The Tory Party

Fever Dreams

Like a Flagpole Sitta, I`m not sick, but I`m not well (OMG references to 1998 are so cool! Pop is eating itself like a Mr. Buggles langolier!) I could mention how many actors in Disturbing Behavior have good careers, and maybe some bad movies with good actors are demo reels for the young and resume updates for the SAG, but I digress like Dennis Miller core-dumping ten minutes of leaden material on Leno. (Yecch. I spent a lot of high school weeknights staying up late to watch a dude who’s degraded to the comic value of an “I`m not as think as you drunk I am” T- shirt. All I need is Parker Lewis and Ben Stiller to go neo-con and I got the comic death trifecta.)

Anyway. Not sick but still feeling weird. But I should mention halfway through my hour of infection I was gifted with not one but two gooey mash-note fever dreams. It was worth coughing myself awake to remember them.

Again I recognize that hearing other people’s dreams is boring as hell, but that’s never stopped me before, so get your eyelid toothpicks and hold tight:

The first featured the film school professor that a rousing game of booze-fueled Truth or Dare revealed to be the one regarded sexiest by the female student body. (I could take a cheap shot here and say that’s like being the Foreskin King of the Friar’s Club [get it? Cause they’re a buncha JEWS.], but overall I`d lift a beer with and to the film school professors.)

Ah ha ha — I defused land mines in WWII, you shiksa dope.

Anyway. The gist of the dream is that I was involved in a stunt that went wrong (which would NEVER happen due to strict adherence to the NCSA safety handbook, and any risks would have been assessed in daily safety meetings, but you never know). And as I lay dizzy and bleeding said sexiest professor came rushing to my aid in a comic “I`ll save the day!” fashion, and a make-out ensued.

Teh Sexay, you say! Well, hold on for dream #2 — my first and only make-out fever dream with Bruce Campbell.

I will give you this much to leave me alone.

The dream was that he and I were acting in a scene for a film school horror movie, which is totally plausible because 1) such a rich, groundbreaking role would appeal to him and 2) I am not the worst actor ever. Anyway, we were making out for a scene (which was somehow not broken into tiny little repetitive bits with 10 minutes between setups, because the fever dream gods are kind) and I kept forgetting how to movie kiss and using my tongue. Heh heh heh. Even in my film school dreams I`m under-prepared. Anyway, his character gives mine a splattery death at the end of the scene, but it was done in very good taste.

I had another dream a while back where I was starring with young Evil-Dead-era Bruce and older Bubba-Ho-Tep-era Bruce in an Evil Dead sequel set in some bare white-bark North Carolina woods. In this scenario neither I nor the Bruces knew which Bruce was evil or which Bruce was good. And neither could I OMG dirty!!!11

Can’t decide… Can’t decide — BRAIN ANEURYSM!

Now that I`m almost done being 12 I should mention that Bruce Campbell has visited NCSA in recent memory — which is to say in the memory of the 4th years currently in attendance. I would like to express how much I would love for him to visit again now that I`m here, but since I realize I would just blush and pee and pee blush it’s probably best that I stay on the giggling fringes. The Bruce Campbells of the world don’t need to limp back to their hotels will pee spray on their pant legs. Again.

She Blinded Me With Sinus

Heh heh. It was either that or “My Sinus Project,” but it didn’t involve Fisher Stevens and a quart of bronzer, so no.

It was a sinus infection. With a dash of boring old bronchitis and a jigger of ear infection. Any body part the doctor looked in, he said “Ew.” And I was like, OMG Summer can I borrow your Sevens ple-e-ease? The funny part is I’ve apparently lost six pounds (of mucus, I assume) with this ailment, so now I am fashion phlegm.

But a steady regimen of Amoxycillin and ice cream sandwiches is slowly getting me back in the pink. Yay for urgent care!

I could get into details of how very yecky this sickness was/is. I was hoping for some good ol` pneumonia, `cause that’s kind of my thing. I`m always getting some pneumonia, and it makes me feel romantic and Moulin Rouge and I`m-yo-Huckleberrah. But sinus infection? Catherine wasn’t torn from Heathcliff by a sinus infection. That’s all I`m saying.

