Merry Freakin' Christmas

It is widely publicized (mostly by herself) that Samantha is acting treasurer of the Bah Humbug! club, founded jointly by Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch before either one were brainwashed with Christmas spirit. This is, therefore, her least favorite time of the year. I've decided to help her through these painful weeks with a few suggestions to alleviate her difficulties. If you are of a like mind, it might help you too. Oh, and you should really look into joining the club.

1.) Problem: Caroling. They're doing it and you're hating it. It's not a 'silent night' if you're singing, is it?
Solution: This is where your stereo system comes in handy. The baby Jesus saw fit to give you killer speakers, so why not blast Whatever Happened to Mary by Chumbawamba?

2.) Problem: Shopping sucks. Shopping for things I can't keep? Sucks more.
Solution: Okay, you have to buy gifts. But nobody said you had to buy perfect gifts. I mean sure, you're obligated to get a gift for that coworker whose name you drew in the Secret Santa, but you shouldn't let that get you down. Think of the potential for classic badly-hidden sour expressions when she opens your gift to find...a clearance-rack Santa sweatshirt. Or a ouija board.

3.) Problem: Seriously Jimmy Stewart! Nobody cares about angel wings!
Solution: Rent Ghostbusters, Rushmore, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Repeat use as necessary over the coarse of the holiday season.

4.) Problem: They're gonna make me go to church. I don't wanna.
Solution: If you've got to go, prepare yourself. Make time 2 hours before and watch Dogma. Then, while you're in church, you can imagine all the nativity stories with Alanis Morisette cast as God and Alan Rickman doing all her talking: "Okay, for reasons clearly beyond all our understandings, God would like to impregnate a virgin woman. Again. Some more. Gabriel, I'm going to need you to find us some candidates. And for goodness sake, this time find us someone everyone knows is a virgin. It's not much of a miracle if she turns up pregnant and some biddy down the road saw her last week up in a hayloft with the butcher's son, now is it?"

5.) Problem: The combination of the colors red and green is nauseating.
Solution: Be Elvis. Be Johnny Cash. Wear your sunglasses inside. Not only will everyone be forced to acknowledge your rock stardom, you also won't be able to see a damn thing. Which should help with the nausea. For the tripping and bruises, you're on your own.

If this didn't solve all your problems, I'm here to help. Just ask and I'll find you a way to survive these things we call holidays.

Just In Case The Do That Girls Break Up

Your Band Name is:

The Fearless Circus

Band Name Generator

Sam Is a Hit with the Fellas

To commemorate my decision to stop doubting my charms and waiting for people to realize how freaking sweet I am, I offer you a blast from my (non) dating past.

This will not happen again--

snovellasimpson:I'm being neurotic. Doing that thing you do where you play back everything you said and realize, if you'd had an editor, it could have been more awesome, and now everybody hates you.
seliseburns: Yeah, I do that too. But, he doesn't hate you.
snovellasimpson: Are you sure?
seliseburns: Very.
snovellasimpson: See, but it's easy for you to say that because you don't hate me.
seliseburns: I refuse to engage in this argument. Nobody hates you.
snovellasimpson: Okay. You're right.

snovellasimpson: Okay, he thinks I'm boring.
seliseburns: How could he possibly think that?
snovellasimpson: Because I don't do anything.
seliseburns: Boo. That is not true.
snovellasimpson: I don't even care.
seliseburns: Yes you do. Or you wouldn't be obsessing in this way. I do think you should strive to calm down, though.
snovellasimpson: I am calmly not caring.
seliseburns: Okay.
snovellasimpson: Okay.

seliseburns: So, I just had the impulse to watch the part of My Favorite Wife when Cary Grant is dodging his new wife during their honeymoon. I don't know why.
snovellasimpson: I think you do know why. It's my not-caring what's doing that to you.
seliseburns: No. It's probably because I foresee your honeymoon being that sort of screwball situation. You'll make me camp out in the next room and you'll run over every 5 minutes for advice.
snovellasimpson: "Stephanie, I think he hates me. No, really, he does."
seliseburns: "Sweetie, is he naked? Because, I don't think he hates you if he's naked."
snovellasimpson: "Yeah, but it's like a--like a hateful naked. Like he's naked, but he hates me."

