Poet With a Day Job

California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban!

The California Supreme Court has six Republican appointees and one Democrat. Scholars have described the court under the leadership of chief justice George as cautious and moderately conservative.

That’s because keeping someone from wanting to have a bonded, long-term, monogamous relationship is unjust and discriminatory no matter how conservative you are. Not to mention how unjust it is to keep the legal benefits of marriage from people who are committed and have families. And we don’t even have to start talking about how everyone should have the benefits married couples get regardless of marital status…because our government should just take care of us like that. But no, we’re too busy seeing all our tax dollars go to blow shit up in another country in the name of God knows what, meanwhile, the dollar is tanking, unemployment is rising, no one is insured, gas is through the roof, kids can’t read, it’s considered normal to be in $100,000 debt and earn a paycheck of $36K a year…

But I digress…for now let’s celebrate, cause come November, sure as shit there’s going to be a ballot measure trying to overturn the Supreme Court…

…since my last confession posting. First off I want to thank EVERYONE for your kind and supportive words about my sobriety birthday. For a lot of reasons, celebrating it this year was harder than in other years.

I will also add you didn’t really miss anything this week: there was suffering, pain, stress and a lot of tears…no. Sobbing. No, weeping. No, pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization (e.g. I got PAID) The catalyst was work, but I can’t really blame work for my suffering. The situtation only showed me how far yet I still have to go in terms of becoming the person I was always meant to become.

There were also two really great home-cooked meals for which I am incredibly grateful. The first was a fine midwestern meal of “monkey bread” (which is basically a giant pan of sticky buns that these lovely folks just consider dinner rolls….can I get an Amen!), potato casserole with cornflake crust, breaded chicken fillets, green beans and bacon, other things, and a crazy ass lemon insanity dessert that was so good I almost cried. The second meal was “forbidden rice” with grilled steaks and zucchini. I contributed a salad with strawberries and avocado and made a special dressing for it with honey, lemon juice, olive oil and S&P. Mmmm.

But I digress…

In the past when I would celebrate my sober birthday, I would sometimes freak myself out thinking that I had a given number of years without a drink or drug. I mean, YEARS! There was a time when I couldn’t even fathom doing it for a week! A day!

Imagine it this way: it’s like getting to level 14 in Galaga: you certainly don’t want to die at that point! And of course, you are going to. The game has to end. In that way, it is really important to not get caught up in what “level” you are at because in the end, all you really have is one friggen day: the day you are in. So praise and support is good - but only to a point.

This idea was evermore poignant for me this year. I absolutely needed recognition that I’ve come far and people love me, but I couldn’t really focus too much on the mileage.

As none of you know because I am unsure about talking about it in this very public forum, there have been some really big personnel issues at work. And I won’t tell you which work, either.

The point is, this person at work is abusive, aggressive, and man o man does this person PUSH MY BUTTONS! I pretty much had a complete emotional breakdown this past Friday over it. I realized that this person’s interactions with me unearth a very old, old feeling/behavior that was so painful to me then, and, having been hiding in the deeps, saving itself for a big reveal this whole time, is even WORSE now.

They say alcohol is a progressive disease. This means that, regardless of whether or not you are actively drinking, you will become a worse and worse alcoholic. Meaning, if I decided to drink tomorrow, I wouldn’t drink like I used to drink. I would drink as if I had never stopped this whole time. It may sound funny, but just go to a meeting: you will hear anyone who has relapsed say it. The proof is in our stories.

That’s why you never really get “healed” from alcoholism. Growth and health is a lifetime commitment to the journey.

The same is also true for me with old habits. They never go away. I simply learn to live with them, work with them, work around them, be different. But they are there. They will always be there. Growing exponentially behind the scrim of health.

And sometimes you will come across people who have access to the scrim: your own personal Grand Wizards. And they pull it back. And you find you are just that same little, frustrated, angry, helpless, sad child you were when the person first installed the buttons this new person now pushes.

What this all means for me is that, on my birthday this year, I became a newcomer again. Not to the drink, but to my old behaviors. On my birthday this year, as I celebrate growth in one area, I also celebrate hitting a bottom in another.

I am helpless to yet another disease of alcoholism: co dependence. I know that, without being sober, I would never in a million years recognize my need to really heal myself from this horrible emotional condition, nor would I care enough to do what I have to do to really feel better. I mean really: not the “better” that comes with acting happy, or the “better” that comes with eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, or the “better” that comes with just trudging on the path and doing my best to avoid potential uncomfortable situations. But the better that comes with actual work.

