I'd Like A McChystal with Extra Catch-Up Please

"Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off."  - Gen. Colin Powell

So General McChystal talked badly about his boss and his bosses people.  Groundbreaking. 

I cancelled my subscription to Rolling Stone years ago because they represent the bubble headed sector of pop culture that makes a thinking girl squirm, much like anytime Kim Kardashian speaks.  At what point did they think "Hey, we should give Rolling Stone unprecedented access to the commander when he's in the war zone!  Later we can comment on his feelings about Lindsay Lohan and talk Tomahawks!"  I can see Newsweek there.  I can see Time there.  Hell, Playboy makes sense given they still have some of the best writers around and all men can claim temporary titty-insanity. (seriously, I think it's Number 11 in the Bill of Rights)  But Rolling Stone? 

Put me in a room with a reporter during an extremely stressful time in my job. Then give me a boss who has never worked in my field and knows nothing of what I endure to get my job done. I'd probably lob a few shots at him too.  Then later I'd remember someone not in the trenches of the job is listening. 

This country has gotten too sensitive and soft.  Many people believe they are entitled to do anything and no one has the right to criticize their performance.  If someone does criticize their performance then the critic is called on the carpet for what they "said".  But the sensitive one isn't called out for the mediocre performance that caused the critic to make those statements in the first place.

We must stop glossing over mediocrity. It allows everything to continue in precisely the same avenue it was before - mediocre.  This is especially true in the face of war.  A war that is 9 years long and can hardly be described as successful.  To expect soliders in the war zone to not make a critical comment is dangerous.  If they are thinking about the words that are coming out of their mouths then they are not thinking about the more important things, like how to survive and the reasons they are there in the first place.

If the adminstration doesn't want to hear negative comments and take them for the truth they may reveal then the armed forces need to stop letting their soliders be shadowed while on the front lines.  When I worked on intense projects for my company you didn't see me letting the in-house newsletter writer sit around recording  every time I said someone was being an idiot at 3am.  Get real, get a thicker skin, and get over it.

On to more important topics, when is McDonalds going to come out with the McChystal that features extra Catch-Up and comes between two slice of shoe leather?

Directing the Oil Spill Fix: James Cameron vs. Jerry Bruckheimer

James Cameron thinks he can fix this oil spill better than BP.  Hell, I can fix this oil spill better than BP using some boiled ham, Jack Daniels and some twine and have time left over to make us shrimp salad.  Oil covered hermit crabs have better ideas than BP also.  Their only ideas are about money, fake Public Relations Twitter Accounts and "wanting their lives back".  You know who else wants their lives back?  Pelicans, dude.  Pelicans. 

However James Cameron isn't the guy for the job.  Sure, he does have super cool mini submarines and knows where to find the Titanic.  He could use the Titanic to plug the hole, or at least all the VHS copies of Titanic sitting in garages and basements nationwide.  I'm afraid his answer is probably going to involve waiting 10 years until technology catches up with his harebrained scheme.  I'm fundamentally pre-opposing this plan.  I couldn't even make it through Avatar but I'm sure the answer isn't in there.  Plus I don't look good blue and 9 feet tall.

We are calling in the wrong director.  What about Jerry Bruckheimer with Michael Bay?  He will hire Bruce Willis as the Disaster Recovery Specialist for Project P90X. Bruce gets a quirky team of retired astronauts/convicts/fighter pilots/strippers with a heart of gold/sexy scientists/race car drivers/pirates together.  All team members had a difficult childhood or their family was taken by a tribe of worthless thugs.  Their stories will be told when the first slow Diane Warren penned song plays.  This gives them special sensitivity when they go and meet with the real fisherman who did lose their livelihood thanks to a tribe of worthless corporate thugs.

Then? Love Triangles! Hopefully Bruce remembers to hire in sets of three.  While out swimming in inexplicably clear water with each other they see an adorable baby sea otter covered in oil.  He will be brought back to the ship they all live on, nursed back to super cute health, and be spotted rarely until the end of the project when something bad ALMOST happens to him. 