So suddenly I want to hear about your most disgusting health experience. What Alien-Resurrection-style goo-fest put you in touch with your mortality? It’s after Thanksgiving — I think we’re cleared to speak of the disgusting again.

Mammaries of Goodness

Has anyone besides me noticed the vast proportion of false mammary tissue on the female contestants for Fear Factor? Apparently such women are good at performing dangerous stunts - to have successfully survived so many “enhancement” procedures they must have strong stomaches and accept death as a possible outcome.

“Mommy, can I be anorexic when I grow up?”

“Give me monstrously unreal looking DD cups or give me death.”

Gah. Makes me ill.

The funny thing is…

drum roll please…..

I actually would like to get breast surgery at some point for myself. But I`m not aiming for a set of monster honkers that ensure beyond a shadow of a doubt that “this is my dance space, and this is your dance space.” I want to even mine out. Way more information than you would like to know, but my left breast is somewhat bigger than my right breast. This has always annoyed me. So I would like to even them out. And, yeah, I wouldn’t mind them a bit perkier. But I`m quite content with the size of boobs that god (goddess?) gave me.

Could someone explain to me the fetish some people (both male and female - we dykes can be just as bad at times) have for watermelon-sized melons? Like my daddy used to say, “More than a mouthful is a waste.”

I`ll be the first to admit that a nice rack on a woman can make my head spin Linda Blair-style as I follow her with my eyes thinking “God DAMN I would make her scream my name until the cows come home!” That said, there’s a point at which extremely large breasts stop looking sexy and start looking freakish. Breasts are supposed to be soft and supple, not molded and resembling volcanic rock in texture.

So tell me, friends, Romans, cunt-rymen (and women) -

Pretend you are Goldilocks. Which set of breasts makes you say “this bed is just right?” Shane from the L word? Or Dolly? Or somewhere in between? And if so, what? Kate Moss? Kate Hudson?

What do you look for in a nice rack?

Signing off for now,

-K

Producer’s note: This post brought to you by the letter C and the number 36.

Insanity

This`ll be fun.

Where to begin? I`m high out of my mind on Dayquil right now because I needed a break from languishing with hideous fever. And my sister called first thing this morning (my morning, which is to say it began at 10:30 AM) and I thought she might like to hear me through the mucous. Fever. Dayquil. Hot and cold flashes. It’s like a demented medical menopause.

I keep thinking maybe I should be doing the fluids and bed rest thing, but I`m on the schedule at work tonight (four days straight — making use of Thanksgiving break time — not that four days straight is such a mind-bending quantity) and gots to get those Franklins. Radiohead is leaking out of the computer on my left. I think it’s Radiohead. It could be Rufus Wainwright. I can’t freakin` tell. Lemme look.

iTunes says some track ganked from Indie Pop Rocks Internet radio. Informative.

This would probably be a fun high if I didn’t have to get so much done today. It was kinda fun when I was working off a cold a couple of weeks ago and went to see The Incredibles (as you may have heard, pretty damn good.) But in that case someone else was driving and I could just be giggly and Ephedrined with my Cars trailer and my belly full of Qodobo and no worries.

I really didn’t take that much, I don’t think. It’s like Dayquil-fever synergy. Heh heh. Synergy. Now I`m going to squeeze my earring and get pink hair and take on the Misfits OMG!!1one!

On the plus side, I`m typing like holy Rastafarian molecule mice.

I`m getting around to the point I think I have. This is the third wacked-out thing to happen to me in the past 24 hours. I think the Dayquil issue speaks for itself, so here are the other two:

Point the first

I called someone who was advertising for a web programmer. No big deal, right? Hoo doggie. In the 35 minutes that followed I was able to inject an upwards of fifty words. What was not mentioned was what the job was or where to send a resume or some such. Here’s a timeline:

