classmate who felt we were in competition and basically "ripped me a new one" in an attempt to eliminate me, and I still had that bad taste in my mouth. 

So I asked, "Could you record your comments and send them to me?" 

"No, that's not the way we do things." 

When I got the comments back, I looked at the first page and threw the copy in the recycle bin. The feedback was not going to help me...and not because I planned to ignore it...but because the Harasser was responding to his idea of what the final product would be and not to what it was at the time, which was unfinished. I was becoming the ghost who doesn't speak or, rather, can't make herself heard. 

The fatal wound occurred on the day I've described in "Bad Romance: Part I." Having given this a lot of thought over the last few months, I now understand that the harasser's ideal victim is the one who attempts to ignore the harassment, in other words, the ghost who does not or cannot act on the world. As I mentioned in Part I, this allows the harasser to fantasize that the victim is giving chase. In Lady Gaga's video for "Yoü and I," which is a retelling of the Pygmalion myth, she sings, "Something, something about the chase," and we all know the titillation of that game...those first few weeks of infatuation where the would-be lovers play tag like children. This is what the harasser seeks, except the chase isn't mutual, nor is it about infatuation, nor is it ultimately about the freedom to play and experience joy (a point I will come around to later). 

There are other responses: I could have done as my friend advised and simply stood up, put my hand out, and said, "No." I could have reported it to his supervisor that afternoon. I could have "seen his 10 and raised him 20" by whispering, "Why is being married a problem?" And while my response was the worst possible because I allowed myself to be turned into a ghost thus giving him exactly what he wanted, none of the other responses really suffice. Saying "No" only sends him to some other victim. And I mean no offense to the director, who is still a good friend, but reporting it at that stage would have gotten him a slap on the wrist and me an apology of sorts: "I'm sorry; I really didn't mean anything by it." That's as far as any upper-level administrator could have legally gone. And reflecting his mirror image back to him may have made the situation worse, another point I'll return to later.

Step Two: Make Her into Your Own Image
In one short scene of "Bad Romance," Gaga is pictured standing in front of a mirror in a black dress, with that odd crown (this time in black) she's famous for, wearing black sunglasses. While singing "I want your drama, the touch of your hand, your leather-studded kiss in the sand," she reprises Madonna in her "Respect Yourself" parody of Michael Jackson grabbing his crotch. To me, this symbolizes the point at which, after having metaphorically killed his victim, the harasser must now make the shadow-self that is the object of his "affection" into his own hyper-sexualized image. In order to keep up the charade that the shadow-self is giving chase, she must want what he wants. It is also, of course, a way to justify actions he knows to be wrong. My Harasser has a wife and daughters; I'm 100% certain that if anyone did to them what he did to me, his reaction would have been similar to my husband's. But he felt no guilt because I was like him and, despite all evidence to the contrary, wanted what he wanted. However, this does not make me "one of the boys." In "Respect Yourself," Madonna is wearing pants when she grabs her crotch. In "Bad Romance" Gaga is wearing a dress, and I think this is intentional because she is not mocking a man in so much as she is questioning what happens when a woman in the garb of a woman makes the same gesture. In making the victim into his own image, the harasser does not confer male status onto the shadow-self, he makes her a slut...all the more worthy of harassing. 

Step Three: Make Her Think She's Crazy
The scene of Lady Gaga in the insane asylum is so reminiscent of the bathtub scene in Valley of the Dolls that I'm convinced the director had it in mind. Tellingly, Gaga appears doll-like with curly pink hair and eyes disturbingly shaped like anime characters. She appears in a bathtub wearing earbuds and some sort of asylum-issued bath suit while being placated by the music she listens to like every stereotypical psychotic we've ever seen in a movie. She is unwillingly made to drink something by two nurses who force her mouth open and pour the elixir down her throat. Intermittently, the video flashes back to the ghost, and we hear the words "I want your love and all love is revenge; I want your love, and all your love is revenge." There are two psychical states being enacted here. The first is the deep anger a harasser feels over the lack of control over the "other" as evidenced by the lyrics, which switch point of view as often as the video, and the second is the age-old scheme of making the victim question whether what she believes to be happening is actually happening. 

For the harasser, "love" is revenge. 