Next?  A kick ass training montage!  A new [insert cheesy currently popular rock band here] song will play over the pull ups.  Then the team inspects tubes of oil in a laboratory so dark and sexy no science could EVER take place in there.  After the montage the group will try their first go at plugging the hole.  The best buddy of Bruce Willis (the funny happy one) will get tragically sucked into the hole and killed.  His oil coated body will float to the surface and Bruce will close his eyes, shout NOOO!!!! and WHHHYYY!!! towards the sky and then he will temporarily quit the team. Soul searching begins for approximately five minutes.

Then there is a big explosion.  Why?  Who knows.  There is always a big explosion.  There are also cars flipping over.  Why? Who knows. There are always cars flipping over.  There are no civilians harmed when the oil rig they are on suddenly comes crashing into town.  Why is the oil rig in town?  Who knows. You see where this 30 minutes of film is going.

Bruce and the team are able to escape the explosions, flipping cars and oil rig riddled city and make it just in time to use one of the astronaut's magic space rocks to plug the hole. How does the magic space rock work you ask?  Who knows.  There's lots of cheering, the stripper and the pirate kiss, Bruce and his arch nemesis race car driver resolve their differences and embrace.

Roll Credits.  Coming soon to a CNN near you: DEEPWATER HORIZON

Happy 4/20, or for the rest of us... .2

All across the country people who enjoy smoking weed are forgetting that it is 4/20, the official holiday dedicated to all things Cannabis related.  I took this opportunity to refine the sandwich I intend to pitch to KFC's Stoner Product Development Group, or K.F.C.S.P.D.G. for short.  It shall be christened "The DUUUDDE!" The contents of this magical sandwich will be an egg, American cheese (or Government cheese if available) sausage and bacon omelette with crushed Dorito topping sandwiched in between two pieces of fried chicken lightly dusted with a Cheeto breading.

I am confident that with the right dedication we could debut it at Cochella next year, followed up with a special "Burning Man DUUUDDE!" that utilizes Flamin' Hot Cheetos and Doritos and may or may not contain some hallucinogenic properties.  There will need to be disclaimers on the packaging since eating "The DUUUDDE!" naked may cause injury. *See disclaimer section

Target marketing is essential for the success of "The DUUUDDE!".  I am pretty sure we could convince Jack Johnson and the Dave Matthews Band to let us sponsor their North American tours.  Hell, nobody can even name a DMB song they know from the last five years and he still convinces them to buy tickets every summer!  Besides, he owes me.  He dumped out his bus toilet on the top of the open boated architecture tour in my Chicago a few years back and I still think that's crap.  Literally.

Since there is an obvious connection to The Big Lebowski we could also have tasting parties at bowling alleys nationwide.  T-shirts will say "F#&k it DUUUDDE, let's go bowling!" with a big picture of Walter (aka John Goodman) holding the sandwich like a rifle.  That's some $hit people will buy into. No doubt.

Since development on "The DUUUDDE!" is coming to an end I've started thinking ahead.  It's nearing Cinco De Mayo, the time for my newest creation...  The Vato!  This magical Mexican masterpiece will be a regionally unspecific work of modern manufactured cuisine.  Start with over-easy eggs, re-fried beans, queso, and chorizo dusted with crushed tortilla chips and sandwiched in between two pieces of fajita marinated flank steak and garnished with salsa. Cholula and Limes served on the side.  It's the perfect accompaniment to a Modelo Especial or a Dos Equis. 

"He may not always eat food, but when he does he eats...The Vato!"

[Results may vary. Illegal in 32 states including Utah where everything is illegal so operate under that assumption from now on, may increase gambling and/or sexual urges, not for use by children under 18, talk to your doctor if you experience an erection lasting six or more hours instead of just calling all your friends to brag, some assembly required, if you, or someone you know, is suffering from addiction then the chemicals we used are working, objects in mirror may be closer than they appear so back up, use as directed, lifeguard not on duty, if you are in the Los Angeles area and would like tickets to see Dr. Phil please call (323) 461-7445, if you develop a gash, a rash, and purple bumps then put down "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and seek medical attention immediately, highly flammable, contents under pressure, proceed at your own risk.]