On this I’m not sweeping the floor every week anymore; now I’m cleaning the grout.

It was only after the twenty-minute full-on sob that I said to L,

“I think this must be my period. I’m not sure this emotional explosion is really in proportion to what is going on.”

Ahhh, the voice of reason amongst the maelstrom. But let me back up.

I was looking forward to celebrating my 7-year sobriety anniversary in LA. After all, LA has the notoriety around the Bay Area of being a BIG AA birthday city. Cakes. Clapping. Howdjya Do-its. So me and L planned to go to a meeting in the morning on my birthday so we could start the day off on the right foot.

Well, it would have helped to wake up on the right side of the bed, which I didn’t. L lost a precious sentimental earring in the pool and we ate uber salty food and didn’t have enough water the night before, and the bed was made of steel springs and wood paneling.

Needless to say when the alarm went off at 6-ish, we popped up puffy, irritated, and miserable. We went down to the pool to try to find the earring (pipe dream) and when we didn’t, L had a mini breakdown which we both realized was simply because she was starving. So we hopped in the car and went foraging in LA.

Now, this would have been fine, but I just got out of bed and threw my clothes on. I didn’t know that, after we searched aimlessly for that earring that we were going to be out for the day. I felt wocky, supremely puffy (I had like, a pair of samsonite matching luggages under my blue eyepups) and headachey. I should have known this was my period a-comin. I think I might have suggested that it was. But since there was no blood proof of it, then I was all…I dunno (it’s irregular…and still not here goddamit!)

So we find a wonderful farmer’s market in Venice that is serving prepared foods in some of its booths. We stop at the first and foremost stand - tamales - and eat three of them. Mine was blue corn with Jack Cheese and green chili. SO GOOD! L got two, one for each hand and put them down easy.

So then we went to the meeting. It was a good meeting, but it was a meeting in which they only celebrate AA birthdays once per month! At the end of the month! Considering it was May 4…we were shit out of luck. it was also a speaker calls on you meeting, and I did not get called on so couldn’t just say it.

Now, there was another meeting I had thought would be good to go too, but this one was across town at 11:30 am (the one we just left finished at 11). Pouting, we got into the car and I started racing around, being irritable, jerky, and plain madpants because 1) if we go we’re guaranteed to be late, and 2) I don’t know where I’m going and the map we have has a crease right in the spot where this meeting is so 3) we’re probably going to be really, really late.

We go anyway, and are, indeed, late. The meeting was amazing though, but the LA people, so up in excitements and joyments about birthdays always do them at the top of the meeting (SF BAY does their at the ends) so WE MISSED THE B-DAYS AGAIN!!!!! And though I raised my hand, I didn’t not get called on to talk so couldn’t just announce it.

By now, I am feeling so incredibly sorry for myself. I just wanted to announce it and have people clap for me. I wanted recognition and support. And even as I wanted it, I was like “You big selfish baby. Get over yourself. You don’t need praise.” Somehow in my mind I kept thinking that our missing the b-day celebrations was an omen from God telling me I needed to not talk about it and be humble. The problem (I realize now, in happy hindsight) is that I wasn’t being NOT humble by wanting to celebrate my sober b-day. 7 years is a big stupid fucking deal and it feels good when people show you love and support. I wanted some. I needed some outpourings. I was actually in need of, and ready to accept, loves! Nothing unhumble about that.

So after this meeting I am hot and thirsty and want to go swimming back at the hotel, thinking this will make me feel better. L wants to go walking, or to the beach. I start my spiral. We fight. She’s precious and nice and amazingly unconfrontational to me even as I am harassing and ignoring her by turns. So I have a tantrum then take us to the beach. We finally get on the sand and sit down and I start BAWLING like there’s no tomorrow. Nobody loves me God doesn’t love me I just want to celebrate my birthday I feel so sad and I don’t know what’s wrong…on and on.

Poor L: she just let me weep and rubbed my back. Nice girlfriend. After I was such a pain in the ass ruining our day. Soon, there’s so much snot being produced I have to blow my nose and we have nothing. So I dig a hole in the sand, blow my nose in my hands and shake it into the hole. Then I get up to wash them in the ocean.

