Double bind

  In psychology, a double bind is defined as when a person receives conflicting orders that contradict one another and becomes confused. To follow one order would be to disobey the other or incur some kind of punishment. This can apply to when body language or tone of voice doesn’t match what is being said. Double binds can be used by abusers to confuse and gain control over their victim.An example of a double bind would be when a mother is visiting her son. He puts his hand on her shoulder and she recoils. He takes his hand away, thinking that she doesn’t want to be touched. But then the mother says, “What’s wrong, son? Don’t you love me?” Her body language is not matching up to her actions.Another would be if a teacher told students to write a paper using sources to back up their argument but also to write the paper on their own and not to consult any outside texts or people. So the students can either research their articles and be accused of cheating, as they consulted other sources, or turn in a paper with no sources and be accused of plagiarism.A double bind is a more subtle form of psychological abuse that can leave the victims feeling panicked and unsure. No matter what they do, they’re going to be wrong. Or the abuser is saying one thing but doing another, leaving them uncertain of what they actually want and unable to appease them.While this might sound like something only a psychological abuser would say, average people, sometimes unwittingly, put people into situations where they are doubly bound. A boy dating a girl might tell her that he dislikes “sluts” and girls that move too fast, but then inform her that if she doesn’t want to have sex with him within 4 weeks of their first date, he will break up with her. A girl might tell a boy that she doesn’t like men who are dominate and rough, but then demand that he has violent, kinky sex with her.Bosses, parents and other people in positions of authority who give orders to others can find themselves giving their subordinates double binds without realizing it. This is why it’s important to realize how we are treating people and how we give instructions. Everyone needs to make sure that what they’re doing is not putting people into a psychological situation that has been recognized for over 50 years.Seriously. We have enough problems. Take it easy on people.

Love Italian Style: Puttana in the Bedroom, Chapters 13 & 14

 It’s time to talk about sex. Something that Melissa can never seem to talk enough about. But never fear, she assures us, if you’re a whore in the bedroom, your husband will never cheat. Ever. This is a fun section.Melissa kicks off the introduction with these words of wisdom,To be a puttana in marriage, a woman needs to keep herself in shape. She has to be seductive. She must be willing to try new things for her husband’s pleasure and her own. And, most important, she has to be available for sex.The way I see it, if a wife is a puttana, her husband will never feel the urge to go outside the marriage to actual whores, or strip clubs. He won’t hit on women in bars, or drool over his friend’s girlfriends or the secretary. He’ll rush home to his wife, who makes sure he’ll have a good time (the best time) in the comfort of his own home.So why do men cheat? Their wives weren’t good enough whores in the bedroom. Glad we got that cleared up. Here I thought the reasons why men cheat were varied and complicated. But it’s not! A man who cheats just has a lazy wife who doesn’t want sex.Joe quickly pipes up to back up this fact. He educates,A man will never go outside his marriage for sex unless he’s not getting it at home. I know a guy whose wife refused to do it. He wound up cheating. They went to a psychiatrist to try and work things out. My friend told the shrunk everything. The wife agreed. She had no interest in sex, and wasn’t going to change. After a few sessions, the psychiatrist flat out said, “I got no help for you, buddy.” A couple that stops having sex needs help. But if the wife won’t change, they’re beyond it.First off, a psychiatrist is a doctor specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses and they can also prescribes psychiatric medication. A couple with marital trouble should have been going to a counselor, psychologist or therapist. But anyway.It really makes it quite clear that women are responsible for their men staying faithful. If a man isn’t entertained enough or getting enough sex, he just has to cheat. He has to get sex from someone, so if his wife isn’t DTF then he has to run to the nearest girl to fulfill his needs. Not his fault. He’s just doing whatever he has to in order to survive.Don’t either of them realize that there are women who have done everything possible to keep a man faithful and committed and nothing has worked? Also, this section has no consideration for women who have physical or emotional problems with sex. Women have to give men sex or suffer the consequences. If a woman doesn’t want sex, the man has to leave. Simple as that.And of course, this doesn’t even take into consideration that there are some men who have intimacy problems or emotional issues. In their traditional marriage, all men want sex all the time. That’s the major facet of their lives. In order to be a real man, you have to order your life around your penis.But all of this is lost on the couple. Melissa makes another joke that Joe has to have sex at least once every other day or suffer a painful demise from blue balls. The joke doesn’t get any funnier or lighten the fact that she is his personal sex doll.Moving on, Melissa starts talking about her body. Yet again. She brags,I’m proud of how I look, and not embarrassed to say so. Caring about your looks is superficial only if you do it for shallow reasons. I work on my outside to gain confidence on the inside.What? Confidence isn’t something that should be contingent on your outside. A confident woman is confident no matter if she’s in tip top shape or has stopped going to the gym. Also, the idea that caring about how you look needs to be justified is so silly. Everyone needs to take care of themselves and feel comfortable with their appearance.But while Melissa makes it sound like she works on her body for herself, a huge chunk of this work is obviously for Joe. She writes,When we’re in bed, he [Joe] objectifies the hell out of me — and I love every minute of it. In or out of bed, I want to feel like I’m the best thing he’s ever seen. I want his eyes on me. Being his sex object takes effort. I put in the time and reap the rewards.It’s one thing for a woman to be proud of being a sex object and wanting to be objectified by her husband. But it’s totally another for this woman to write a book advising other women to do the same and frame it around the idea that her marriage is successful because of this. Melissa might not see anything wrong with her husband not seeing her as a person. But a lot of women want to be seen as sexual creatures with feelings and intelligence as well.Anyway, Melissa then talks about how she appreciates Joe’s body and mentions that he used to be a stripper. Apparently, he still loves stripping. Not something I’d see as a career path for a traditionally manly man that could choke on his own testosterone, but whatever. Imagine if their daughter ever wanted to became a stripper. Scandal!Moving on, Melissa starts droning on about her fitness regime and how she works with a personal trainer and exactly how she tones her ass, so on, so forth. She does squats and leg lifts and bicep curls and other shit that no one really cares about.But just when things are getting boring, Melissa drives right back into her ancient gender roles and writes this little aside.Things not to do in front of your husbandDouble standard alert. Joe can and does a lot of the things on this list in front of me. I don’t necessarily like it, but I give him a pass. He’s part animal anyway. But I was raised to keep my bodily functions to myself. Ladies are discreet about such things. It goes back to the idea of dating your husband… Don’t let politeness die, and never let him see you…1. Poop. Moms, you know the book Everyone Poops, right? It’s wrong. Girls don’t poop. Me, never have. Never will. It just doesn’t happen. Or, that’s what Joe thinks! We’ve been married for nine years, and he has never once seen or smelled my business. How have I pulled this off? I don’t do it when he’s around or awake. In an emergency, I have my ways of pooping so he won’t hear, smell or see. It’s a challenge. Joe has asked me, in complete seriousness, “Do you poop?” He can’t catch me. He always tries. He springs in on me when I’ve been in the bathroom for a while, only to find me tweezing my eyebrows. Ha!Okay, she went there, now we have to talk about this. First off, I hate to be the one to break this to Melissa, but women are people. Women poop. It’s completely normal and natural. What isn’t normal or natural is making a challenge out of ensuring your husband doesn’t think that you have regular bodily functions or being so proud of the fact that she has put so much energy into this goal.Also, how does she manage to achieve this with someone that she’s living with? She can manage to hold her bowels until he falls asleep or leaves the house? That’s not even healthy. What about when they’re on vacation and in a hotel room with one small bathroom? How does she manage to keep up the illusion that her body doesn’t produce excrement?And what does she gain by doing this? What does she get out of having her husband think that she doesn’t poop? Is this an extreme manifestation of her need to be perfect? She has to be so perfect that she can’t even let people think that she has bowel movements? Why does she have to make people think that she’s not a human being?Who the fuck knows? She continues,2. Fart. I like to call it puff. The only time I would puff in front of Joe would be outside, in a tornado, with him wearing noise-canelling headphones and a clothespin on his nose.Of course. She doesn’t poop, why would she fart? But again, I have to ask how she manages this. She has never had an upset stomach and things have just happened? How does she avoid all of these natural functions? At this point, I have to wonder if she just thinks that Joe has never smelled her poop or heard her fart and she is just living in a fantasy land where she believes that she doesn’t shit or ever have gas.Moving swiftly on,3. Change a tampon. I have no words. I can’t even. This is not okay. Just NO. Talk about destroying the mystery. And don’t forget to flush them, please! When men see blood, they think something died.First off, never flush a tampon. It will clog the plumbing. Just throw them away. But anyway, women have periods. No amount of denial or flushing is going to change that. Men need to deal with the fact that most women bleed out of their vaginas once a month. It doesn’t matter if men think that it’s yucky or gross. Men do gross stuff all of the time and women are just told to put up with it. So guess what, return the favor.4. Pick… your nose, your eye gunk, an ingrown hair. A lady does not dig for gold. I’m grossed out when Joe cleans house in front of me.Of course it’s gross when he does it, but it’s completely unacceptable for her to do it. Because she’s a woman and women can’t be icky. They have to be perfect and amazing at all times.The next few sections are painfully boring bits about Melissa’s diet. She writes about how she eats, what she eats, why she eats, how she handles cravings, fast foods, liquid calories, cake and splurges. Which this is all well and good for her, her exact diet will probably do very little to help other women who don’t have her same body type, lifestyle and health concerns.But not to be deterred by reality, Melissa continues. She advises women not to let themselves go. But to instead, “Keep love alive. Use deodorant.” She talks about the unfortunate women who let their skin get dry, let their armpits get covered in stubble, etc. No woman should allow herself to get comfortable with her husband. As much as she might think that he loves her, if he sees armpit stubble, he’s still thinking that she’s gross.Chapter 14 is entitled Our Version of Foreplay. Melissa launches into some more advice on how to create sexual tension and keep your man interested and blah, blah, blah. She then writes this strange statement, “Since the days of Salome and Cleopatra, seduction has been a woman’s job.” Uh, Salome is believed to have led to the murder of John the Baptist. How is she exactly a woman to hold up as an example of femininity and seduction?Melissa then writes about sending flirty texts to your husband. She writes, “I wouldn’t write anything that would make me die of shame if someone read it over his shoulder. I never send photos. I don’t trust him not to show someone.” As much as she rambles on about trust, you’d think that she would trust her husband with a racy photo. But whatever.Her suggestions for sexy texts include the following:“I’m wearing red underwear. Early dinner tonight?”“You have no idea what I’m going to do to you when you get home.”“I want you.”My apologizes for putting such pornographic content into this blog. I’m sure a great many of the readers are now scandalized. Stay with me though.Joe pops in to share some male wisdom,Men are visual creatures. If we see something we like, we attack. A lion sees a gazelle, he attacks. His jowls are dripping and he can’t wait to tear at that gazelle with his teeth. But he’ll wait for a while, just watching it. His appetite is stimulated through his eyes. Watching first prolongs the thrill of the hunt.It’s so sexy when a man compares desire to a lion murdering a gazelle. It’s so sensual to visualize the dripping jowls and sharp teeth tearing into the flesh of an animal that had just been stalked and think that he believes this to be downright erotic. But this isn’t the last time Joe equates violence with sex. But that’s coming up.Melissa then talks about how important smell is to her. She’s already established how her husband has never smelled her business. She goes on to talk about all of the various things that she smells throughout the day and how happy it makes her.She ends the chapter by talking about how important it is to touch your spouse. Radical idea, right? Stay with me. She writes that soft, affectionate touches show your man that you care about him and are attracted to him. Ground breaking ideas, I know. Now, on to the next chapter.To read all review entries of Love Italian Style, click here. Blogs are in reverse chronological order.