Paging Clark Griswold

I spent most of today going through the process of changing my old consulting business into my new venture.  I am very excited about it but need about two - three months of planning before I can really get ready to debut my new plan.  Everything is going along swimmingly.  It's good to be busy and working toward something positive and new.  I think I spent too many years working from a defensive position in Project Management.  When you have to describe your job as "all you need to know is that you are never supposed to meet me" it doesn't exactly make for a lot of positive happy days.

It was time to move into something that uses my strange skill set in a way that is emotionally and mentally sustainable for me.  I'm very excited.  Details to follow.

Random Thoughts for today:

• Anti-depressant commercials are depressing, thus making many people think they are depressed.   
• The State of Texas makes up for not having a state income tax by taxing the shit out of everything else and also arresting people for blinking wrong.  I paid $300 to the state today just for a filing fee on my LLC. 
• The State of Texas isn't as great as it thinks it is, but it's vastly better than some places.
• Randy Quaid is a "bona-fide fugitive" according to the news today.  I can't understand how anybody loses Randy Quaid.  Have we learned nothing from Christmas Vacation?  He took the RV, drove to Dennis Quaid's house and is holing up there until the shitters full.  Case closed.  I'm like mother freakin' Colombo over here.
• The show "Human Target"  has two major drawbacks. First, the main character looks like my ex-husband. Second, he falls in love with some chick in every episode.  It's implausible, much like my ex.

It's a Dog-Eat-Dog World and I'm Wearing Milkbone Underpants

Shit-tacular.  If it isn't a word it should be.  It best describes one of the worst weekends I've had in years and the cause of my subsequent epiphany.  Do you ever feel like the universe is trying really hard to tell you something and it takes a lightening bolt to finally get through to you? Do you ever feel like Lindsay Lohan has never had one of these moments?  Do you ever feel you shouldn't be having feelings about Lindsay Lohan at all but yet she remains in the back of your consciousness even though you have only ever seen one of her movies?

It all started on Friday...[Insert crap-tastic things here, add a dash of salty tears, a pinch of peppery conversations, more foolish fighting than Foo Fighting and Col. Mustard in the library with a candlestick]...and now it's Tuesday.

By yesterday morning I was looking into the restorative benefits of going to bed for a week.  I kept thinking why do these weird things happen to me in spurts like this? How could I be so scatterbrained lately? Then it occurred to me that there is only one thing that changed in the last year - my socializing.  Back in those years before I didn't have time to live free and wild like the Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay.  I was focused.

Part of it is how my mind works, or doesn't work.  Since I was a kid I have lived with a mind that runs 100,000 revolutions per minute.  It's as if my brain is like a water cooler sized bottle with an opening the size of a soda can. There is just so much stuff going on in there at all times it feels like I can't shut it off.  Part of why I went into Project Management was because that structure is how I have to live my life to make sure things don't slip through the cracks.  Call it ADD, call it naturally scatterbrained, call it blonde, call it what you will but that's me.  I learned how to manage it well over the years.

Anyone who spends a lot of time with me knows that when at my fullest faculties I am always checking for things. I say "Where are my keys, my cell phone, my purse...". I always inventory things I have a predisposition to misplacing.  It probably drives them nuts but then if you hang out with me you are probably a bit off yourself. I'm the one that always has us ready for the road trip, has the extra just-in-case Bendryl, Ibuprofin, the flash light, the twine, the Swiss Army Knife and anything else we need in case of a MacGuyver related incident.

However, when I am out having some cocktails it's as if my head turns to Cotton Candy.  I forget things. I stop being paranoid about where my phone and car keys are. I leave things sitting in places they are never meant to go. I will leave the door unlocked, the eggs on the kitchen counter, the lights on in the hall and the toothpaste in the silverware drawer and never realize it til later.