I come back and ask L if she’ll go on that stupid Santa Monica Beach Board walk rollercoaster with me and she says yes. I realize I am obviously not right today, that it is probably period-related. I cite an example from last month in which my emotional reaction is way out of proportion to the issue at hand - same day of the month, too. This helps me LGALG (let go and let god).

We go to the rides and it is fun and we get whiplash because we are too damn old for shit like that, then we ride the carousel and get our fortunes told by a creepy animatronic palm reader (like in the movie Big) and head back to the car for dinner with L’s parents. More Mexican. Best thing in LA.

Afterward, L says, “Let’s try one more meeting. It’s closeby.” I’m doubtful and stubborn, but eventually get on board. This time we are early enough to get my name in for birthdays. I am the only one. They sing to me, I blow out seven candles. I get hugs and they give me one minute at the podium to say how I did it.

naturally I tell them the story of my day like I just told you and they laughs and say awwwws. I feel loved and welcome, and not alone. And I tell them So, if you ask me how I did it, accepting help (L’s suggestion to go to one more meeting) and persistence, trying three times even as I was miserable.

Let’s see…

I was so unfo on the drive down to LA, that I actually took us 160 miles out of our way because I got on I-5 north rather than south. I only noticed this when the sign read “welcome to Sacramento!” Needless to say I did not feel welcome.

I cursed the entire 80 miles back to where we would have gotten I-5 South, and I suddenly thought I was going deaf: I had a ringing and hissing in my ear for a good hour, and only about 50% aural ability. It seems better now. But I will get it checked when we get back. it actually scared me so much I cried a little.

Then I thought it would be a good idea to get off the freeway down by Santa Monica Blvd. and take side streets to our hotel because the traffic was so bad. Well, I got us lost, of course. This after we had almost run out of gas bear the Getty.

After a nice dinner with L’s dad and stepmom, we hung out in the hote lobby to chat. I noticed L was having an unfortunately wardrobe malfunction in the general boobal regions and motioned to her with crazy eyes and stern mouth to fix it before her Dad noticed - which she did, but he did notice MY google eyes and was then wondering WTF I was making faces at and of course I couldn’t tell him! So I made up some dum greaf de bab dum no nome dem.

So we went swimming in the pool to shake it off! And L lost an important pool-colored earring somewhere
in The Deeps. The desk said they’d be checking the filter for us. Yeah.

But hey: I’m 7 years sober in 2.5 hours! I think we’re hitting a biker meeting in the morning. That ought to be fun.

Mailed a copy of Impatiens to an old grammar school friend who found me via Paypal via Google. Yes Interwebs!

Herded chickens in to roost for the night. Some like to follow. Some just run in circles like they got one leg shorter.

Was a hardass on a cowboy. Felt bad after, too.

Ate lots of TJ’s ultimate vanilla wafers.

Read an extremely flattering review of Impatiens at Gently Read Literature; flattering because it is so thoughtful and well-written and I never think of my poetry in the way the Megalopoet expresses it.

Missed my AA meeting because I fucked up the timing on something. Bummer.

Mailed out a letter asking for Squaw to put me in the lottery for the poetry workshop this year, and mourned the fact that I did not get any of the other workshops I applied for.

Yawned about sixty times, but did not rest.

Ate a quesadilla (a whole case!?!?) and a pizza (a whole pizza!).

Recharged my camera batteries and got ready for our trip to LA to visit with L’s stepmom and dad. We love this trip (our second time now!) for all we do is swim, swim swim in the pool! Yeah!

Looks like we might have to start calling ourselves Gayelle after all. Recently, citizens of the Isle of Lesbos, Greece, have begun taking action to sue the nation of Greece to put a ban on Gays’ use of the term lesbian to mean a homosexual woman. Here’s a snippet:

The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world…He says it causes daily problems to the social life of Lesbos’s inhabitants.

Now, I can totally understand this. Homophobia is rampant and dykes and gays are constantly victims of hate crimes, whether they be verbal, physical, outright or subtle. But taking action to ban Gays’ use of the term is buying into the homophobe hype that it is, indeed, disgraceful to be, and/or to call yourself, a lesbian. What you should be working toward is a sea change in public opinion about gays worldwide: we are here, and we are just trying to live our lives.