Love Italian Style: Cook in the Kitchen, Chapters 10 & 11

 Melissa starts out this chapter by reiterating how she decided to toss her bachelor’s degree aside work as a secretary for her husband’s company. All because he wants to be able to go on vacation with her. The story doesn’t make anymore sense the second time I read it. Melissa attempts to explain, “Teaching no longer felt like the right path. Something in my heart told me to help build the company with Joe for the sake of our future children.” And so you could go on vacation with him, right?Then Joe takes the reins and talks about how they struggled during the 2008 recession and the downturn in the housing market. Their story of struggle is very poignant. A lot of people struggled and continue to struggle due to the economy and they made it through with two small children.But of course, logic and personal stories can only last so long. Now, Melissa ventures into finances. It seems a little off that someone who lives in wealth and privilege to be doling out financial advice to women who will never drive a new Range Rover and live in a mansion. Sure, Joe worked for all that they have, but he had enough luck and good timing to be successful. Some people work just as hard and never yield those kinds of results.Of course, Melissa can’t resist another opportunity to bring up her “singing career”. She writes about the adjustments that they had to make in order to accommodate her hobby. Melissa states, “Joe loves his children and spending time with them. But he does resent the idea that their mother isn’t available to them 24/7.” Of course he does.Then, Joe hops in to add in his two cents.It was an adjustment. For years, I was the one making money. I paid for everything and Melissa took care of the house and the kids. That was our life. Then suddenly, I’m earning, and I’m paying for the recording studio, and for her songs, and for her choreographer, and the hair and makeup, and then she asked me to take phone calls for her and to stay home with the kids so she could do an appearance somewhere. What happened to our normal life as a married couple? I thought I was a big real estate guy. Am I seriously turning into my wife’s assistant?Yes, how terrible is it that she has her own life away from the home? How demeaning is it that he has to answer a few phone calls and stay at home with the kids on occasion? What is he, a woman?Melissa talks a bit about how all of their money goes into a joint account and they have no separate bank accounts or anything of that nature. She writes, “Separate accounts and credit card statements just open the door for secrets and lies.” Yeah. Just like hanging out with your single girlfriends will lead you into temptation. Doing something without your spouse is dangerous and can only lead to trouble.Chapter 11 is called Good Homekeeping. But it somehow starts off with Melissa rambling on about her “singing career” yet again. She writes that singing was always associated with her father and she loved being the center of his attention while he filmed her. She writes that she didn’t sing for the longest time after the car accident that claimed her father’s life. But when she had children she started to sing to them.Soon Joe encouraged her to do something with her “amazing voice” and then after finding a modicum of fame on reality TV, she funneled it into singing horrible songs and lip syncing her way around a stage. But she writes that she would give up her “singing career” in an instant if it jeopardized her home life. She states, “There’s no happiness without Joe and the kids.” Which is what all independent women say at one point or another.But now onto housework. Guess how much Joe does. No seriously, guess.If there’s spilled milk on the floor, Joe’ll walk by it five times without once picking up a sponge. I used to ask, “Are you going to keep ignoring that spill or clean it?”He says, “Nope.”Someone might look at Joe and think, “Chauvinist pig.” He sounds like one sometimes! They might look at me and think, “Throwback.” The way I see it, Joe is cleaning up messes at work all day long — things you can’t wipe up with a sponge. That’s his job. It’s my job to clean up spilled milk. I just do it. There is simply no point to arguing about something that requires all of five seconds of my time and next to zero energy.Joe? A chauvinist pig? No way! I also love how Melissa figures that it takes so little time and energy to clean up a spill, but Joe couldn’t possibly manage to do it himself with that little time and energy. Joe might work 12 hour days, but Melissa’s days are 24 hours long. Yet she doesn’t seem to see this obvious fact.Moving on, Melissa then relates a fascinating story about how she had a huge argument with Joe about changing a burnt out lightbulb. She figured that changing this bulb was “man’s work” and she was too dainty to do it. So she asked Joe, but of course, Joe had just worked a long day and didn’t want to. So the fight ensued. Joe eventually sent one of his workers over to change the bulb. Because doing anything around the house is too much for him.The next section just gets worse, however. It’s titled Do you really want to see your man on his knees next to a bucket of sudsy water? Then we launch into a staggeringly sad section on iron-clad gender roles.In theory, men sharing household chores is great. I’ve heard women say, “Nothing is as sexy as watching my man do the dishes after dinner.” When I hear that, I think, Um, I can think of about a thousand things that are sexier than that! … Anyway, a study came out recently that pretty much confirmed my belief. It said that couples who stick to traditional gender role chore division have more sex. Couples where the man does typical “feminine” chores have less sex. I can tell you why. When gender roles are confused, sexual roles are, too. If he’s at the sink, and then changing diapers, then who throws who down in the bedroom? In our marriage, Joe is always the man, doing masculine things… I’m the woman, and I do the female things, including housework.Seriously? I’d love to know what study she’s citing here. Also, is having more sex a sign of a better, healthier relationship? If a couple has sex once more per week than another couple, is their marriage stronger or more fulfilling? I doubt it. One explanation for this result could be that men who do less housework are in marriages such as Melissa’s where they demand sex and get it because they’re domineering and controlling, not because their wives are more sexually attracted to them.As far as her views on gender roles, this is where the “traditional” proves that there’s nothing modern about her marriage. She is still subscribing to beliefs in gender roles that are completely outdated and stifling for both sexes. Chores are not gendered and no one should feel more or less like their gender from mowing the lawn or cooking a meal.Also, where is her idea coming from that if a man washes dishes that he can’t “throw down” in the bedroom? Is this some other kind of scientific study that she can’t produce or another poll she did of her friends? Being able to help around the house has nothing to do with what you do in the bedroom.Not pausing to reflect on her life, Melissa launches into a section that’s probably supposed to be funny about how bad a driver that Joe is and how he always demands to drive. Then the kids get car sick and ill and Melissa has to drive the rest of the way. Fascinating.She ends the chapter with a section urging women not to “keep score”. She tells them never to think about what they’re doing and compare it to what your spouse is doing. Probably because if she did stop to think about it, she would realize how much she does for him and how he can’t be bothered to do the simplest thing around the house. Better to completely ignore how unequal their relationship is in order to avoid reality.The more I review this book, the angrier I get. It was one thing if Melissa was writing a memoir and talking about this terrible marriage. But this is an advice book! She is supposed to be advising women on how to have great relationships with their spouses. She’s telling them to do everything for their mate and not expect anything in return except for financial support.A woman who is looking for a more fulfilling relationship is going to be disappointed to discover that she can have it all but only by giving up all of her needs and changing however her husband prefers. But we’re only halfway through the book! We haven’t even gotten to Melissa’s pooping habits yet. Stay tuned.To read all review entries of Love Italian Style, click here. Blogs are in reverse chronological order.

Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) at the Cremorne Theatre

   Anytime you see a sign like this, you know you’re in for a good time.I had always wanted to see Shakespeare Abridged. It had been playing somewhere in Williamsburg several years ago and for some reason no one could make it to any of the performances. But we did see The Complete History of America (Abridged) several years ago. It was cute, but not nearly as hilarious as I had been led to believe. I was a little skeptical of Shakespeare Abridged based on the previous performance, but also because this was not just Shakespeare, it was Shakespeare in Australian accents. I thought it might be a little strange. I was in for a surprise though.Shakespeare Abridged was a fun romp through Shakespearian drama with plenty of laughs, history, and fake vomiting. The style was great as it went through all of the plays in different formats. They acted out the key scenes in Romeo and Juliet. Then described Othello in rap form. Titus Andronicus was a cooking show. The comedies were all wrapped up together to form one master play using all of the conventions that Shakespeare used again and again for all of the plays.Hamlet took up the entire second act. It was acted out using the key scenes, then acted out faster, then faster, then backwards. It was hilarious. After we left the show, my stomach ached from laughing so much. Also, the three men who comprised all of the various characters interacted with the audience. Australian audience are talkative and not afraid to talk to the actors. The three men intertwined jokes that they made with the audience into the show.Overall, it was an excellent night at the theatre. I would definitely go see this show, or any of the other Abridged shows, again. I can only hope they have the same wit, excitement and energy that the three performers here had. In a different performance, the actors probably won’t have Australian accents, but no one’s perfect.

Pro-porn feminism and how it works

 I recently wrote another article on porn. For some reason my porn posts seem to get the most hits. I wonder why. Anyway, I posted the article on the GodSwill Facebook page as the focus of the article was a religious movie. A lot of people loved it and two posters were quick to condemn me for degrading women and being a chauvinist pig.When I asked them if they realized that I was actually a woman, they were quick to inform me that I don’t understand female sexuality and my understanding of my own sexuality is completely based about the physical limitations of my body. Of course, when you post something to a great deal of people, you’re going to get lunatics such as those. But it got me thinking about pro-porn feminism and how a lot of people don’t understand how it works.A lot of people are still walking around with the idea that no woman could enjoy or find fulfillment in starring in or consuming porn. This idea is so flimsy that I can dispelled it myself. I watch porn and enjoy it. Therefore it’s possible for a woman to do so. Also, unless a recently study has come out, I do believe that there are porn stars who enjoy their work. The idea that a woman involved in porn has to be a sexual abuse victim with with daddy issues, striving to please men is just insulting to everyone. A woman doesn’t have to find sexual fulfillment through conventional means or be shamed if she doesn’t.If you want equality and freedom for women, then they need freedom to express themselves sexually in any way that they see fit. If it’s by being in a porn movie, then that’s their choice. No one has the right to tell someone what they can or can’t enjoy sexually.Also, porn, as long as it’s sex between two willing and consenting adults is not degrading to women. Some people argue that porn turns women into sexual objects, but if that’s the way a woman wants to be seen, then that’s her decision. Women also sometimes enjoy fantasies and weird things in bed. It doesn’t make them wrong or tainted.A man thinking that women are objects has had a lot more than porn to create that opinion. If society didn’t hammer home day after day that women are things and men get to be in charge of them, then watching a woman have sex wouldn’t be enough to convince him of that. If anyone wants men’s opinions of women to improve, taking away porn is not going to help. Changing the way women are viewed in society will.But the heart and soul of pro-porn feminism is that people are capable of making their own decisions about their bodies and expressing themselves in any manner that they want. Pro-porn feminism doesn’t demand that everyone watches porn, it allows everyone to freely explore what is right for them and enjoy their own sexuality.There are some types of fetish porn and weird shit out there that I don’t like and would never in a million years think of actually doing. But that doesn’t mean that I have to talk badly about it and encourage everyone else not to watch it or enjoy it. It’s none of my business what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms.So the next time someone thinks that it’s impossible for a woman to enjoy porn or that all women in porn are slaves to a sexist industry, please inform them that neither of these postulations are true. If someone wants to make the world a better place for women, then support women’s rights to choose their own paths in life and fight against the sexism that casts them as objects and sexual play things in every aspect of their lives.But really, whenever I see a man complaining about women in porn being degraded, it often seems like he’s trying to rack up brownie points for being a sensitive, feminist guy and not because he understands women, their sexuality or their needs. Rushing in on a white horse and declaring women so dainty and chaste that they can’t make their own sexual choices is just degrading to everyone involved. Women don’t need to be protected from their own sexuality.

The first time I tested my Psychic Abilities

aSo I recently downloaded a copy of Intuition & Psychic Ability: Your Spiritual GPS for free. Thank you, BookBubs! I've been able to download tons of horrible books for free lately. But anyway, I started reading the book and decided to try one of the psychic exercise to hone the natural psychic abilities that author Jennifer O'Neill says that everyone has.I followed the instructions on her first recommended exercise and found that I have amazing psychic powers psychic! It's true. I was blown away.How you do the exercise is so simple that anyone can duplicate it. All you have to do is get someone to walk around and pick out random objects from around the house, without letting you see what they picked. Then they get placed into bags or boxes that are completely opaque. You are supposed to then do the meditation exercise and after your spiritual body is focused, you go down the line of bags or boxes and write down any thoughts, feelings, ideas, colors, numbers or objects that pop into mind. Afterwards, you go through the items and see if anything you wrote down matches up.Simple, right? But what's even better is how she tells you to interprets the results:Don't see how you were wrong, see how you can make the connection! In other words, if you wrote down yellow, and it's a pair of dark sunglasses, yellow makes sense as it represents the sun. If you wrote down something relating to the outdoors and the object was a sneaker, it makes sense also because you put on sneakers to go outside.I can't really lose! So off I went. Sharon helped me out by hiding two objects in one bowl with a lid and one object in a drawer. I then did the meditation and then took notes of everything that popped into my head. Here's how it went:Psychic thoughts about the box on left:-12-Network-Berries-Brown twine/Stick-Snow-ToileItems actually in box on left:-To wrapped peppermint candy-To corkIt might seem like I was way off, but really. I was so dead on that it's rather scary. First off, the peppermint was red and white and I guessed the color red. Right on! Also, those candies are really popular around Christmas, which is in December, which is the 12th month of the year. Also, there is usually snow around Christmas and holly is a plant associated with Christmas. That plant has red berries. The brown twine/stick was obviously in reference to the cork. Also, it was a wine cork and a lot of wine is from France and toile is French! I'm a psychic genius.But then I looked in the box on the right and my psychic powers really became pronounced.Psychic thoughts about the box on the right:-14-Coin-Butter-Dark blue-Sky-Stars-Moon-Milky Way-Button-ThreadCurrent item in the box on the right:To butterfly necklace.I know what you're thinking. I guessed "butter" and the pendant was a "butterfly"! Pure psychic talent, right? The heavenly things were all because butterflies fly through the sky! Amazing, isn't it! Afterwards, I felt very hungry for pizza. I guess that using my psychic abilities were very draining and I needed something to eat in order to recoup my strength.Coming back to reality, it's clear that none of this is evidence of any real psychic power remove. I did the meditation and wrote down whatever came to mind. I never had a clear view of anything in either box. The only way I could make to connect was to draw it myself with very broad stroke. Also, when I thought about "butter", I was thinking about the food. It had nothing to do with a butterfly.A lot of "psychic" tips given to police are never specific enough to lead them to a killer or put them on the right path. Only after the mystery is solved through real police work do psychics pop up and proclaim that they knew the entire time. Why, I said I saw the number 64 and the killer's house number 6450 was! The number 64 by itself, with no context, wasn't enough to send police to the killer's door. It could only be matched up after the murderer had already been caught. Hardly ground breaking.Also, the more liberal you are with your interpretations, the more you're bound to be accurate. Believers are quick to make connections themselves. Once i saw a psychic reading where the psychic informed her sitter that I knew a man named Mike. Uh, who doesn't know someone named Mike? I have 4 guys named Mike on my Facebook friends list alone. But the believer piped up that his friend was named Mike and the psychic must have honed in on the close relationship.Some might argue that I was a skeptic going in, so of course, I wasn't going to be able to harness my unknown psychic ability. But the fact is that things work regardless of whether or not you think they're going to. You can be skeptical of Calamine lotion, but the lotion doesn't care if you believe in it or not. It will still stop you from scratching your poison ivy. You can believe that antibiotics will do nothing and they will still work. A proven ability shouldn't rely on my belief in it.Besides, O'Neill was quite clear that everyone has psychic abilities, so I should have them too, even though I'm skeptical of psychics and psychic powers. There are plenty of other exercises that she recommends and lots of lame-sounding meditations. I can't wait to try them and report back on them all!One that I will not be trying is the Past Life Recall exercise. You're supposed to sit with a friend and do the meditation, then ask each other questions about your past life. I would just make something up. I mean, come on. I have a very active imagination and I know enough about history to be dangerous. I can't do accents though. That might work against me if I decide that I was a poor Irish immigrant woman on the Titanic.As always, my views will change in exchange for evidence. Current evidence. Scientific evidence.