I'm a technical writer and a rhetorician. It's my business to know the most efficient ways of communicating with people. So during the time I was working on the presentation submission form for the conference our organization was hosting, I often received e-mails from the Harasser about changes that needed to be made. Mostly, the changes took less than five minutes, so instead of initiating an unnecessary chain of e-mails, I took care of the problem immediately and assumed that, as happens with tech writers collaborating on a project, he was monitoring the document as the changes were being made, which I had shown him how to do. Instead, I got angry e-mails asking why I hadn't responded to his e-mails (which left me wondering why he hadn't just checked the document for the changes he asked for...as we had agreed). For him, this accomplished three goals: 1) it gave him further reasons to engage me, 2) it allowed him to assert authority over me (where he actually had none), and 3) it caused me to begin questioning whether the e-mails, which varied from sycophantic begging to acrimonious demands to obsequious apologies, were actually a form of sexual harassment. None of this behavior was described in the training I have to undergo every year as part of my position. My thought was "Maybe he is doing the best he can at his job and is truly stressed, and I'm the one being paranoid." Hell, he had me apologizing for things I didn't do wrong while dehumanizing me at the same time. His anger was a subterfuge designed to manipulate me into questioning my own sanity. 

So when I saw two stills of him angrily stalking the aisles of the local big-box chain, I knew that the anger was part of the MO. Now, I don't know what he's angry about in those photos...maybe he's not finding a skirt-wearing victim quick enough for his satisfaction, maybe he and his wife got into an argument before he left for the store, maybe he's angry because he's disgusted by his own behavior. It doesn't matter, he's angry. And this brings me back to two points I promised to come back to earlier. First, his endeavor is devoid of joy. The way he approaches it, with that countenance of consternation, it's more like a job taken on strictly to make ends meet. Second, anyone who's angry is dangerous. I believe it was the b-movie The Seduction where Morgan Fairchild plays a newscaster who foils a rapist by returning his "advances." He later begins stalking her with vengeance in mind. And while that was fiction, the mind that objectifies others in "violent" ways (in my case the violence was purely emotional, but it was there) experiences an es muss sein, "this must be." He considers any alternative that does not put him in control a violence against his own psyche, and he will most likely carry out an act of retribution. Which is why returning the harasser's advances is not a good idea. He must be in control at all costs, and while he will generally walk the fine line between ignorance of wrong-doing and open transgression so as to get off the hook when called out, if the axis of his world goes off kilter, the power of that anger remains. Emotional violence can transmogrify into the physical.  

There is no doubt that the man in the next scene of the video is the one responsible for sending Gaga 1) to the morgue, 2) to the mirror, and 3) to the asylum. Once this is a fait accompli, there is only one step left.

Step Four: Possess Her
I only want to touch on a few scenes in the final sequence of events in "Bad Romance." Lady Gaga is brought out against her will before a king who quite possibly now occupies her former throne and is made to dance for and then crawl to him for his pleasure. She is later shown frozen, as an object, in the middle of a circle of seated men as stocks in Lady Gaga, as a corporation and not a real person, continue to rise. We see her naked in a cage with monstrously huge vertebrae that force her spine to curve grotesquely. She has fulfilled the darkest stage of objectification possible: she has become a possession, a bauble, a sideshow freak, a slave. 

This is ultimately what a sexual harasser, a child molester, a peeping tom, a rapist wants: to claim ownership of another human being because that is the ultimate source of power for him. I'm no psychologist, so I can't identify where their sense of self got stuck or what may have caused this to happen. I just know they have issues with power and control, which they can only regain by dominating those they consider weak. 

In the end, Gaga tricks the new king and sets him on fire, Farrah Fawcett style, while he sits on his bed as she pretends she is about to perform for him and him alone. 

Lucky her. 

The article on "Sexual Harassment" at Wikipedia discusses how victims have coped in the past by taking on the personae of "the lady," "the flirt," and "the tomboy." The message is that we, as women, cannot be ourselves when being victimized by a harasser. It goes on to give the common side effects of sexual harassment, which include the following: stress, humiliation, being the subject of public scrutiny, decreased productivity, loss of support, etc. All of this says to me that I bear the burden for seeking counseling for and rectifying what was done to me. No mention is made of what someone who commits sexual harassment should do to make recompense. Is this an oversight? Or have we given into the idea that men simply can't control their sexual urges (to which I say, "Bullshit." I know way too many good men out there to buy into that load of hegemonical crap.)?