In the last year I have had the luxury and also the curse of being able to let my mind and life be freer. I'm not driving to Dallas every day of my life. I'm not up doing project plans at 4am with people from Barcelona.  I don't have to write To-Do lists that are five pages long so I will fit everything into the few hours I have to sleep.  I can relax, enjoy spending time with my friends and let my mind be what it wants to be.  I can go out for Happy Hour because I actually get home in time to go there.  I don't have to worry whether I should go home after only one because I will be exhausted the next day.

It's great to have this kind of freedom, but maybe freedom from all your mental faculties isn't always exactly good for people like me.  I thrive well on structure and stress.  I need a new challenge, something to get me going again.  Many of the people I socialize with have had really weird things happen to them this year also. In some ways those incidences are contagious.  It's why we are all sitting there commiserating about the same stuff.  It's also why people who like professional wrestling tend to have their four-wheelers breakdown all in the same week. 

So it's time for me to slow down just a bit, get back to my life of lists, structure and challenge. It's not that I am giving up my social life entirely or not drinking ever again. It's just time for me to add back in some good healthy things along with it.  It's time to clear out the old and start anew.  And of course, Keep Calm and Carry On.

Rockford, Where We All Wanna Be Big Rock Stars

When I was married I lived in Rockford, Illinois.  It's also the city my mother grew up in and where my grandmother lived until she passed two years ago.  Yet again Rockford wins another distinction, this time it is the 14th most miserable U.S. City to live in according to Forbes Magazine

I lived in Rockford for a total of two years and lived near there for twenty years.  When my mother and I inherited my grandmother's very lovely home in that city we both looked at each other and laughed when questioned whether we should keep it.  We were so ready to escape from that city back to Texas that we left directly after the funeral and drove all night back to Bar-B-Que & Shotgun Adventure Themepark.

In all fairness there are pros and cons to every city.  Here is my totally biased and not even remotely comprehensive list of the Forest City good and bad points.

Pro Rockford
- I have some very cool, smart, funny, talented and creative friends that still live there.  They are fighting the good fight and believe life will improve if they get involved and try to make a difference.  [Mike Loven, I'm lookin' at you babe.]

- Fabulous Italian food at Franchescos and Marias that would make any southerner think they had died and gone to pizza/pasta/red sauce/Sunday gravy heaven. 

- The inexplicably named "Beef A Roo" whose cheese fries I still dream about.

- The weather is very decent in the summer and never gets much above 85 except on my birthday in which they open the blast furnace for one weekend per year and it gets to be 99 and humid.

- There are lots of trees and it's very green.

- Since it's north of Chicago most people are Cubs fans and this makes for little arguing with Sox fans in grocery stores or at the local bar.  No one thinks it's weird when you claim that you would rather your sister be a prostitute than a Sox fan.

- There are lots of bars to get drunk in and they are cheap.  They play Bears games on Sundays. You can get drunk cheaply and talk about Mike Ditka to anyone, even the six year old girl sitting next to you who is also drunk.

- I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.

- The last one is completely false but I was just seeing if you were still paying attention.

- It's easy to find parking almost anywhere you go because 3/4 of the city is paved.

- There are lots of prostitutes, so if you are an aspiring pimp this is a good area for it.

- My ex-husband still lives there, which means he doesn't live here, and that is the exact amount of distance that keeps us both very happy and friendly.

- Rockford is so devoid of culture and interesting things to do that my friends still living there come down to visit me a lot.

- If you have children there are plenty of sports to get them involved in. Soon it's all you do and begin to believe you know more than the coaches. Then spend every Friday night getting in fist-fights with the other parents who think they know everything there is to know about sports.

- If you really love Nickelback...  If you really love to sing Rockstar on karaoke... If you secretly want to go to the falling down ruins of an empty factory and make love to a girl who dances in a thong at The Bigfoot then this is heaven.  Embrace it "because we all wanna be big Rockstars..."