The article goes on to prove its point that dykes should stop calling themselves lesbians by saying that contrary to popular belief, Sappho was not even a dyke. While this may be true, their proof tickles me a quite bit:

The term lesbian originated from the poet Sappho, who was a native of Lesbos. Sappho expressed her love of other women in poetry written during the 7th Century BC. But according to Mr Lambrou, new historical research has discovered that Sappho had a family, and committed suicide for the love of a man.

First of all, everyone knows lesbians never have families. Never. And as for the suicide: perhaps if she had STAYED ALIVE for a man, then I might believe you…

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And rich people are doing stupid, wasteful shit again! Chops sent me this link to a blurb about the “A Diamond is Forever” campaign (scroll down). Apparently, they plan to hand out 1,000 red roses in Grand Central Terminal next week, all of which will have a number attached for a drawing to win a $5,000 diamond necklace. This new initiative is to celebrate…well, raping and pillaging Africa, I guess. As if the diamond issue isn’t enough, now they’re doing roses. What’s next? I’m sorry, but Bill Gates and Bono can throw as much money at Africa they want to “promote economic development” but if the “economies” revolve around the US’s whims, ain’t nothing gonna change. US out of AFRICA! But if you are handed a rose…I hope you win. For reals.

Yesterday I was sitting in church and started thinking about the Creation Story. Lately, every time I sit in church I think about it more. Maybe it is because I no longer go to church because I feel required to do so by the religion I was raised in. Now I go to church because I want to go to church, because I want to explore my faith, and travel my own spiritual path. Whatever the reason, I now find myself engaged in a conversation with my faith in a way I was never allowed to be before.

The old Catholic way was always “don’t ask questions, just believe.” For all intents and purposes, it is still this way. It seems the Catholics have not yet arrived at the conclusion that, when forced to do something, people react badly. It is only investigation (invest being the root word!) and engagement (questioning) that will keep people in the pews.

This is my belief now (and it is why L thinks I am a Jew somehow: Jews engage with their religion, and rarely take things at face value. Questioning is a part of growing in Judaism). I take nothing for granted: I must investigate everything. Perhaps this is because I have been hurt too many times to just accept without understanding, or coming around to the conclusions myself. Either way, it serves me now. (Please note: I do not have negative skepticism, or contempt prior to investigation; rather, I have a healthy engagement and desire for understanding - that goes for whatever it is: religion, a health fad, a route map, an annoying person.)

Since Holy Saturday Vigil, when they do readings from Genesis, Exodus, etc. I’ve been thinking about the Creation Story. Some call it Myth, some call it Doctrine. Those who call it Doctrine seem to want to kill or be killed in defense of it. Those who call it Myth (AKA Darwinists) think those who call it Doctrine are somehow fundamentalist and close minded. And I simply think they are both correct.

For isn’t the Creation Story just a metaphor: a way of answering the unanswerable question of “why are we here”? Why did god put us here? What is our purpose? Well, we’ll never know. It is not ours to know. It is God’s. I have a feeling if we did know, our little peabrains would explode.

1) A very basic part of the Creation Story says that God made Adam to rule over all the other creatures. This can’t be believed if you also believe in Jesus who preaches an “all God’s creatures are equal” kind of doctrine. Jesus believers, Adam can’t rule; we and the animals and plants all come from the same nugget of life.

2) Who is to say that a week of God’s time isn’t 100 billion earthly years anyway? We cannot conceive of God, nor his miraculous ways. God is the true definition of omnipotent. Therefore, these “seven days” and their resulting in “all of life” could have taken a very long, long time for us - seven short days on God’s clock.

3) If the abovementioned is true, then the simplest explanation, while it is the one we can most easily understand - that God spit into a mound of clay and Adam and everything else appeared in a quick seven days - is most likely not the one God would have chosen. It is way too easy. God would have done things the omnipotent, complicated way. But the smallness of the human mind prohibits us from being able to swallow difficult truths (which is why Jesus spoke in parables and metaphors: stories we can relate to, and understand).

4) So the Creation Story, then, could simply be a way we can understand the concept of evolution.

Imagining that we all - ALL GOD’S CREATURES - come from the same atom, the same cell, the same spark of God himself, the idea of evolution moves from being sacrilege to being a story of beauty - and truly of God. Evolution is such a near impossible occurrence it simply MUST be of God. There is simply no other way to explain it. But it does feel hard to wrap the mind around it. Science has claimed it so deeply as a way to explain God away that many of us greet a brick wall upon even considering reading about it.