Love Italian Style: Cook in the Kitchen, Chapter 12

 Chapter 12 is all about the children. Antonia, Gino and Joey. Melissa writes about getting pregnant right after the wedding and how she had difficult pregnancies with fluctuating hormone levels and required bed rest when she was pregnant with Gino. Then she starts from the beginning with all of the births.Joe pops in to talk about Antonia’s birth and gets a little creepy. Apparently he wanted a boy. He relates, “I was afraid about having a girl. I know how I can be. I’d be insanely jealous of any boy coming around for my daughter. Having a boy would be so much easier.” He’d be jealous of a boy who wants to date his daughter? Why? Does he want to date her?Anyway, Joe then breaks out in hives and starts itching right after the birth of his first child. But for the second baby, Gino, Joe manages to keep it together. When he discovers that he has a son he writes,When we had Gino, I went crazy. My first son. I was so happy. In the delivery room, I was yelling, “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!”I asked the nurse, “Is this a big one? Normal Is he big for his age?” I looked down at him and thought, “That’s my boy!” I put a Giants jersey on him right away.Because sons are better than daughters. Neither parent seems to have any sense of awareness of what their gender roles will do to their children and how Antonia will pick up on the fact that while she was okay, having a boy was better. But more on that later.When Gino was about eight months old, he started coughing and struggling to breathe. The Gorgas raced him to the hospital and he was put into a pediatric intensive care unit. Joe writes, “The ward was for really sick kids. Some of them had cancer. Melissa and I looked at each other and said, “We are blessed with what we have.” ” Yeah, screw those other kids who are dying, they have a generally healthy family.Gino is diagnosed with croup and is out of the woods in under a week. Melissa is then inspired to donate and do charity work for children’s hospitals. This includes one where she had to get an open-heart surgery when she was 7.Melissa then talks about Parenting Italian Style. She starts off by discussing how she tries to limit the amount of time the kids have on Real Housewives. Then Melissa goes into a strange section where she talks about how she dealt with being a stay-at-home mom to three children under 4 and how she dealt with Joe during that time. She writes,I was at home with them from 6am to 9pm. Joe would come home covered in dirty head to toe. No matter how tired I was, or  how filthy he was, I was so glad to see another adult. I’d sit and chat about his day, the kids, and upcoming plans. I kept my tone light and my voice smooth. Of course, I was tried and stressed out. I was home with three babies all day long! I felt the temptation to unload my stress on him, to nag and complain. But that wouldn’t turn my feelings around or make him feel glad to see his kids. We’d both worked as hard as we could… He needed peace when he got home. I needed it, too. I wanted to relax into his presence and companionship. Bitching was the opposite of relaxing.Remember that entire section where Melissa talks about how Joe will come home and yell at her because he’s stressed about work and now that’s normal and okay because you should be unable to unload on your spouse instead of ruining a business deal? Why doesn’t Melissa get the same luxury? Joe has to come home to peace, but Melissa has to deal with coming home to verbal abuse.Joe then pops in with some more wisdom about gender roles and his fragile masculinity. He brags,Some guys change one diaper give the baby one bottle, and declare themselves Super Dad. They hand the baby back to Mommy, and then go to the garage to putter around or sneak off to their office to look at porn. I don’t feed babies, or change the diapers. My father never wiped my ass, and I don’t wipe my babies’ either. But, I get on the floor and play with my kids for hours.The paragraph starts out like Joe is saying that a man shouldn’t just do one simple thing with the baby, then hand them back. But then he admits that he doesn’t help with his children at all. He plays with them. He doesn’t feed them, diaper them, dress them, bathe them. He gets on the floor and plays.While that is undoubtedly important, he shouldn’t be criticizing a man who will actually get his hands dirty when his Super Dad routine begins and ends with playing on the floor. But of course, he couldn’t change a diaper or feed a baby, it might make him sprout that vagina that he’s aways afraid of acquiring. Babies are women’s work, so why bother doing anything to help out with them? He has a penis, damn it! He needs to do manly stuff.But if you think that was bad, don’t think it’s over yet. It just gets worse. Melissa then launches into a section entitled Double Standards. She writes that her father was strict with her and demanded to know everything about where she was going and refused to allow boys to be over at the house or to let her go to the mall to just hang out. Melissa then writes,Joe is just as strict with Antonia, and it’s going to get even worse. During any kissing scenes on their TV shows, he makes her cover her eyes. He’s funny about boys and kissing, anything sexual at all. She is not allowed to see it. Antonia won’t be allowed to have boyfriends come over. Even when she’s in her twenties, Joe and I do not want to know. I know Antonia is going to have them, but we want her to respect herself. That means making her realize how seriously we the matter of boy and sex.And if you think that is unfair, just wait until you hear this! Joe jumps in and adds,My sons can have a separate entrance to the house. They can come and go as they wish. They can have anyone up to their room. I don’t care. But I want to keep Antonia my little girl. Look, I know she’s going to meet someone one day, and it’s going to happen. But not with fifteen people!My wish is for her to have one boyfriend for a very long time They have a mutual breakup with no bad feelings. Then she marries the next guy. That would be ideal. I don’t want her to ever have her heart broken. The only way I can see to helping her romantic life work out that way is to be really strict and overprotective about who she sees, when she goes out, and what she does.I know it’s a double standard. But I just don’t care! I don’t see it so much as restricting Antonia, but as protecting her.Poor Antonia. As soon as she hits puberty she is going to have a rude awakening to the reality of a traditional family. Her brothers will be free and unrestricted, but she will be treated with suspicion and contempt. Her father already has her romantic life all figured out and any deviation from this will be a disappointment to him and I’m sure a lack of respect on her part.Imagine if something happens to her. She is never going to feel comfortable talking to her parents about it. She will mention that she thinks she likes a boy in her class and Melissa and Joe will stick their fingers in their ears and sing songs from the public domain until she stops talking. How this slut-shaming, double standard parenting style is supposed to help Antonia grow into a woman is beyond me.Melissa continues, talking about how the kids have to keep their rooms clean and Joe adds in that they have to mold their kids now, while they’re saplings. Whatever. Melissa then finishes up this section by stating not to baby your spouse. Which, I’m not sure a lot of people do anyway.But the most bizarre section of this passage is when she writes, “He [Joe] acknowledges the emotions that matter. He’s quite the crier himself, actually. I take some credit for that. When we first met, he was like Mussolini.” As hilarious as Melissa probably thinks that simile was, it’s never funny to compare your spouse to a fascist dictator that’s remembered as an all-around horrible person. But whatever. This section is over. Joy.To read all review entries of Love Italian Style, click here. Blogs are in reverse chronological order.