- Speaking of rockin', The Rock River is a fun way to spend an afternoon cruising around in the sunshine.  It is pretty out there.  Hopefully your friends who owned boats still have jobs and their boats.  No sane person swims in that water.

- When I got married I lived in a beautiful loft downtown that was actually in the building my parents met in.  It was within walking distance to Davis Park, on the river, and had a great view.  It also had a security system that prevented my in-laws from showing up unannounced to check whether my kitchen was clean or my sheets had been freshly laundered.

- Scoring drugs is easy if that is your thing.  It's pretty much the only burgeoning business in the town now. [Note - refer to prostitution earlier]

- They have lots of golf courses if you like to golf.

- To quote the immortal Skank Marden in the film Mystery, Alaksa "I play hockey and I fornicate, 'cause those are the two most fun things to do in cold weather."

Con Rockford
- Many of my very cool friends have run like hell from there and live in Chicago and all over the country.  The ones that are left are generally miserable and are dying to escape (ahem, Toby).

- If you go to Maria's to get amazing Italian food your car will be stolen before you've even ordered the cannolis. You will get mugged on the way to your now-non-existant car.  Then you will repeat the phrase from The Godfather, "Leave the gun, take the cannolis" and call your insurance company.

- The weather in the winter is twenty six degrees below the temperature the statement "When Hell Freezes Over" refers to. 

- Have you ever been in -20 degrees below zero at 6:30am digging your car out from the 12in. of snow that fell overnight only to realize that the heater in your car isn't working and your dog just disappeared in a drift and he might be lost for good?  No?  Then move to Rockford.  You can experience this from Halloween to Spring Break in normal years.

- Because once decades back the school district did something to discriminate and got sued your taxes are so high you might as well live in Chicago where it's fun and there is actually cool shit to do.

- With a 16.9% unemployement rate most people you know are broke and don't have enough money to go out and get drunk at the bars on every corner.  Thus leaving you drinking alone...again.

- If you don't like Nickelback you are pretty much screwed at most of the bars because you will hear it. EVERY. NIGHT.

- If you enjoy art museums there is one. But you are going to have to buy stuff for it unless you like looking at exhibitions from the local high school students 98% of the year.

- While prostitution/drug dealing and crime are on the rise we know well that "Pimpin' Ain't Easy" so your job could still be stressful.

- They have lots of golf courses that you can only use in the few months of the year that it isn't raining or so cold your golf balls fall off.

- My ex-husband and the inlaws still live there and I don't want to run into them during a Bocce Ball game at the Lombardi Club if you catch my drift. [See "Getting Fitted for Concrete Shoes"]


Sigh, this list could go on forever.  Dear Rockford, I will see you for approximately the ten minutes it takes to drive through you on my way to my 15 year class reunion in the gorgeous Rock River Valley this June.  I'll wave.  Look for the blue Range Rover with Texas plates and the girl behind the wheel never looking in the rear view mirror.

That Chicks the size of Moby Dick!

It's Easter and I am sitting here in Texas thinking about the Easter day I spent with my dear friends Karma and Fangirl in California.  It was the day after Denyse and Fran got married.  We drove up to Point Dume Beach in Malibu, which is famed for being the rock used in the end of Planet of the Apes.  While we didn't see a yelling Charleton Heston on the beach we did watch the dolphins jump and the whales too.  It was so beautiful that I often thought it was like going to church.  Great memories of some wonderful friends.

So on a day in which I'm thinking about past whale watching I come along an article confirming that the new KFC sandwich to be released is called "The Double Down."  It's a bacon and cheese sandwich with two pieces of fried chicken as the bun. Yeah you heard me, THE BUN IS MADE OF FRIED CHICKEN!  Remember when KFC came out with those bowls that were basically all the foods they make piled into one mashed potato based concoction?  It has occurred to me that whoever is in charge of new product development for KFC is actually a huge stoner.  All these new food ideas are precisely the same things that stoners decide would be good combinations when their wasted.  What is next for KFC?  I bet you anything it will be smashed Doritos and Cheetos with melted cheese on mashed potatoes with crumbled bacon in between two pieces of fried chicken. It's name?  The "DUUUUDE".  You laugh, but I give it a year before it's on the market.