But I see evolution differently. it is not explaining God away; rather, it is proving the existence of God by proving that the near impossible has actually happened! The miracle of life HAPPENED!

The Creation Story is our way of understanding that concept; how, over all this infinity of God, we came to be.

This is the poem I want to write.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Airplane! - which was a spoof done in the 80s on all those Airplane crash movies of the 70s. My favorite lines of the movie are delivered by the “Gay” character who is supposed to be “manning the booth” as in, the air traffic control booth.

At one point, when the Captain hands him a weather briefing and says “Johnny, what can you make out of this,” my favorite gay says “This? Why, I can make a hat or a brooch or a pterodactyl…”

Later, all the controllers are looking at horrible newspaper headlines and reading out loud “Passengers certain to die!” and “Airline negligent.” Then they pass it to Johnny who reads “There’s a sale at Penny’s!”

So, now for the big segue…

We had a tag sale today! Of course, even though we posted that the sale began at 8:30 am, people were there digging through our half-moved, undisplayed bags and boxes of goods by 8:10 sharp: all vulture, and rude, I might add. I’m sweating and carrying heavy shit down from the second floor, and say to them, “uh, we’re not ready until 8:30,” and this one woman acts all surprised like “oh….I didn’t know.” Like you didn’t fucking know you lying sack of thievery - you JUST read the AD!

One lady even dared to say to me “Tag sale? What’s a tag sale? You must be from LA, or the East Coast.” Yeah jerk, I am from the East Coast. You know the place: the one where we actually respect START TIMES of TAG SALES. (Just FYI: SF Bay Area-ers call them Yard Sales. Bitch, I ain’t got no yard.)

Anyway, we moved a lot of stuff out of the house (phew. I really feel like I can breathe more in here now), and made about $150 bucks, so generally, it was successful. We still had a bunch of stuff left over though, so we dropped it at Salvation Army - because there was no way I was re-introducing it into our apartment…though L did reclaim some of it to take to other places to try to sell (bookstores/clothes stores, etc.) much to my disapproval!

Then we went to hear L read some poetry!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then ate at Taqueria Cancun (our fave, in Berkeley), then saw BABY MAMA - and I don’t care what you say about how bad this movie is, I was highly entertained and am just pleased as punch to see Fey and Poehler up there. They rock. More please. PS: Steve Martin and Sigourney Weaver are HI-LA-rious.

Here are some pics of the sale…we couldn’t move the statue of Our Lady holding the baby Jesus, so ’twas donated….because you KNOW you can’t throw shit like that away or you will be cursed forever!

And here’s one more of me from the getaway with Sheri…I wish I was there again.

I’ve never known a lesbian who didn’t have a bowl of sea glass in her house. And I’ve never known a lesbian to ever walk on a beach without looking down and pocketing various sea treasures: clamshells, shiny rocks, sea-hewn amber and green glass.

So, what’s the Lesbo fascination with what’s vomited onto the beach by the sea (no fish jokes allowed. I will hunt you down)? Is it the menstruation by moonpull thing, which also happens to be what causes the tides to ebb and flow, amplified by the fact that there’s no men in the picture?

Is it the idea that we are all conceived in a sac of water inside a woman and the ocean, in a sense, is like one giant sac of water gestating the most necessary of beasts to our ecosystem? Are women, in effect, tiny oceans and so we find ourselves being called, again and again, back home?

I am, of course, no different than your average lesbian: I have a HUGE bowl of seaglass which now houses a nice bamboo in it. However, being a budding and growing environmentalist, I have learned now to leave no trace, and take nothing with me. So, no more pocketed sea bits. Now, I have my camera and a kind of militant and obsessive protection of sea babies.

So I am standing on the beach outside our cottage at Nick’s Cove. The tide was way out; it was about 8 am. I walked toward a big rock that was so crannied it made a kind of tide pool - and mini little universe. There were mussels, anemones, hermit crabs and a bunch of other things I could not identify all clinging to the lifeblood this rock provided by being perfectly placed amidst a gentle changing tide. I wanted so desperately to catch it all on film. I felt so grateful for it - for the role it plays in making life bearable for me: both because of its function and because of its beauty. Just feeling wonder about something fulfills me.