The problem with skeptics

aI’ve always had the good luck to be friends with super smart people. When I started managing the Southeastern Virginia Skeptics Meetup group, I became friends with even more rational, critical thinkers. It’s wonderful to know that my friends aren’t going to be posting easily Snopes-ed articles about HIV infected needles in McDonald’s ball pits or bullshit about soda cans tainted with rat pee being sold. But there are some downsides to having intelligent, skeptical friends.The main one that I can think of is not being able to pull an April Fool’s Day joke on anyone. Every time I think of a really great joke, I know that someone will question it and possibly pick apart why it isn’t true. I had a plan that Tim and I could argue back and forth over Facebook and “break up” on April’s Fools Day. But seriously.Tim never uses Facebook, we never argue in public even when we do argue and the last time we had a fake argument, it involved me telling him that his dream of captaining a shrimp boat was stupid and he accused me of smothering our child. Then the cops were called. Our fake personas got a little out of hand. So that wouldn’t really work.We thought that maybe we could pretend to get married on April Fool’s Day, but everyone would know that without photos, Facebook check-ins at our wedding location and professional shots of us, that it wasn’t real. I hardly go anywhere without taking pictures and uploading them. Why would I suddenly be picture-less and silent on our wedding day? Even with an elopement, I wouldn’t be able to put my iPhone down.The idea of claiming that I’m pregnant would be stupid, as most of my friends know that I’m sterile and/or that I hate children. But also dumb because everyone freaking does that. One year, soon after I got Facebook, I saw three friends in one afternoon claiming to be pregnant. It’s just too common.I thought that maybe we could post on each other’s walls back and forth about something bad that had happened and make it sound like we had accidentally murdered a drifter and disposed of the body or something. But seriously, how dim-witted would we have to be in order to post stuff like that on Facebook? People would immediately see through it.So yes, having skeptical friends is great, but not when you’re trying to plan an April Fool’s Day joke. Critical thinkers think too critically to fall for feeble pranks. I still have a few months. Maybe I can come up with something so intricate, so well-planned that I could manage to get all of them with the sheer realism that I managed. But, of course, it would have to be funny too.

Why Frankenbras are the fucking dumbest idea that I have ever heard

aA lot of women have asymmetry in their breasts. In fact, most women have some degree of asymmetry. A lot of it is not noticeable, some of it is noticeable but not a big deal, and sometimes breasts can naturally be two different cup sizes. Perfectly even breasts are usually the work of science, not nature. I have this problem myself and once Googled it as a teenager to learn more about it. There’s not much to learn other than the fact that this happens to a lot of women and it’s usually not an indication of poor health or potential problems.While I was Googling I came across a site that recommended that you deal with the problem by creating “Frankenbras”. Like Frankenstein’s monster, but for lingerie. The basic idea is that you buy two bras; one in one cup size and one in a different cup size, each one fitting one breast. Then you take them apart and re-sew them until you have created a bra that fits your breasts correctly.After I finished reading the idea I thought to myself that this is so insanely stupid I didn’t think that anyone would ever bother doing it. The more I thought about it, the less it made sense. So if anyone here is thinking about making a Frankenbra, here are a few things that you should think about.1. You have to buy double the bras – I’m not sure where you shop for bras, but bras can range from $10 to upwards of $70 EACH. Even if you buy bras on sale, that means that the bra you once bought for $10 is now $20. So you have to either buy fewer bras or spend more money.2. You have to sew – Plenty of women think nothing of whipping out their sewing machines and going to town on a new project. But I am a total beginner. I don’t know if I could take a bra apart correctly, let alone sew it back together. Even if you’re completely comfortable with that, it’s still going to be a lot of work.3. Your breasts will now LOOK uneven – When you buy bras to fit the larger breast, molded cups will give your smaller breast enough shape to make it look natural. As long as your larger breast isn’t spilling over the top, you’ll look pretty balanced, just by the cup. With two completely different cups, it will be more obvious that your breasts are different sizes and more difficult to hide.4. There’s no hassle in wearing bras that fit the larger cup size – As I wrote before, molded cups can help fill out shirts and make you look more natural. As long as the bra fits your larger breasts, there’s no discomfort or pain from wearing a bra that is too big in one cup. If a bra looks strange with part of the cup not filled out, just find one that looks okay.In conclusion, I’ve been wearing regular bras with asymmetrical breasts for… minus 12… I’m not 30 yet… 16 years (sorry, had to do some math) and never had a problem. Creating Frankenbras sounds like a lot more trouble than they’re worth. If the difference is small, then don’t even think about it. If the difference is a cup size, then buy bras carefully. If the difference is so severe that it’s effecting your balance, posture or health, then look into corrective surgery. But don’t waste your time ripping bras apart and sewing them back together.

Hoops

 NB: Today is October 18, 2013. I write all my blogs in advance so this could be published after learning more, but this is where I am today.I called Dr. Gilbert Office today to check the status of my insurance and find out whether or not going to cover the breast reduction. They told me that they not heard nothing yet, but they feel very sure insurance covers it, and not require me to go through the hoop more.He said that they were able to join my documents to submit. So they have documentation of different dates that I went to my doctor regularly for back pain. Also have information from Dr. Clark, who made the gastric sleeve, that I've lost a significant amount of weight and my breasts are not getting smaller. One popular thing to require women lose weight until they are approved for a reduction. I've lost nearly 100 pounds and my breasts lost hardly nothing. So clearly, lose more weight will not help.When I went to the doctor Gilbert, took photos of my breasts, the notches on the shoulders of my bra and asked me some questions about my life. I have problems to find clothes. I get heat under my breasts rash in the summer and put deodorant under the girls to keep them dry. I am suffering trying to accomplish everyday tasks.I know that insurance can be difficult at times, so I was prepared to write a letter, see other physicians do physical therapy, you need to prove that I need this operation. Reassure me know that may not mean all that for them to realize that I am needing a breast reduction. When I went to the doctor at the beginning, nobody really worried my theory that my breasts were causing problems and everyone was willing to throw me pills and suggested that I get an x-ray to my column was out of alignment.For now I just have to wait and see what insurance, he says. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get them to cover my operation. But I have hope that I have already provided enough evidence for them to realize that Yes, I need a breast reduction. Keep the fingers crossed until safe answers them. Right, the operation is ready even to December 20.

Wizard of Oz at Queensland University of Technology

I was excited to see a play at QUT. I always love seeing college performances. College students are enthusiastic performers with lots of passion for their work and a wonderful sense of exuberance. Also, their colleges usually fund them pretty well and they have plenty of practice time. I was also excited to see The Wizard of Oz because the last version I had seen of the story had been so awful that it made me want to bleed out of both eyes until I slowly lost consciousness.Not to mention that I had invested in a ton of Wizard of Oz scrapbooking materials and didn’t want to devote it all to that performance. I had been to see Oz: The Great and Powerful earlier that  year, but that was hardly enough to use all of the pages and embellishments that I had gone overboard in purchasing. So I was glad that another Wizard of Oz related event happened for me to use my scrapbooking stash on.When we walked in, the ticket taker told us to follow the yellow brick road, and sure enough, there was a yellow brick road! We had to walk through the set to get to our seats. On set, the cast of characters were dressed in Halloween-costume interpretations of the traditional outfits. They danced and romped around and horsed around and drank what looked like green punch. Each character was as cartoonish as their costume. Soon, the play started and the characters ran away backstage.The plot of the story was complicated, intricate and very symbolic. I won’t explain too much for spoilers but also because there was so much going on that only viewing it once, it’s impossible to know every little thing said and meant. But goddamn was it good. The story is a frame story that begins with an older woman who is in her trailer while a tornado is coming. She refuses to go to the shelter but instead starts reading the original Wizard of Oz book.Her trailer is swept away she emerges into Oz, to what she thinks will be her amazing journey, but discovers that instead of being Dorothy, she is now Toto. Dorothy is a fluffy young blonde woman who pretends not to understand “Toto’s” pleadings and continues about her journey with no concern for what “Toto” is trying to tell her. Also, the Wicked Witch of the West was a Lady Gaga-esque singer wearing amazing shoes.There was so much going on in the play that it was impossible to take it all in within just one sitting. But every element was a treat. The music was loud and powerful, the lights were brilliant and well-staged, the actors were strange, playful, sympathetic, bizarre, and scary, occasionally all at the same time. The plot was so twisted and the timing moved along perfectly.Also, there was swearing! Family-friendly dialogue was rotting my brain, when Toto screamed “Fuck!” the first time, I just wanted to weep for joy. The play finished with a shrieking climax. The entire cast threw themselves into their roles. And the props department threw themselves into clean up, after the play was finished. There was confetti, water, the Wicked Witch kicked down the walls of the trailer and there was other assorted mess.Overall, the performance restored my love and passion for theatre. I had such an amazing time that I wanted to stay and watch the play all over again. If it had been a movie, I would have restarted it and watched it until some awful time in the morning. Instead, we went outside and looked around at some of the messages that had been sprawled on the tents in the courtyard. I wrote “Oz is living!” Because it was. The theatre was alive and so was the entire country. I was living just to see it.