And Ain't that America, for you and me...

Rehab is for Quitters

Why am I reminded so often lately of the old quote "You Show Me a Beautiful Woman and I'll Show You the Man Who's Tired of Fucking Her"?

Jesse James, husband of the smashing and successful Sandra Bullock, is checking himself into sex rehab.  It would seem to me that if you really want to doink a celebrity these days all you have to do is skip the nightclubs and check into the inpatient sex-rehab club.  It must be like shooting fish in a barrel in there. 

Everything in this country today is a disease.  The fact that you can't keep your penis in its holster is a disease now too.  Everybody has an excuse. I propose a new hybrid to the standard sex-addict disease.  So you cannot focus on just one woman because you are also affected with Attention Deficit Disorder?  Then because you cannot overcome your ADD it cannot be your fault that you will inevitable see something shiny, forget you are married, and oops! you had sex with another women?  ADD Sex Adddition!  This would require two seperate stints in two seperate rehab clinics, thus allowing you to get caught cheating at least twice before your wife leaves you.  I'm going to market it.  I'll make a fortune. 

JDouche Takes a Wife

Late night phone calls freak me out.  I think this is one of the reasons I've never been a drunk dialer.  If you ever receive a phone call late at night from me you can guess something is pretty wrong.  When I get a late night phone call it shoots me out of bed and I answer it without much of an afterthought, just as I did last night. This call wasn't about bailing a friend out of jail or a car wreck. It was about a train wreck I was in last year.  A train wreck of a relationship. 

Back a year ago I was seriously involved with a guy we now refer to as "JDouche" partly for how close that is to his real name and how closely that resembles his real personality.  We met on a night while he was playing the guitar in one of the very successful bands that he would inevitable get kicked out of for being an undercover asshole.  Always be wary of a guy who has very little friends.  When you meet the few he has they tell you when he's in the bathroom that they don't really like him, just tolerate him.  Their only stories are about times they have wanted to kill him and they tell those when he's back at the table.

JDouche was a piece of work.  He was quiet, good looking, had an ego the size of the former Roman Empire and a penchant for cheating.  Later I would find out the cheating ended his first marriage and sent her to a place involving "funny" and "farms" but without comedians or cattle.  JDouche was such a good cheat because he had so much practice.  It was impossible for him to not cheat on anyone he had ever been with, traceable all the way back to high school.  So last year on Valentines Day when I found out he was sleeping with the bleach blonde ballet teacher with the largest fake boobs on the planet I shouldn't have been surprised. But surprised I was.  I didn't know about his cheating past.  I didn't know that he was with her every night I was out of town for business or just took a night to myself to relax.  I didn't know until later that he was obsessed about not being left alone, even for a day. 

I believe no relationship will ever be healthy without trust.  I always give enough rope for a man to hang himself with and JDouche was very well hung in the end.  Over the course of the next year I would meet a myraid of women he had been with, some while he was married, some while he was single, some when he was with me.  One of his side girls on me is actually a pretty good friend now, although she had no idea he even had a girl friend. He's a good liar.  I like her.  He hurt her too and for that I resent him.

When I pick up the emergency train wreck phone last night I find out that he is getting married again.  She proposed. The same bleache blonde idiot that I caught him with and he's denied to everyone being with for a year. But the phone call also came with the "before any final decisions are made we should get together, talk, make sure that we aren't making a mistake letting that great relationship go" pretext.

I realized I haven't been angry with him in a very long time.  I haven't missed him.  I stopped letting the hurt of what he did control my attitude toward other men and trust again.  I realized I never loved him but just an idea of him. In fact, all I could conjure up for the sociopath was laughter. Hard, loud, raucous laughter.  There was crying alright, but everybody knows I cry when I laugh and here they were, a year later, the fleetly flowing tears of a woman happy to have ducked at just the right time and dodged that bullet.