Then I started thinking about all the people who would visit this beach, and see this rock and, cameraless, pick shit off it to take with them - because for some reason, we want to possess these things, as if having seen it isn’t enough proof of the varied beauty of our world. We need to see it and take it to remind ourselves of it.

So immediately, I started calculating how many folks walked here daily and imagining that, if everyone took a piece easily, EASILY, this rock would be stripped bare in a day. I wanted to put velvet ropes around it. For, in the background of my worry, a group of eight were clamming with big shovels, hacking away at the beach. The slice of metal through wet sand kept sounding a lot like knives through flesh to me, and I imagined, somehow, that the water’s edge must have felt pain.

Why have we become a world no longer interested in experiencing things, and are instead obsessed with having things, so much so that now, when we do experience, we simply must take some physical object away with us? Think, spoons and plates from US states to remind us of our travels. It’s such a bad idea, and a vicious cycle, because then we just make garbage that eventually goes in the landfill and in essence destroys the beauty of the things we’ve just seen, and purchased gift shop kitsch in celebration of.

If I had to guess, I would say that, we have become such lonely and isolated people that when we experience things, we often do it alone, and cannot share it with others. Therefore, we need a thing in our hand so we can share it with ourselves, and remember the small joys.

But the last few lines of the movie Into the Wild said it all: True happiness must be shared (paraphrased).

Too bad the movie was so long and annoying and heavy handed that I fell asleep in the middle…

Yesterday me and two coworkers had to mind a special Earth Day booth at Pixar headquarters in Emeryville. If you don’t know, Pixar Studios is a veritable barracks almost fascist in the way it protects its propriety information from public eyes. We got the third degree at the gate even though we were invited; we were allowed to stand only in the giant open entry hall; our name badge actually said “A stranger from the outside!” on it.

I guess I understand: they don’t want any of their storylines leaking. (Up next Wall - E, a movie I am dying to see.) Rumor has it that there is no possible way, even using a telescope, that you could see inside the building from anywhere outside the gates. And even so, it’s STILL not more protected than Skywalker Ranch, and the new Lucasfilm buildings in the Presidio.

So we’re doing the booth, blah blah blah. The Earth Day thing is pretty boring since we don’t really fit in with the tenor the other booths are creating with their free energy saving lightbulbs and simple green and chico bags take-aways.

PG&E, California’s energy provider, was giving away their stuff (books on how to be green, foot-shaped recycled paper with wildflower seeds in it so you can plant it) IN A PLASTIC BAG! Then when people didn’t want to take it because IT IS FUCKING PLASTIC, the PG&E people would respond:

“It’s biodegradable! Made of cornstarch!”

And under my breath I’d say “Idjiots!” (in a British accent) Don’t they know everything and nothing is biodegradable, that it’s all about the way you throw something out? Cornstarch in a landfill buried under the ground will be the same fifty years from now when you dig it up. Unless you are tearing it into small pieces and composting it, it’s going nowhere.

So, after we play a little ping pong (yes, they have a game room) and remain fairly bored, we get to talking about how Steve Jobs designed the Pixar compound, then sold it to now proud owner of cash cow Pixar, Disney. And then we get to talking about Disney movies.

Now, everyone I have ever known knows how subtly, unconsciously, and sometimes obviously and unconscionably racist and sexist Disney movies can be. The “bad guys” are always “dark.” The “women” are always “pawns.” Etc.

So I am standing with my co-worker who says,

“The Little Mermaid has been like, my favorite movie for 15 years.”

I nod. “Mmm-hmmm.”

“And I just realized as I was watching it the other day, that she fucking gives up her fins and her family, and her amazing life under the sea for legs so she can be with a man!”

I nod. Laugh a little. No kidding yo, right?

“No, PWADJ, she likes, is totally beholden to a man!”

I keep nodding.

“Like, she gives everything up! I just can’t even believe it!”

So I say “Now, you, a 30 year old woman - it took you that long to see that. Just think about all the little girls watching it, who are subconsciously being brainwashed into making themselves into whatever the man needs!”

“I know!” she shouts. “It can’t be my favorite movie any more!”

As shocking as this revelation was to her, it wasn’t bad enough not to be cured by some hearty Pixar Schwag: Ratatouille canvas bag with a ratat mug, rata notebook, and a DVD of all of Pixar’s short films on it.

So I guess in the end it is okay to give up everything for a man as long as he promises to buy you shit.