I'm enjoying the fact that my Harasser will live in ignominy for the rest of his life. But that's not enough. I've got a blog, a voice, two hands, and a laptop. And this, not counseling, is the solution that will finally have to suffice. 

And to those who would lament the death of flirtation because feminists see sexual harassment around every corner, have no fear. There is a huge difference. Real flirtation arises out of mutual admiration and a respect for someone that goes beyond the sum of her/his parts. It is childlike and free of darker motivations. It is play and joy. And it is wonderfully summed up by the wink, which is always accompanied by a smile. 

Going out of Business

F-Bomb Alert: My mom should not read this post (she will anyway).

My teaching career is officially, finally, and irrevocably over. After 19 years in the biz, I've had enough. A few months ago, a friend of mine said, "You know, there are problems at every job; I just need a different set of problems." And I guess I kind of took her statement into my own heart.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I, too, need a different set of problems. So I went out of business...mainly because I'm too tired to keep the store open anymore and because I'm not even sure how I went from being a teaching professional to a business owner.

"Delivering composition." It's the title of a well-known book in my former field, and it's the way many in that field refer to their work. Deliver stuff to someone. Like fucking UPS. It's the tabula rasa in make-up and high heels (because those who "deliver composition" are overwhelmingly female). Worse still, while every college and university across the nation considers composition a foundation of their educational program, it is largely taught by contingent faculty...mostly women...who are far too generous with their time in comparison to the pay they receive, which is among the lowest at any university. Darkness visible: importance undervalued.

I didn't actually sign up for a teaching career. Like most things in my life, it fell into my lap. My Pell Grant was suddenly cut off, and I was forced to graduate. I spent a summer wondering, "What the hell?" And then I got a call from a college friend. The Intensive English Program needed a warm body to stand in front of a class of international students. "Could you be that body?" I was desperate, so I took the job. I remember buying cheap "professional" clothes from Wal-Mart after I accepted my offer. They (the clothes, not the offer) were (a) too big and (b) so unfashionable even for the time that, if you tagged me in a picture of myself wearing them on Facebook, I'd have to unfriend and then block you (after untagging myself, of course).

The funny thing is no one in my new department wanted to teach writing. Being the n00b, I eventually became the expert in teaching writing to students for whom English was a second language...through experience and gut instinct...not through any sort of training. Sure, I read some articles, tried some stuff, and eventually disposed of it because it didn't really get at the reality of how people learn to write well.

You know, I've been writing since before I could write. I'd pen stories I spoke out loud as I wrote down chicken scratches that I thought looked something like the alphabet. I'd show them to my mother: "Sansy, you'll learn to write soon enough." She was wrong. In first grade, I was not taught to write. I was taught to copy. I was also taught that variation from the norm is forbidden. This set of rules for behavior was known as "penmanship," and it taught me that words ending in -ship are often not trustworthy: hardship, censorship, partisanship (not a real thing), membership (generally leads to responsibilities one does not want), kinship (backstabbing, in-fighting, general carnage), etc. So I took to my granddad's typewriter (a Remington that celebrated it's 92nd birthday in July) and did my own thing sans a fat pencil, a Big Chief tablet, or a template. (I'm going all Lady Gaga and seeing how many times I can work my own nickname into each post. See?). It also taught me that if you really want to learn to do something, you have to take matters into your own hands. That's how I learned to actually write, and it didn't feel soon enough. Even at that young age, I had something to say, I wanted to say it, and I felt like forces were holding me back.

My mom and I discovered, when I was in high school, that the reason I was never assigned homework is because I actually was. I just didn't understand the concept. The teacher would tell the class to read this and fill out that, so I did it when I was bored and waiting for everyone else to catch up with whatever the teacher was droning on about (which I had already read in the textbook). I thought that was what we were supposed to do...keep busy. I didn't know I was supposed to sit there quietly doing nothing while all that homework piled up for us to take home.

My bad.

At least I had glorious afternoons playing in the weird back yard that was designed by a concrete manufacturer in 1884: a reflection pool, a rock garden, an octagonal fish pond with island and bridge, a six-foot high bird bath, a wisteria arbor. Hell, the man even encircled the clothesline with sidewalk. My house was THE place to be after school. And when everyone got called in for supper and I had finished eating, I went to the typewriter.