As in Doornail

So I'm training my cat to kill. I scoop her up and hold her like she's a baby until she starts to get upset. Then I say, "Kill. Kill, Scully, kill," before I let her get back to licking herself.

I'm telling you this because I want you to understand I have the potential to be mean, nasty, vicious, petty, and cruel. There is something in me--and every other human being--that delights in seeing others' pain. I'm telling you this because when I'm gone, I don't want you to confuse me with Deadgirl.

You know Deadgirl.

In some stories, she is simply the one who got away. "Cowboy Bebop's" Spike Spiegal yearns for Deadgirl Julia until she returns--only to die again. (Head Babetteer Anna pointed out to me, "She dies because she's dead.") Deadgirl is a devoted wife and mother who uses her last breath to utter some nonsensical magic words in "Signs." Deadgirl sends Mickey Rourke on some stupid revenge quest in "Sin City." Deadgirl's sister, Sickchick, has a complete understanding of the world, yet still finds it in her heart to be loving, generous, and sweet until she expires.

I hate Deadgirl--I hate her, I hate her, I hate her because she's better than the rest of us, the women who are still alive and, therefore, less awesome than our decomposing counterparts. Deadgirl's quirks are signs of her superior character. When (male) narrators search their memories of Deadgirl, they latch onto those soft-focus moments when she was radiant and childlike--like a fucking angel. Deadgirl is one of the guys, yet she still manages to smell like Love's Baby Soft. Deadgirl said that thing that time that really makes sense when you think about it. She doesn't have to be a virgin, but Deadgirl never pity-screws, fakes it, or calls it a "pinky." She only makes sweet love.

She's great, isn't she? Except she's DEAD. As in "doornail," as in "as hell," as in "pushing up daisies, so stop talking about her for, like, three seconds."

And when a character shuffles loose this mortal coil, she no longer has a voice. Her entire experience is negotiated through the memories of people who choose to define her in limited terms. The worst offending Deadgirls pass away long before the events of the story take place, so they have the pleasure (as if their pleasure matters) of becoming a prop, usually the bridge between two or more male characters. If two guys can't get around to kissing each other, then they can share a beer and talk about kissing Deadgirl.

Tell me: What is it about a real, live, breathing, sometimes angry woman that puts off male narrators? (I would say we don't bite, but I'd be lying.) It's difficult enough to populate stories with interesting characters who are lovable but troubled. Deadgirl is the insipid shorthand for a real woman character. She can be virgin, mother, and whore--and her voice doesn't complicate matters at all. (Silence--it's so hot right now.) I can't even write Open Hate Mail to Deadgirl: all she does all day long is decompose in a saintly way.

Now, sometimes Deadgirl can't help that she's dead. I get that. There is hope. Deadgirl can redeem herself by:

*becoming a zombie and eating the brains of those beer-drinking buddies
*possessing her cowed son to the point that he dresses in drag to murder people in the shower
*crawling out of television sets and mangling people's faces with her brain
*unnerving her husband's new wife
*comparing Harry Potter's package to Cedric Diggory's (yowza!)
*only pretending to be dead so she can (a) embezzle funds; (b) start a new life as a transgendered rock star; (c) pick up something from the store
*really, becoming a zombie and eating brains is the way for Deadgirl to go.

There is no redeeming Sickchick.

Hear this: if anyone tells any Deadgirl stories at my funeral, Scully will be ready to sink her teeth and her claws into your forearm--just like I taught her. Call it pre-emptive revenge or whatever, but I and almost every other woman I know deserve to be whole people, even when we aren't around.