• 00:05 — I say “Hi. I`m calling in response to your ad for a web artist?”
• 00:10 — He clicks off and on to make sure I`m “not a robot.” He means an automated phone solicitation. I suggest that “calling in response to your ad for a web artist” would be a mighty strange thing for an automated phone solicitation to say. No matter. I get treated to a brief history of his experience working at a call center, where the call staff were kids and drunks.
• 04:40 — I apologize for my stuffy nose. He says it makes me sound like a radio DJ, and this leads to a story about his brother who was a DJ and left his window open at night to help him catch colds to maintain his DJ sound, but all DJs are crazy, you know?
• 10:30 — I tell him about my education and experience, starting with coding in Fortran 77 for power deregulation systems. Obviously this leads to his opinion on proprietary systems, free markets and government regulation.
• 15:00 — He responds to call waiting. He comes back and says it was a robot. I say, “Wow, that really does happen a lot.” He says it’s because he has a land line, which for no apparent reason leads to a discussion of NSA.gov, and how computers existed in 1948 to calculate the projection of possible missiles from Russia(?!) and part of this project was a team of women with slide rules because women proved to be much faster than men in slide rule time trials.
• 28:15 — While he’s on the NSA, he says something about the NSA controlling every computer in the United States, and if yours was not compliant with their system that there would be thugs at your door in seconds.
• 32:15 — I direct him to the Flash games on this site to demonstrate my proficiency. The first and best is the Osama Assassination Game. He says he feels like he is “the only person who cared about 9/11.” Also that it was ridiculous for Condoleezza Rice to assert that nobody anticipated the attacks, since the construction of the WTC was contemporary with the series of Middle East hijackings, and every cabbie and street-sweeper in NYC was worried about someone flying a plane into them.
• 34:45 — Call waiting draws him away and I have a Tory Hoke Moment of Clarity TM that I would never be able to work with this person and every day face this endless yammer or cocaine frenzy or whatever this is. I take the opportunity to hang up. I shall speak ill of call waiting never again.

Point the second

The other day my aunt was involuntarily committed. Lame. She was at work (this is all through a glass darkly by the way — fourth-hand at least) and the person who was supposed to come in to relieve her wasn’t on time, and she started shouting and taking her clothes off and such. I can’t say at work I haven’t been tempted to do the same.

Due to bizarre neglectful family communication shenanigans, we don’t know where she is, or how to contact her, or even, oh, I dunno, the name of her current husband.

I realized a few years ago that I saw my aunt as my cautionary tale. We have a lot in common, I think — personality traits and habits and things — and I feel like whatever keeps me balanced and her imbalanced is a mighty slim margin.

As my sister reminded me, our dad’s mother was in and out of institutions a lot — the notion is that she would go in to “take a break.” I dunno nothing about that. I think my mother’s mother also had some institution time — she was definitely depressive and eventually killed herself, so that kinda says something.

I would comment on the craziness elements I see in my mother and sister, but since I also see them in myself it’s best to leave those unexplored.

Hmm. I think this is why I`m not enjoying my Dayquil high. Seems like substance abuse is the Grand Wizard of mental illness, and that’s why I don’t like toking or smoking or boozing (heh heh — more than thrice weekly) or anything like that. And then this Dayquil comes in and blows metaphorical smoke in my face like I`m a kitten at a pot party.

Pirates. I`m not sure what the point of all this was after all. I just feel really weird, and maybe now you feel weird, too. I rule.

Going to Hell in a Bucket (but at least I`ll enjoy the ride).

Something I wrote a couple of months ago. Reread it earlier and decided Tory and her avid readers might enjoy it.

I am in my car, thinking idle thoughts, driving home from work. Thinking about Lee, and Joe, and work… Usual stuff. I get stopped by a light behind a Suburban Land Tank (aka an over-sized SUV), which appears to be populated by a soccer mom and her teeny-bopper daughter.

And discover the following bumper sticker, pasted to the back window:

Jesus is the Answer.

And had to control some serious rapid-onset rage.

Those four words, dear readers, have caused more pain and heartache than most people care to think about.

Please don’t take this as a bash against Christian theology in and of itself, because it really is not intended as such, although I do have a number of bones to pick with Christian dogma.

But my problem, my ultimate problem, with this sentiment is that what I feel it should read is “Jesus is an answer.” Not *the* answer. *An* answer.

Countless wars have been fought, countless lives have been lost, for want of an “an” instead of a “the.”