One day, in fifth grade, I ran out of homework to not take home. So I wrote a poem about what was going on in the classroom. I observed things I had never noticed before; it made me pay attention (I even made it rhyme, and, yeah, I know, "E Gad!"). I copied it, by hand (I didn't have access to the lovely pasty smell of the ditto machine) and gave it to my teacher as a sort of present. She gave it to the school secretary, and thus I became a published author for the first time...in the school newsletter. Later that year, I was given an assignment to write a biography about someone famous (good grief, why do these subjects withstand the test of time?). I naturally wrote an essay about one of my ancestors, Benjamin Franklin, whom my dad was named after, and I got the highest grade of anyone for that assignment. I was only interested in my subject because my dad had studied Ben's life backwards and forwards, in all its tarnished glory, and had regaled me with the more kid-friendly of our progenitor's exploits. After I had written the paper, I asked my dad to check it. I don't know if he was laughing at my naivete or with joy that he had taught me something. Probably both. At any rate, he kindly and verbally corrected some parts and told me how proud he was of me. Through so many experiences like these, I learned the power of observation and that I was a WRITER.

If you want to write well, here's what you need to know:

• If you want to write, just do it.
• No matter how bad it's going, wait for the moment when it all turns right. It'll happen.
• It doesn't hurt to share. Some will love you; others will rip you apart. Somewhere in the middle is the truth.
• Motivation is key; you need to want something bigger than yourself and your own little world.
• You'll mess up a lot (typewriters are good for reminding you of this).
• Find a way in to every project.
• It isn't cheating if you ask for help.

There, I bubble-wrapped it, put it in a cardboard box filled with Styrofoam peanuts, taped up the box, drove it to your house, knocked on your door, and handed it to you. Delivered.

There are several problems with this metaphor, however. Once something has been delivered, what happens to it?

• What if the customer doesn't like it and wants to return it? (I thought I wanted Product X, but I've changed my mind.)
• What if the customer wants an exchange? (I want a better version of Product X.)
• What if he/she never opens the box (In one week, I'm no longer interested in Product X. In fact, I'm so uninterested by Product X, I won't even take the time to open the box or inquire about a possible return. I'm actually willing to lose money on it by not returning it.)
• What if your consumer only consumes part way and gives up in frustration? (I can't understand the instructions; I'll just leave it in the garage half done.)
• What if the product is a "gift" the consumer didn't want?
• What if the product doesn't meet the customers expectations because they didn't understand the product's description? (Wait, I bought a hardware key logger so I wouldn't lose all my stuff in the event of the Zombie Uprising, and you're telling me I can't use it with a laptop?)

Begin digression. 4 That last one was oddly specific, wasn't it? 3End digression.

There are a number of problems with this metaphor. The first of which is that students are not consumers and teaching does not result in a product. Consumers are people who buy, let's be literal, food and eat it. I don't want the "products" of their consumption landing on my desk. And maybe that's why student writing is so often crappy...because we've adopted the wrong metaphors for understanding what writing actually is and we refuse to see that learning how to do it will be different for every single person. No method is prêt-à-porter. Also, you can't deliver learning and expect anything to happen. You have to create opportunities for people to learn, and the classroom is probably the worst place for opportunity with its hierarchy so obviously laid out in rows.

To make matters worse, if I were still in the delivery business, as a member of the contingent faculty, I would have the additional threat of being drawn and quartered hanging over my already taut nerves. The Four Horses of the Apocalypse who would ensure the failure of my delivery would be as follows:

• My creditor: the person who renews my contract, i.e. my chair.
• My landlord: the state that pays me.
• My competition: the other composition programs out there who drive every program to act according to the same model.
• My customers: the people I'm supposed to serve out of the goodness of my heart.

Let me break it down. My creditor wants me to maintain standards, which means certain grades should form a bell-shaped curve. (The books must be balanced!) My landlord wants me to concentrate on retention which means I should do whatever it takes to make sure students pass my class. (You must pass all regulatory inspections.) My competition wants me to stay within the accepted rules of how we deliver our goods; this doesn't affect me personally, but it certainly dictates the methods by which we assess our program. (We are the standard-setters for this particular business; never mind your unique circumstances. Our guidelines should be met by everyone.) And finally, there are the customers. The people I'm supposed to serve out of love for teaching. And if I could have gotten loose of my restraints, believe me, I would have made my getaway on their horse. Unfortunately, there's already a master holding the bridles, and that master's name is "Lottery College Scholarship."