Random Thoughts VIII

I could understand having Stephen Dorff be a spokesperson for Blu e-cigs. He’s handsome, he has a good speaking voice and he seems like a genuinely nice guy. But then they decided to get Indigo Adult, anti-vaxxer, and all around menace to public health, Jenny McCarthy to do it and I just don’t understand why. Why would anyone want to associate their company with someone who has murdered children and continues to erode away at logic and critical thinking?Tim’s random thought: Is it possible to have sex with a zombie? If so, can girl zombies get pregnant?When we got back from Hawaii my dad received a survey that the tourism board wanted us to fill out. He asked me to look over it and make sure that he got all of the highlights and events down. I complied and filled out a few sections with things that we did and what we enjoyed doing. Then, on the back, it asked about negatives that we experienced during our trip. This including being treated rudely by locals, having a purse or wallet stolen or seeing homeless people. I was a little taken aback. Seeing homeless people is the problem here? Not the fact that there are people who don’t have homes and have to sleep outside in the elements?Horror movies are a lot like chick flicks for me. You know exactly what’s going to happen and you just spend your time watching the same bullshit unfold only to have it result in the same, completely unrealistic ending. But at least in horror movies, there are sometimes explosions.Victim blaming is never okay. As much as we want to think that the person who got hurt could have been more careful or prepared themselves more, the truth is that any of us could be victims at anytime. And none of us would appreciate someone telling us that we should have used our psychic powers to anticipate getting into trouble at one exact moment.If I ever join a biker gang, my street-tough nickname is going to be Hell Kitty. Like Hello Kitty, but with slightly more edge.A white person recently posted on a comment thread about how we can solve racial inequality in the US. We all just have to stop talking about race. Because then all of the problems will just disappear! Amazing! Good thing white people are so smart that they can come up with this stuff.I posted a funny picture on Godswill a few months ago, poking fun at gender inequality. Right away a guy commented saying that, oh sure, women want to to be equal, but they still want a man to pay for dinner! Someone else popped up to announce that we had found the MRA. But seriously, women still experience a wage gap across all racial groups. So men have more money to pay for dinner WITH. Also, if you expect a girl to show up looking great, dressed nicely, makeup and hair done, smelling like perfume, looking like she would be a healthy mate that can produce healthy children, then you better be ready to show that you can provide for her and future children. Evolutionary biology, bitch.After as many jobs as I’ve applied for, I’m becoming entirely too acquainted with something I like to call silent rejection. I will put in an application. I will fill out everything and follow all instructions. Then I will hear nothing. Not a confirmation, not an update on processing, nothing. When I send e-mails or call, if I manage to find a number of e-mail address, no one has ever heard of me, no one knows anything, no one has any information. But they don’t recommend that I fill out another application. I never hear that I have been rejected for a position. They just don’t answer at all.Speaking of following instructions, I find it weird sometimes that people just can’t seem to manage to do simple things. When I was working at Fort Pickett for the National Guard training exercises, they made the dress code very clear; long sleeves and long pants. The day I got the job, I went out with my mom to a thrift store and picked up some long-sleeved shirts as I have very little clothing that fits right now and nothing long sleeved (I layer). When I came into work, they kept stressing the dress code and people kept showing up in shorts, sheer tank tops, jeans with massive rips across the legs, wife beaters and so on. Even on the final day, people were still showing up dressed inappropriately. I have no idea why they thought that the dress code somehow didn’t apply to them.Watching the film Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh. It amazes me that as late as 1995, someone would still set a movie in New Orleans and make all of the principle protagonists/victims white.When we were coming back from Australia, we had to do all of the customs stuff again. The girl checking us in asked where our final destination, AKA home, was. My dad told her Virginia in the United States. She then asked us what state that was in. It’s not just Americans that are fuzzy on geography.

Abercrombie and Fitch welcomes fatties. Fatties are not thrilled.

A few months ago, quotes surfaced from from Abercrombie and Fitch CEO Mark Jefferies about fat people. Fat people were not welcome in his store. He wanted thin, beautiful, popular people wearing his clothes and he made no mystery about it. As hard as he tried to preserve the image of the gangly teenager wearing his $80 t-shirts, sales plummeted. Now, A+F have decided to expand their line to plus sizes. But it’s too late.When Mark Jeffries made his original statements, he was banking on two things. 1. Fat people would hang their heads in shame and accept that they aren’t worthy enough to don overpriced clothes and sob quietly into their Ben and Jerry’s. 2. Thin people would hold their heads high, secure in the knowledge that they are superior to those people without thinness in their genetics and shop at A+F so that they could continue to be seen as thin, beautiful and popular. Unfortunately, for him, neither of these things happened.I went to the A+F Facebook page a few days after the scandal broke and read through some of the comments that people were leaving. Around 98% of them were negative. Mothers informed the company that they would no longer take their daughters to shop there, plus sized teens told them that they are beautiful and don’t need a clothing company’s permission to know so, thin teens chastised the company for being so discriminatory and refused to shop in a place that held their friends, family members and school mates in such low esteem.These days, most people are intelligent enough to realize that discrimination, against anyone, is not okay. Bigotry, even against unpopular groups, is becoming less and less tolerated. America voted with their wallet and sent a clear message to A+F that unfairness against entire groups of people is not acceptable.So now that the shit has well and truly hit the fan and Abercrombie and Fitch’s profits are circling the drain, they decide to do the one thing that they claimed they would never do. But the reality of the situation is that they haven’t seen the light. They haven’t realized that a person’s worth is not defined by numbers on the scale. They just realized that no one likes a hatemonger. Also that a fat person’s money is just as green as a thin person’s.The fact that the company only decided to add this plus sized line after their profits were down and they were looking forward to a bleak holiday season just shows that they just want money. They did something that was bad for business and now that they realize it, they’re trying to recoup their profits. It has nothing to do with them seeing the light or realizing the errors of their ways. They just want money from the people that they openly discriminated against.Personally, I have never owned a piece of clothing from A+F and never plan on it. It’s just not my style to begin with and they don’t have Hello Kitty designs. But even if I had been shopping at A+F for all of my clothes, the fact that they realized they were losing money and are now trying to get money out of the very people they made it clear that they don’t want wearing their clothes, is not a place that I would ever shop at. Ever.When you’re in business to make money, morals, ethics, and standards can all disappear as soon as the cash stops flowing. There was no grand revelation here. A+F simply realized that no one wants to clothe themselves in hate. We’ll see what happens, but I highly doubt that their profits will recover even with their new plus sized clothing line. The girls who would fit their bigger sizes already know that A+F is only catering to them because they have to, not because they want to or because the company sees them as beautiful, worthwhile people.

Counting sheep

Sleep is something that is crucial for everyone and when you’re mentally ill it’s even more important. Lack of sleep can trigger an episode, keep it going or signal that an episode is imminent. Getting enough, good-quality sleep is key for anyone to maintain their health, but when you can go from fine to freaking out in a matter of hours, someone with bipolar has to keep on their toes.In 2008-2009 I had a problem with insomnia. My brain would refuse sleep to the point where when I finally went to bed, I more passed out rather than fell asleep. I would go to bed around 4am and wake up before 10.I would manage to sleep maybe and four or five hours and then repeat the same cycle again. I couldn’t let myself sleep, even when I was exhausted. As soon as my eyes snapped open, I had to get up. There was no lying in bed and drifting off again. I eventually was put on a medication to help me get to sleep but found that it really just got me high and made me really disoriented.But even though it put me to sleep, I would only take it around 2am and fight the need to sleep until 4am. But it did knock me out for 8 hours or more. Sometimes a lot more than 8 hours. Eventually, my insomnia subsided and I was able to sleep on my own again.Which was good, because the TV shows available after about 1am are usually terrible. There’s tons of infomercials and reruns and although some channels show things uncut, good quality programming was hard to find. And naturally, that late at night, I rarely went out, because what was there to do in Williamsburg that late?So I stayed up on Facebook and watched TV. Although, to be fair, most days I didn’t leave the house and stayed on Facebook and watched TV. I was playing a lot of Sims 2 at the time. And when I say a lot, I mean that I had Sims that were 6th generation and lived in mansions so large that my computer would lag while trying to load it all.But sleep is nothing to be messing around with. Losing sleep is incredibly triggering for me. Even when I was in college, I never pulled overnighters. I knew I would be completely useless if I didn’t get enough sleep and anything I did in a Dr Pepper-fueled haze would be terrible and have to be redone anyway.The people I hung out with in middle school used to poke fun at how easily I’d get fatigued if I was awake for too long, but that’s just how my body functions. So now I know well enough to plan how I get my sleep and make sure that I have enough or that I can nap later if I need to. Because seriously, no one wants to deal with me when I’m irritable and I don’t like being sleep-deprived and annoyed with everything.This is one of the many reasons why I think I’ll be  terrible parent. I can’t imagine being able to function when I’m that sleep deprived. Getting up every two hours to feed a baby? I’d strangle that baby. I seriously don’t do well without sleep. Maybe I could adopt an older child if I ever feel the need to raise children. Maybe a 17-year-old…