For a billion-odd people world wide, Jesus is the answer (and no, I`m not going to look up exact statistics on the numbers of Christians in the world). But there are four or five billion *other* people out there who would beg to differ.

Christianity is a religion which claims to preach “love thy neighbor” and general tolerance. And for some individual Christians, I’ve no doubt that this is true. But far too many adhere instead to the “my way or the highway” version of Christianity and shun, denigrate, discriminate against, etc. those who do *not* believe that “Jesus is the answer.”

The inherent problem with Christianity (and with Islam, for that matter, although it will not be discussed here) is that it is a proselytizing religion. It’s not good enough *not* to persecute Christianity - one must become a Christian oneself. One of the primary tenets of many (and probably most) organized Christian churches is the need to spread “the good news.” Convert far, convert wide, and don’t take no for an answer.

I’ve always liked the Hindus. As many of you know, I spent six months in India doing study abroad during my undergraduate years. While I was there, I participated in a number of Hindu religious celebrations and festivals. My friends (and random strangers) were always glad to involve me, and delighted that I showed an interest.

But you know what?

They could give two shits whether or not I believed.

In Hinduism, you’re either born a Hindu, or you’re not. There is no conversion, in any real sense of the word. Want to believe in the Hindu gods? Cool. But unless mama and daddy were Hindu, you’re not considered a Hindu. They believe that their gods apply to them, and our gods apply to us. They acknowledge the existence of other gods, they just don’t worship them.

No proselytizing. No conversion. No wars with the intent of subverting the heathens (I`m not arguing that Indians/Hindus are saints. I am fully cognizant of the extent and history of the India-Pakistan feud, but it really has more to do with territory than religion). You do your thing, I`ll do mine. Hinduism is *an* answer, but it doesn’t claim to be *the* answer.

Likewise with the Hare Krishnas. When I was in high school, we would sometimes walk over to Duke to go to the Hare Krishna dinners. Free vegetarian food, which was seriously tasty. Of course, they always had their pamphlets and tracts laid out right beside the food. But taking them was optional. If you wanted to take one, or wanted to talk with them about their religion, they were happy to oblige. But they didn’t force it down your throat, and they didn’t get mad if all you wanted was the food.

Christianity is the religious equivalent of the “popular” clique in high school. The clique (Christianity) is the dominant presence. It sets the trends. And it mocks and tortures the violators.

And it’s also the religious equivalent of the “bullies.” My God can beat up your God. Disagree with me? Earn a smackdown.

Contrary to popular belief, I *have* read large portions of the Bible, including all of the Gospels. Originally (in my die-hard atheist phase), my purpose was along the line of “know your enemies.” And I still do use it as source material for my snarkiness when I get in the mood to gripe about inconsistencies (such as my previous post on religion). But I`m older, wiser, and less cynical now, and so I can appreciate it for what it is - an interesting collection of stories and parables, some of which have an excellent take-home truth.

Despite its many virtues, I also find it to be racist and misogynistic in places. Slavery, holy wars, and numerous other injustices (including the idea of homosexuality as an abomination) have been justified using the Bible.

The Bible is a product of the time in which it was written. Even if it is the “dictated word of God,” that Word was dictated to a bunch of men who wrote it down. Men are fallible creatures, and men are a product of the time in which they exist. Most of the laws, tenets, and ideas presented in the Bible may have been perfectly consistent and logical several thousand years ago. But to imply that all of these same laws, tenets, and ideas are equally as consistent and logical today is absolutely inane and naive.

Applicability is mutable. Societies grow and change. Every other field of thought and discipline changes with it. We understand now that perfume does not substitute for bathing (unless we live in France, of course, but that’s a whole *other* can of worms), that cats are not handmaidens of Satan, that agriculture is more efficient than hunting and gathering, etc. Why can we not also understand that religious ideas which worked 3000 years ago must be adapted to fit the current times?

So back to the love and tolerance. Do I think that preaching love and tolerance is bad? Of course not. Do I think that there is a vast chasm between the written teachings of Jesus and what is actually being practiced? Abso-friggin-lutely.