And the phone went...click.

Wilco - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart Opening Credits

What I watch when I start to feel homesick: 
Wilco - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart opening credits

"I'm hiding out in the big city blinking...
What was I thinking when I let go of you?"

Packing for Vegas Baby, Vegas

I have my suitcase mostly packed for Vegas. It's hard to determine what one will need in Las Vegas, Satan's Anus (20 pts. if you know that reference).

So far I have the essentials. Little black dress. Little Black Book. Sky high stilettos. Swiss Army Knife. A copy of the U.S. Army Survivial Guide. Hairspray. A copy of the movie Hairspray. Fourteen pre-fabricated excuses to send to friends and family in case something goes awry. Freeze dried astronaut food. A snorkel. A bikini. A feathered head dress. A stick-on tattoo that says "Do not let me get a tattoo" and anti-marriage repellent.

Think I covered everything?

There is an article I stumbled upon in Twitter this morning called "Why Women Hate Strip Clubs" at Askmen.com. I don't hate strip clubs. I have dear male friends that work at them and also frequent them. The article mainly deduces that most women hate strip clubs because of their own insecurities. While that is true in some cases they have missed something important. What does it tell a woman about a man that frequents strip clubs?

Strip clubs fit a very specific purpose, much like Nascar and the Modern Museum of Art. Not all people are suited to the same types of entertainment. There is certainly a place in this world for strip clubs. As a woman I don't like a man I am dating to hang around them though, but not for the reasons ask men.com lists.

When I am getting to know a man I use the things he tells me and his habits to judge his character on the inside. If he is a strip club frequenter my mind starts hoisting red flags. First is that he is frivolous with his money and must be pretty gullible. Second it makes him seem insecure and there is nothing less attractive than an insecure man. Lastly it brings out a sleazy factor, whether real or perceived. None of these are attractive qualities in a potential partner.

The kind of women that work in strip clubs, for the most part, are going to be nothing like me. That is not to say they are all bad people, just different people. I hear all the arguments about how much money they make and there is nothing wrong with that. There are a lot of occupations that make large sums of money that I wouldn't do either. I would rather go to an art gallery on a Friday night or out for cocktails instead of a monster truck rally or a professional wrestling match. It's not going to work in love if we have such a fundamental difference of opinion on what we enjoy doing culturally and what we find entertaining. If a guy hangs out in strip clubs because that's where he feels most comfortable then we are probably not going to have much to talk about. I feel the same about a guy who likes to spend his Sundays collecting stamps.

Many men frequent strip clubs because of the validation they receive. They are often insecure and are willing to pay a lot of money to have a women tell them they are great, smart, funny, successful, powerful and handsome. I understand that in some cases these men are with woman who don't validate them. If a man is with a woman who doesn't respect him then it's not going to be fixed by paying a stripper to make up the difference. It will get fixed by finding a woman who respects you without having to slip a Benjamin into her G-string.

I understand there are a myriad of reasons men have for going to a strip club. I too respect the beauty of the female body. It's fun sometimes to go out with friends and do something out of your normal routine. Sometimes people's personal sexual proclivities factor into this and their wives and girlfriends are into it. I'm not here to designate every strip club patron as insecure, sleazy, broke and gullible. However in response to the ask men article I have to provide a perspective from the other side of the fence.

I will now spend the rest of the afternoon ducking from the arrows of quite a few of my male friends.

I took a major step today. I cleaned out my email Inbox for the first time in my long e-history. Second I finally decided to use my blog for something more than an electronic paper weight of uselessness. I'm not sure why I feel the need to blog since I generally blurt out most things I am thinking right when they happen. Maybe I just like to inflict my opinion on others even more than I already do.

For those of you who kept asking me to blog, here it is. For those of you who wished I didn't have so many opinions...there's this little X in the top right hand corner. Click, click boom, I'm gone.