Love Italian Style: Cook in the Kitchen, Chapters 8 & 9

By this point we know that Melissa aims to please. No matter how impossible the people around her are. Now she discusses another area in her life where she had to struggle to live up to someone else’s standards and refuse to give up until she was declared perfect. She writes,Hey listen, I would like to say that I was a great cook from day one, but that’s not true. It took me a while to get “Gorga-Approved”. I had a lot to live up to with Joe’s parents coming straight from Italy, cooking the most amazing, authentic Italian food. You just can’t beat that. I called my mother-in-law every single night for the first year of our marriage, asking her exactly how to make her best dishes, so I could please my man.In the beginning of chapter 8 Melissa admits, “No one cooks for a man like his mama, and I married a real mama’s boy. When we first got married, Joe missed his mother’s cooking. Anyone would.” So she dedicates herself to learning how to cook Joe’s favorite food perfectly. And when I say perfectly, I mean, perfectly.For a while there, Joe’s mother and I barely exchanged a single word that wasn’t about food and cooking. Fortunately, we could talk about that one subject for hours at a time — in particular, how I was messing it up. I did everything wrong, from slicing tomatoes to cutting the bread to boiling water. Don’t think you can screw up boiling water? Wrong.Melissa dedicates herself, tirelessly, to learn just how to cook for Joe. She describes the process,Every night, apron on, I’d copy my mother-in-laws’s recipes and hold my breath until Joe took his first bite. “Does it taste right? Like your mom’s?” I asked, eager for feedback. Everyone knows that Joe calls it like it is and is brutally honest. He would always finish meal, but usually had some constructive criticism. A little more salt. A little less oil. A lot more flavor.I would always go back and try again. After a couple years, Joe couldn’t tell the difference between my cooking and his mom’s. Victory! I’d set a goal and reached it.Yeah, after 2 years of constant cooking, she finally meets his approval. When Melissa questions her own motives, she talks herself down by writing this, I can almost hear the reaction from some of you. Really? Slave over a hot stove with your mother-in-law to please your man?You bet I did. I wanted to make him feel like he’d get the best food of his life at home, prepared by me, the woman who took a vow to make him happy. Food is so imporant to him. (It’s important to every man.) He asked me to learn to cook. If I hadn’t tried, it would have been like throwing his request back in his face. What he appreicated even more than my technique was the effort I put into the process.If you’re not prepared to put in two years of constant work for a mama’s boy, Melissa has some harsh facts for you. “If you can’t cook and are unwilling to learn, you’re not only being disrespectful to your husband, but to the entire Italian tradition that prizes the family meal as sacred.” Well, it’s only fair. Look at the huge sacrifices that Joe has made for her. Like… getting sex when he wants it and never having to diaper a baby… and no wait, never mind.Her wedding vows apparently stated that she had to make Joe happy, but while she accepts the kitchen drawers being left open and the milk being uncapped, he couldn’t accept any of her shortcomings. She had to change. He never had to. Melissa then relates her tips for cooking successfully and writes that she would feel like a slacker if she didn’t put a hot meal on the table for her husband when he comes home. Her servitude is more than just servitude, it’s a way of life and a badge of honor!Then Joe pipes up with this little gem,To be on the same level, everyone has to get off the high horse. I don’t care if the woman makes more money than the man, if he’s a janitor and she’s the president. After a fourteen-hour workday, if a man comes home and there’s no dinner on the table, and his wife is on the phone, watching TV or on the computer ignoring him, he won’t feel respected.And it’s a wife’s mission to make her husband feel respected at all times. Forget that she works, forget that she needs time to herself, forget that she’s raising his children and keeping his house, she better have that dinner hot and steaming when he gets home or else it’s disrespect.Melissa then goes on to talk about how even if she’s serving Chinese take out, she transfers the food to a nice plate and gets Joe a glass with ice. She states “–It shows I care.” Yeah, you lazy bitches that eat Chinese out of the cartoon. You clearly don’t care about your man or your marriage. How dare you be all casual and shit. Don’t you know you have to be a perfect domestic goddess at all times? Sheesh.Then comes Melissa’s rules for the dining room table. First, no cell phones or electronic devices. It’s strange, but I don’t do that at the table either. How weird. I hadn’t even read this book and I already knew that!  Bizarre. Second is to stay put. Meaning that the children have to be excused before they can leave. And third is say it. Which means to say please and thank you when passing the salt. Groundbreaking stuff. I’m sure your life is changed forever.Chapter 9 is entitled “Fightstyle [sic]” and it’s about as helpful to married couples as free income tax preparations for the family parakeet. If anyone wants to see how these two argue, there are tons of YouTube clips of them getting into it. Here’s one where Joe says that he needs to educate his wife to say appropriate things on Twitter. Keep that in mind as you read the rest of this chapter’s synopsis.Joe has a little section in the beginning where he talks about how you have to voice complaints and be specific. But then he writes, “I know it  might seem weird. But yelling at each other is really a sign of courtesy and respect.” Joe and Melissa must really respect their fellow cast mates on Real Housewives.Anyway, Melissa then goes on to detail what kinds of fights she has with Joe, calling them their “greatest hits”. The first is about fighting itself. She has to defuse the meta fight by asking him if he loves her. Then he says that he does and it call eventually blows over.The second is about sex. Here we go. Melissa writes,In the beginning, Joe wanted to have sex every single day, at least once, if not twice or three times. I was amazed by his appetite. Frankly, I couldn’t keep up. If I didn’t give it to him once a day, he’d get upset. That when he told me about his severe poison condition. He described the need to expel his junk like it’s a real physical crisis. We all know that Blue Ball Syndrome does not appear in any medical textbooks. But for Joe, not having enough sex is detrimental to his overall health. He genuinely can’t function otherwise. He gets fidgety and stressed, distracted and irritable. He can’t sleep, eat or form complete sentences — I’m kidding — well, kind of.Keep in mind that Melissa is thinking that her daughter will read this book one day. Yeah, I hope they put some cash away for therapy. Because Antonia’s going to need it after reading all of this about her mom and dad.It bugs me that Melissa just brushes off his demands for sex under the joke that he gets really bad blue balls. He would get upset with her if she didn’t give him enough sex and she doesn’t see this as a problem in the relationship. It’s just a joke.Melissa continues, “All men might not be as sexually voracious as Joe. But according to a poll of my friends, men do tend to need more sex than the women.” That sounds very scientific. She should go straight to a peer-reviewed medical journal and submit her findings.But this wouldn’t be Melissa’s book if Joe didn’t chime in. He writes, “If Melissa does one thing in this book to help women in their marriages, it should be to get them to initiate sex more often.” For as insightful as these two undoubtedly think they are, they have a very simplistic view of what can fix a relationship and what will work for other men and women.Melissa then writes a strange section about how men get insecure but don’t show it because they appear “strong and unflappable” and women will forget that their men even HAVE insecurities. So whenever Joe goes around acting like there’s nothing wrong, she get worried. Uh, yeah. That’s not going to get annoying.Joe then chimes in with this pearl of wisdom, “Refusing to initiate is a Top Three reason men cheat. The ugliest girl in the world could come on to a man in that state of mind, and he might have to go for it. He thinks, At least someone wants me.” This statement just speaks poorly of men. If his wife isn’t coming onto him like she’s a sex addict, he gets insecure and whiny and will sleep with anyone just to make himself feel better.This section baffles me. What happened to their communication? What happened to their ability to fight it out and respect each other? If Melissa doesn’t have enough sex with him, he just goes into shut down mode like a toddler holding his breath. It strikes me that the above passage about cheating is a threat. Now Melissa has been warned that if she doesn’t initiate enough sex that Joe is likely to stray and she’ll just have herself to blame.The next section is criticism, something it sounds like Melissa never stops taking. But it also seems to be something that she never will stop taking. Not while she’s married to this man. She writes,He [Joe] wanted to set a precedent of how he wanted his wife to be. He flexed his muscles. His style was to make corrections and to teach me from the beginning days of our marriage exactly how he envisioned our life together. Joe would always say, “You got to teach someone to walk straight on the knife. If you slip, you’re going to get cut.” Even if something didn’t bother him that badly, he’d bring it up. He wanted to make sure that I knew, for example, if I ran out to CVS and he came home from work to an empty house, he didn’t like it. He’d call me and say, “I don’t care if you’re out all day long. But I don’t want to come home to an empty house.”Melissa realizes that the average person might find this line of thinking ridiculous, and it is, but she soothes, “But I understood and respected his wishes. Instead of flexing my muscles and rolling my eyes, I went with it. There are the simple things I’m talking about that make our marriage what it is.” Simple things like bending to someone’s incessant, needy demands and coming completely under their control.But Melissa, always the smart one, is concerned. She writes, “My independent side wondered if he was trying to control me. I tried not to be too analytical about it.” Yeah, best not to ask uncomfortable questions about the person who’s manipulating you. She says it best herself when she writes, “”Me” has to be replaced with “we”.” To the point of losing your own identity, Melissa.Now, his wedding band. He doesn’t wear one and Melissa used to be upset about it, but of course, she never asks him to change, so she gets used to him not wearing one. He also kindly informs her that, “if he went to a bar to hook up, he’d just take the ring off before he went in.” Which should make her feel really great about herself and completely secure in their marriage.Another one of their fights erupted over Melissa getting some kind of lip filler. She doesn’t say what procedure she had exactly just that she had her lips “done”. Apparently she ended up with a trout pout and Joe freaked out. How dare she do something to her body without his permission!! Doesn’t she know that he owns her?! He got so angry that he broke the baby’s highchair (she kindly notes that the baby wasn’t in it at the time). He didn’t talk to her until her lips were back to normal.The next section is jealousy. Melissa admits that they both get jealous and that she selects his secretaries. Then she launches into an anecdote where she and Joe were out with friends and she asked a guy if she could see his tattoo. Then, “He rolled up his sleeve. I touched the tattoo and said, “I like it.”" Joe reacts with calm patience and dignity.Oh no wait, no he doesn’t.Joe went insane, throwing back his chair, jumping up, screaming at me to get my hands off of that guy. It was so embarrassing and infuriating. We were in a crowded restaurant. I touched a guy’s arm. Big deal! We left before we finished eating, both of us in a rage.When Melissa talks to him later tonight, she realizes how wrong she was for innocently touching another man’s arm and how right Joe was for reacting violently. Of course. She says that if she would have seen her husband stroking a woman’s arm, she would have flipped a table. Which is still violent and completely overreacting. But she just accepts that and moves on.There’s a small aside about how when a guy does something wrong, women need to stay angry at him for a little while so he learns his lesson. Otherwise, if the behavior is forgiven and forgotten, he will go back to doing the behavior because his time in the dog house was so short. Er, okay. She doesn’t seem to think that anything her husband does is wrong. Ever.Then Melissa talks about what fights she DOESN’T get into with her husband. First is control of the remote. Whatever. Second is parenting and third is the in-laws.  Nothing really of note in those passages besides Melissa’s blindingly insistent delusions.Now Melissa details how to dismantle a “marriage bomb,” whatever the hell that is. First point of advice is “Don’t blink!” Which is also how you deal with Weeping Angels. Coincidence?Melissa then writes, “Although I’ve have been known to throw my phone at him (I got mad because he was mad for no reason), I usually just hurl words.” As amusing as it sounds to her in retrospect, throwing things at each other is never okay. Ever. I can’t imagine a marriage book making light of hurling objects at each other during a fight.But if you thought that was weird, this part just gets more bizarre. Melissa enlightens us,Don’t take it personallyThis is especially effective when Joe brings his work stress home with him. If someone ripped Joe off that day, he comes home a different person. If he gets one ounce of flack from me, he flips a switch and goes off. I know it’s not really about me, so I don’t get riled up. I supposed I could get angry back at him for getting the bulk end of his problems. But then again, that’s what a spouse is for. You get to release your stress on someone you trust, who you know won’t hold it against you. He’d like to yell at a colleague, client, or employee. But he yells at me and doesn’t screw up a business deal. I can take it. Men’s attitudes are determined by their work and finances. If their finances are off, look out. I’ve learned not to take it personally. It’s not me, it’s work. When I have a bad day at the “office,” my reaction is to cry on Joe’s shoulder. We have different styles of coping. We don’t expect each other to change, but just to recognize how we each deal with work and money anxiety differently.Joe sounds like he has some serious anger issues. He has to scream at his wife in order to cope with stress? That’s not healthy for anyone. Melissa doesn’t deserve to be yelled at because he had a bad day and he doesn’t need to deal with his problems through screaming and shouting.But let’s keep going. Melissa then writes about how humor helps. She writes, “–Joe sometimes slips into teacher mode when he explains how he’d like to tweak my behavior… When I’m in for a lesson, I sit back and listen. He needs to say what he has to say and for me to agree.” So where’s the part where Melissa tells him how he needs to tweak his psychotic behavior? That bit is missing from this passage. Must be an oversight.Then Melissa, independent woman, suggests to have copious amounts of makeup sex, let it go and think about the big picture. Because all of this verbal abuse, manipulation and control will be worth it when her children have their own families that can come visit and see their grandfather verbally abuse their grandmother. Excitement!The more I review this book the sadder I am for this woman. She wants to come across as a confident, independent woman who is highly loved and respected, but there is so much in her writing that contradicts this assertion. Her “happy” and “hot” relationship consists of her husband treating her like an emotional punching bag, then like a sex object. Nothing about their relationship sounds equal, balanced or happy for any woman who demands to be treated with dignity. But this book isn’t over yet…To read all review entries of Love Italian Style, click here. Blogs are in reverse chronological order.