These students have been told they stand a fighting chance, and they want it. We tell them that writing is about exploration, and they feel invited. And then we slap a grade on their fledgling attempts, and I'm sorry for the mixed metaphor (but, hell, I'm the queen of the mixed metaphor and there are so many in this text already, what's one more?), we expect them to fly?

This model is broken because it pits the teacher against everyone else.

Students want to maintain their scholarships; chairs want a bell-shaped curve. The legislature wants to move the college graduation rate above 18%. I'm not sure standards have ever actually entered the minds of any legislator in this respect. My imaginary elected official thinks something like this: "Give college students the Easy A, damn it! Knowledge-based industries like Google will never figure out how woefully inadequate our workers are until we've attracted them with our tax incentive packages, and then it'll be too late!" Beg your pardon, legislators, the information age is actively looking for brain capital, and they know we don't have it.

In the meantime, the Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA) sets standards for class size and assessment guidelines that go against anything any administrator in this state has the money to agree to thanks to the legislature that subsidizes every public school of higher education here. This is the very same legislature that decided to award unprepared students scholarships for college with stipulations they can't meet.

And this is why everything must go. And by everything I mean grades, standards, enforced curricula (assignments, textbooks, methods of teaching, especially the tabula rasa model), and the disenfranchisement of women in the discipline.

Oh, and grading 640 papers a semester? That was the first thing I put into the trash.

Photo Credit: Bearfaced via a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs License. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bearfaced/5845467008/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Yes, I'm the Woman Judging Your Purchases in the Grocery Line

Okay, so I challenged everyone to guess the three products whose ingredients I posted (ahem) SEVERAL weeks ago and promised I would reveal them the following week. However, I got busy writing something else instead. You get what you pay for.

I know how many of you visit this site (and where you reside...a big welcome to visitors from Australia and Indonesia), and yet no one wagered a guess. I imagine it was easy enough to surmise that one was a savory product and the other two were sweet, but, other than that, there aren't a lot of clues regarding the nature of the products in the ingredients lists. They are as follows:

1. "devil's food cake" mix,

2. "milk chocolate" icing,

3. a packet of "brown gravy" mix.

I put the food names in quotation marks because one cannot call any of these items real food. Having looked at recipes for the first product, I gotta say that I don't see the necessity of buying it "pre-made." There aren't a whole lot of ingredients in the homemade version. But let's suppose you work 40 hours a week (as I do) and want your evenings and weekends relatively free (as we all do). In a few minutes, you could mix the following ingredients together, put them in a sealable, re-usable container, and put them in the freezer (yes, I'm assuming a lot by assuming you have a freezer...you could keep it in the cupboard, just be aware that whole wheat flour goes rancid in high temps). You could even double or triple the batch for more cake later.

Healthier Devil's Food Cake PreMix

In one bag, mix together:

1 cup brown cane sugar

3/4 cup cane sugar

In another bag, mix together:

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups whole wheat cake flour (yes, there is such a thing)

1 cup unsweetened baking cocoa

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Now, when you're ready to bake a cake, pull your two bags out of the freezer.

Remember the French saying, "mise en place" and get the following ingredients on the counter. Next to your mixing bowl:

1 1/2 sticks organic butter

4 large organic free-range eggs (if you can, look for someone who sells eggs from chickens who roam around eating insects all day)

Cream 1 1/2 sticks of softened organic butter with the sugars. Add four eggs to this mixture one at a time, beating well. Then add the rest of the mix. Stir a few times (just enough to get everything mixed). Pour half into two 8-inch cake pans. Bake 30-35 minutes.

You're done...well, unless you want icing on your cake, but there are a million recipes for it online, and it too is fairly easy to make.

