SuperGurl

You asked, go here.

Thanks, Nancy!

It’s that time of year again. Time to toil at the hard summertime labors of our joint venture together, perfecting the blown-eyed gathering. The date, for those of you not paying attention, is JUNE 27th – 29th. Known to freedom lovers everywhere as the weekend before the Fourth of July. Accommodations are getting way tight. If you are interested in attending, leave a comment with your email address and I will get right to you with a response.
Housekeeping Note #1: Anyone who knows me knows we must be speaking of absolute absurdity if I’m in any sort of charge of the housekeeping.

Housekeeping Note #2: Paul, wow. Thank You. I’m pretty sure that was the nicest comment I’ve ever received in blodge land (Bob was right). I tried to write you but the email bounced back undeliverable. Drop me an email to SuperGurl (at) supergurl.net and I’ll send it on. Until then, consider taking the obvious next step in what will no doubt be an extended relationship with the Blown Eyes, come to a blog meet. It’s practically a recovery session for GOC readers anyway. Kerrcarto and Charlie Delta are coming (Can I get a HELL YEAH on this year’s long distance lurk contingent?). I know you want to. And check that river? Pretty nice even if the people sucked. That goes for all you coded-out non responders. We want to see your smiling faces in Texas.

Housekeeping Note #3: Leslie, Omnibabe, my beautiful soul sister. I got your surprise in the mail and I’m wearing them right now. Honey, you shouldn’t have, it’s too much, they are beautiful. But thank you, I’m so glad you did, and I couldn’t have picked anything more me if I tried. Love You. Now, look both ways before you cross the street. I mean it, you belong to me.

Housekeeping Note #4: Jim, Jimbo, Jambalaya. I gave your denials serious thought but I think I may have you beat this round. I have your daughter, Jim. That’s right, Twisty. If you ever want to see your little girl smile again, see her light up like she hasn’t since that summer in Austin, I suggest you book some flights and bring your guitar. Free Twisty, Jim, you didn’t raise her to be just another victim of the ugly New Jersey tax structure, a slave to industry. Did you? What the heck are you working so hard for anyway? FREE TWISTY! You just might free yourself in the process. Try.

Housekeeping Note #5: No Pets Allowed. I am sorry. I am a dog person myself. But they have just remodeled the property, new carpet, new everything, they were adamant. No pets. I hope this isn’t a dealbreaker for anybody.

My twenty-year old stepson is in a mental hospital.

He took a psychoactive chemical to “expand his mind” and to “gain wisdom”, causing a complete psychotic break.

He spent the latter half of last week and the weekend at my house, trying to recover.

We took him to the hospital on Sunday, when it became apparent that he was not getting any better. We were afraid to sleep with him in the house.

This is the second time he’s done this in two, two-and-a-half years. He blames his mother.

We are still paying off our portion of the last round of treatment.

His mother is suing us for the other half of it. She has a good chance of success.

My seven-year old son is covered in poison ivy. I had to pull a monster tick off his balls last night with tweezers and a needle.

This is a direct result of playing in the backyard with his psycho older brother, who wrapped him in the poison ivy to make him a “suit of leaves”.

My dog is sick. My twenty-year old wanted to “heal” him of his constant scratching, so he dosed him with some kind of tea, contents of which were unknown.

The dog’s farts smell like sulfur. My whole house smells like a burnt match.

My seventeen-year old stepson is gay. Just came out.

My one-year old got sent home from daycare today. He has thrushmouth, which will make Supergurl keel over laughing to hear. Private joke.

He can’t go back to school until he is over it.

I have no time off available at my job. I am already in the shit for missing work because of twenty-year old.

My husband is in the same situation.

My mom would keep the kids while the one-year old recovers, but she just had knee surgery. My father just had surgery on his prostate.

My maternal grandfather had a stroke on Monday.

My paternal grandmother had a radical double mastectomy on Monday, too. She’s seventy-nine. The hospital sent her home on Tuesday. Medicare regulations.

My mother-in-law called yesterday afternoon to tell us that she just found out that she has macular degeneration. No treatment available. Two to five years to blindness.

A concrete truck driver almost hit me this morning. I honked at him. He chased me down and threatened to kill my family.

I think my cat is dying. All his hair is falling out. I have not even taken him to the vet. I am probably going to hell.

I’m overdue for a pap smear. My car payment was late.

That’s all I can think of, but I’m pretty sure I am missing a few things.

Strangely, I’ve been having trouble concentrating.

Oh, yeah? Tell it to George Washington, you poxy little blight.

Freedom is always, always worth fighting for. Remember that, today – Independence Day – we celebrate not only our nation’s freedom, but that which bought us our nation: victory on the field of battle. Blood payment may look barbaric at a remove, to the intellectual eye, but mark: to its owner, blood is the most valuable thing in the world. Lose enough of it and you’re dead; not true of gold nor diamonds nor any other tangible. Blood is, in that way, the world’s only real currency, and there’s nothing intellectual about it. It is. Period.

Let us not be ashamed of our will to fight. Other nations have sometimes ridiculed America for appearing too much like its own cowboy movies: full of guns and action, short on culture and dialog. In this, there is more than a grain of truth, and for this, I refuse to bow to ridicule. You should be proud of it, too.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this country. Hell, I love it so much, I wear its flag stitched over my lady bits. But America today is a strange place; spend a couple of hours watching cable television on any given weeknight, and it’s easy to see Why They Hate Us, why fundamentalist Moslems think we are debauched and weak. Our culture is veined with sickness, with rot. The fact that we have a will to fight, to pull together against a common enemy – why, it’s one of the most visible signs that America is still functioning properly and not completely seeped in decadence. Damn right, we’re swaggering across the plains with guns blazing, podner. We’re Americans, son, so either make with the drinks and the menus, or go the hell home.

War is an indicator of societal virility. It’s deeply, deeply reassuring to me, in this America – this America in which male traits, male impulses are daily so verbally reviled – to see that we still have some balls left. After all, we’ve spent the last thirty years making a multimillion dollar industry out of emotionally crippling our men (Ritalin and Adderol for every little boy in the classroom with “too much energy”, every television father – every one, from the one on the Home Depot commercial to the sitcom Dad – is a bumbling, drooling idiot, saved from himself only by the UberMommy) that it’s quite a healthy sign that we’re still willing to defend ourselves from anything at all.

Americans bought our freedom on this continent at a terrible price, the ultimate price – the blood of patriots. I don’t just count the Revolutionary War with England in the total bill, either, for it took the War Between The States (or the Civil War, depending on where you grew up) to end slavery and truly unify us under the Declaration of Independence and the precepts under which it begins: that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…

Peace is a wonderful thing, but we should never allow ourselves, not for a moment, to believe that the world has moved beyond war, or that war is an outdated concept, or that the idea of sacrificing the blood of a nation for something precious is somehow beneath us, too lowbrow. History has taught us that, the moment we become to civilized to fight for ourselves, a more brutal society will rise to wipe us from the face of the earth.

This is a great country. Love it, but never forget why it’s here, and never let anybody convince you that violence is never the answer to anything. Sometimes it’s the only answer to everything. If you won’t fight for what you love, maybe you never deserved it in the first place.

Happy Fourth of July!

For the delightful, delicious of the blodgosphere. You know who you are. The ultimate blodger anthem. See you in Chitown, SweetFries.

Warning: It’s loud, so turn it down if you don’t want to hate me…
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