Allison Unfiltered

Meet Sarah

Spent the weekend with Sarah and her hubby. 

She's the epitome of a Cajun Belle, with a little bit of California and New York thrown in.  Homey, cuddly, lovely, she'll search out the sunshine in your heart and slap it on your face.  And then giggle.  A lot of people see her as part of the dynamic duo she and her hubby make, and that's okay, because they ARE awesome.  But you know what?  She's pretty fucking awesome all on her own.

In the course of one weekend, she was a goddess in all her incarnations -- bumming around town in jeans and sneaks, tottering through some smoky bar on a pair of towering stilettos, just returned from her government job wearing very fashionable and yet functional wedges. 

She taught me a lot this weekend about life, love, and learning to live with yourself.  Well, actually, she didn't so much teach me as she dragged me through her town and her life and her own heart, showing me.

And for that, I will be eternally grateful...  and oh, yeah, she's hot.

Anti-Princess Reading List

Thank ye, Gods.  Check it out.

Barely a pink or glittery cover in the place.  Just real girls hanging out.

Where were you when I was in junior high school and reading cheap paperbacks about the fatal need to be invited to prom by a hot senior, you mofos?!

The aliens are coming!

Saw this trailer for Planet 51 while at the movies last night.  Made me laugh.  And made me so glad I'm not in a cultural studies program anymore, lest I analyze the postcolonial possibilities to the point I get all upset and depressed I can't watch a frickin' cartoon for the hell of it...

Happy Sunday

I'm a firm believer in listening to messages the Universe sends you.  And I really needed to hear this one today. 

Do you?

(Swiped from Life2oons here.)

My new hero, Bryan Marovich.

On this beautiful Ostara morn, I find myself immeasurably indebted to some stranger named Bryan Marovich.

Because of Bryan Marovich, instead of threatening to twist the throat shut of any and everybody who asks if/assumes that my low-rez MFA program is like one of those online school thingies, I can simply link to Bryan Marovich's blog explaining the phenomenon (and he's an alum of my own school to boot).

Thank you, Bryan Marovich.  I love you, Bryan Marovich.  Will you marry me, Bryan Marovich?

Finding comfort in routine

7 am: wake up.  wake l'il Red up.  Make her breakfast.  Pack her lunch.  Pack her backpack.  Make sure she brushes her teeth and hair (really make sure, that conniving little snit).  Wave goodbye as she gets on the bus.  Deliberate whether to go back to sleep or actually do something today.  Look at my puffy eyes and disheveled hair in the mirror over a bowl of shredded wheat and decide that life could be much, much worse.

This has been my daily morning routine for more than a year now.  Autopilot most mornings.  Thinking too much about it hurts, but I go through the motions anyway.  There's a whole 'nother person that depends on me to get her day started, after all.

These days, however, it's the anchor of my existence.

I don't know whether I'll have a job next week, where I'll be living next month, or have the slightest clue what my life will look like next year.

This all feeds into my greatest fear: not knowing what comes next. 

Yet, I survive it every day.  And every day I survive, as much as I don't want to admit it, I get just that much stronger.

There's two ways I do it: 1) by pouring cereal into a bowl every day and drowning it in milk and offering it up to someone else, reveling in the familiarity of the mundane choreography, and 2) by constantly reaching out, finding amazing people and having a blast just talking to them and reminding myself: Good Goddess, there is life out there.

All I need is to find my own moment in time.

Open thread: Discovering Shuktara Trailer

Thoughts?

What's wrong with this picture?

WTF? 

First My Little Pony, then Strawberry Shortcake, and now Dora gets made over into this glammed out sexualized little icon... all in the interest of "appealing" to tweens?

I don't get it.  I really don't get it.  Sure, the madeover versions look nice and all, but do we really need to  all conform to the same idea of what is ideal?

Hummblemumblemurmur.

Oh, and it looks like the freakin' Care Bears are next.

Got my eyes on you.

Like any self-respecting narcissist, I watch my site tracker like a hawk.  I know what you're looking at, how long you're looking, and what you click on.  Big Brother can kiss my ass, yo.  Don't ever tell me your IP address unless you want me to know the extent of your stalkerage.

My favorite stats are the international ones -- Canada is always popular, but I've always wondered what makes a Canadian Canadian, other than not being an American.  Hmm.  But the visitors that really fascinate me are the ones from Greece, Austria, Germany, Pakistan, India, and so on.

And I find it fucking hilarious that the most popular post of mine for Iraqi visitors is the boobage one.  Victorian sexual repression, anyone?

Stripped

Shit.  I thought I was a pretty effin' cool mom.  Until a friend sent me a link to this blog this morning.

Pretty much the only thing I've got that can compete is my new gothy hair.  I quit smoking at my baby daddy's threat request years ago.  I've only got one tattoo, one that I plan to cover up as soon as I can.

All my feminist parenting has been for naught -- Leah tells me she dreams of one day giving birth to a boy (because I've told her I won't can't right now, honey), and giggles when she talks about kissing a prince some day -- I've learned to just look the other way and resolve to disembowel some other live creature in the name of radical patriarchy resistance later.

AAAAND... The coolest thing I've taught her to say is "You're stupid." 

But damn.  The girl's already seven years old and the closest we've come to defending male genitalia is learning how to pick ripe, unbruised bananas at the market.

Humph.  Off to find me some street cred, dood. 

Self-affirmation for today: I am QueenAlpo.  See me roar.