My mother was raised Catholic. The going-to-church-three-times-a-week kind of Catholic. Midwest, rural…you get the picture. My father was raised generic Protestant. He agreed to get married in a Catholic church, just to please her family. It didn’t work. My mother’s family essentially *disowned* her for about five years because my father wasn’t a Catholic. Where is the love in that?

In my own life, obviously, the big “love” question arrises over who it is, exactly, that I have chosen to love. “The love that dare not speak its name” still must dare not, in many aspects of daily life. I change pronouns at work, because there is no sexual discrimination protection clause for state workers in North Carolina (and she is in the Army, so the constraints on her obvious). My girlfriend and I will not be entitled to the same recognition as a couple as my husband and I have been. I do not need to rehash for you here the entire gay marriage debate - it’s been done far more eloquently a thousand times over elsewhere. But the reasoning behind why gays do not have the same rights, recognitions, etc. as heterosexuals comes down to the enforcing of Christian ideology on the laws of our society. Where is the separation of church and state? Where is the tolerance and love Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount?

Religion does not equal morality. One can be religious without being moral, and one can be moral without being religious. Or both, or neither. Some people may find that having a religion helps them in guiding their moral and ethical choices. And there’s nothing wrong with that. For myself, I don’t feel I need one. If you do, no problem.

But please don’t presume to tell me that your Book is entitled to control my ethics. This country was based on freedom, not tyranny. And it is tyranny to base the codification of American law on Christian moral dogma. You’re a man who doesn’t believe men should marry other men? Fine - don’t marry another man. But do not seek to insist upon an identical morality in others.

Yes, you can argue that there are *some* moral absolutes. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, etc. But to exclaim that it is a moral absolute that only certain kinds of people are allowed to love each other? Ridiculous.

Many people have asked me about my religious beliefs. I will now attempt to explain them, and hope I don’t befuddle the debate more.

To paraphrase Rufus (Chris Rock) in Dogma, the problem with religions is that they take perfectly good ideas and screw them up by turning them into belief systems. I don’t have beliefs, I have ideas.

Beliefs are awfully hard to change, because they are founded on faith. Ideas, on the other hand, are malleable. Have a good argument to give me? Present it. I may or may not be swayed by it, but at least I`ll listen.

The argument usually provided to me as to why the Bible is THE TRUTH is that the Bible is the word of God. But when you ask the same persons how you know that the Bible is the word of God, the answer you typically get is “Because the Bible says so.” Very circular, and highly redundant.

I am an agnostic because I am a scientist. I need proof for my beliefs, be they scientific or spiritual. Until I have proof, all else remains simply “a good idea.” I don’t discount the possibility of a God.

My ultimate problem with God-based religions is something I like to call “The Ultimate Causality Dilemma.” I can accept that there is a God (or other higher power). I can accept that he created the world (which, to me, would involve putting the Big Bang in motion, and making little nudges to get the ball rolling in the creation of life from the boiling sea of protoplasm).

But I get hung up on the origins of God. God may have created life, but who/what created God? I’ve come up with a nifty idea that I like to ponder on sometimes:

1) God creates man.
2) Because God is omnipotent, God creates man with the potential for infinite evolution.
3) Man eventually evolves to the point where he is technologically advanced enough to create God.
4) God creates man.

Very circular. But the only viable solution I can posit to the Ultimate Causality Dilemma.

I’ve also been puzzled by those little Philosophy 101 paradoxes - If God is omnipotent, can God create a rock he can’t lift? Does the world exist, or am I God and this is therefore the reality I have created? And so on…and possibly my favorite paradox: Since God is omnipotent and never truly knowable, how can we ever know if our ideas about God are correct?

Personally, I like the idea of reincarnation. Of coming back again and again and again until you finally get it “right” (whatever that may be). One of my favorite movies of all time is Defending Your Life for this reason.

Is there a God? Are the Christians (or Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Zoroastrians, etc.) the ones who’ve got it right? I have absolutely no idea.

And you know what?

Neither do you.

We`ll all find out someday, once we’re pushing up daisies. But naturally, no one will ever know what we find out, despite Shirley McLaine’s arguments to the contrary.

Perhaps I will burn in hell. Perhaps you will. Perhaps we all will.

But let me get there on my own time, okay? There’s room at the table for all of us, I promise.