Now, I also said I would explain how I came up with the total calories for the meal. If you'll recall, that was 1208 in toto. A serving of cake with icing and a serving of the brown gravy add up to 435 calories. I figured the brown gravy was probably for a pot roast; that's 334 calories for a single serving of beef. I also assumed that mashed potatoes were one of the most likely side dishes. That's another 237 calories. There would be at least one other side dish in the meal: how about green beans cooked down with a slice of bacon and some onion for 90 calories? Then add a King's Hawaiian sweet roll for 180 calories, and it actually comes out to more than 1208 calories. I picked King's because I see their rolls everywhere, so I'm guessing a lot of people eat them around here. A meat and two, plus bread and dessert seems like a fairly typical American meal to me. Unless you're at my house.

First, I became pescatarian (more or less) about two months ago (except for Sundays when the Holy Eucharist comes in the form of bacon and champagne...and unlimited opportunities for receiving the body and blood...at the Cathedral of St. Michelangelo on Toad Suck Square in good ol' Conwag). I did this for a lot of reasons: my health and the need to economize (my husband goes fishing seven times...no kidding...a week). But mainly I did it because I want to eliminate my relationship with the corporate food industry. I can't live with the moral questions raised by eating meat that comes from animals I know were inhumanely slaughtered by humans working in inhumane conditions. Not only that, the two main backbones of the convenience-food industry are GM soybeans and GM corn. I can't bring myself to support an industry (*cough* Monsanto) that lies about its mission, which isn't to feed a projected 9 billion people in the future. Their true mission is what they tell their shareholders: to make money. And GM corn is what they feed to animals that did not evolve to eat it. And I want to ask, how well will Monsanto be feeding the world given the drought most of the country is in right now? Genetically modified corn might tolerate Round Up, but it can't withstand Mother Nature any better than a regular crop.

Second, I'm picky. I don't like sweets, so the Western version of breakfast doesn't generally cut it. I often do as the Japanese and Koreans and eat the same things I eat for lunch and dinner: a bowl of soup, some tuna from a can, a little scattered sushi, some steamed vegetables. Except for the tuna (which I take no credit for), everything is made on Sunday. If I need something really quick, I make a single serving of organic popcorn and eat an apple or frozen berries. All things that, when they come out of their packages, are identifiable as food.

So, yes, I'm the one behind you in the supermarket watching every single item you put on the conveyor. But I'm not really judging you. I'm judging what corporations have done to our food system...eliminating the small butcher shop, the bakery store, the corner market in every neighborhood that you could walk to when you forgot the milk and eggs. I don't want you to buy the ground beef. I don't want you to buy it because it's bad for you, the environment, the animals sacrificed for it, and the economy of the middle class. I don't want you to buy the Healthy Choice cookies and Lean Cuisine entree because, despite all marketing implications to the contrary, they will not make you thin. I don't want you to buy convenience foods like brown gravy packets, cake mix, and ready-made icing because they will eventually lead you to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

That being said, would anyone like a free box of cake mix with a package of icing and a brown gravy packet? Anyone?

Photo credit: Patrick Hoesly via Creative Commons Attribution License. Some Rights Reserved. http://www.flickr.com/photos/zooboing/4473219605/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Public Service Announcement

1. Orange juice looks a lot like blood in the darkness of 3:00 a.m.
2. Orange juice poured into a dark vessel...in the dark...is hard to see and, out of obligation to your rotten luck, will overflow.
3. Orange juice is sticky when it dries, no matter how hard you try to mop it up...in the dark.
4. Orange juice is not much of a thirst quencher, especially in the dark, when it looks like blood.
5. You definitely need glasses if the first bleary-eyed sweep of the neighbor's back porch in the full 'sun' of his flood lights does not reveal him sitting there, having a smoke, in a green t-shirt and grey shorts...at 3:00 a.m.
6. With all that light streaming into the window the neighbor can see you at the sink as you wait for your glass of water to fill, having determined that orange juice, which looks like blood in the dark, doesn't hit the spot.
7. Your neighbor may be looking directly at you, but he's not looking at your marvelous brain as you stand there in your bra and panties.
8. There are a multitude of reasons to wear night garments, rather than underwear, to bed: if a fire breaks out, you don't have to dress to get out of the house; if there's a tornado, you don't have to dress to get out of the house; if a train derails and fills the neighborhood with poison gas, you don't have to dress to get out of the house. Last, but not least, if you need a glass of water, you don't have to worry about your neighbor getting his kicks at your expense.