The tale of the Happy Cat

Happy Cat’s adoption tale is a long story. He was found as an underweight, balding kitten running around the Virginia Tech campus in 2002. He was about six months old and looked like he had been a stray for most of his life. My sister, Nikky, and her then boyfriend discovered the skittish little Maine Coon-looking cat and took him home. They already had another Maine Coon and the two looked like they could be brothers.Happy was originally named Jinks. Well, he was originally named Zinc, as my sister was studying mining and minerals engineering at VT. But one of her professors couldn’t pronounce Zinc, so his name changed to Jinks. But he was not a Jinks. We originally just called him the Little One. Haris, the other Maine Coon, was called the Big One. It worked.Eventually, we needed to come up with a new name for him and my mom decided on Happy.  He was such a happy cat. He would love to play with grumpy Haris andAfter Nikky graduated, she was too busy traveling and working to take care of him, so he went to live with my parents. I always loved visiting the house as Happy always was always affectionate and loving, albeit, incredibly skittish, to people. He lived up to his name.I went off to college and didn’t see him for long stretches of time. But he always remembered me and loved to snuggle and get attention whenever he could. No matter how long I had been gone, when I settled into my computer chair, he would come over and get his pettings.For years, we never heard him say anything. No meows, no cat noises, no hissing, nothing. We thought that he might be mute. But one day, my mom was making tuna salad and after opening a can of tuna fish, Happy suddenly discovered his voice. He meowed and meowed until I came to see what in the world was making that noise. And it was Happy, calmly requesting to acquire some tuna fish.When I went away to college and my dad went away for work, Happy’s favorite person became my mom. He is now so enamored with her that he will follow her around the house. Whenever she comes home from work, he will get up from whatever various nap he was in the middle of and come down and see her. He loves to sleep on her bed and snuggle with her when she’s doing her word puzzles or Sudoku.Even after years of being a cosseted house cat, he is still very skittish and easily frightened. He hates plastic bags and will run in terror at the sound of one crinkling. He avoids the outdoors at all costs. Happy will sit next to an open window and push his nose up against the screen to smell all of the outside smells, but usually the door can be wide open and he will walk right by it. He knows what a harsh place the outside world is. With one notable exception, he hasn’t been outside since we adopted him.Right now he lives the easy life with lots of sleeping, snuggling, basking in sunshine spots and nibbling on his kitty kibble whenever he’s hungry. He has been such a good and loving cat and he didn’t cost us a thing. We took him in when he needed a home and someone to love him and he has become a faithful companion and snuggle buddy. Of course, he’s still a cat, so he will still bite you when he decides that he’s done being petted.

Fuck, I love swearing

Goddamn, does it feel good to swear. Personally, I love swearing and think that there are better things to get offended about out there in the world. I was recently put on probation from a scrapbooking Facebook group because used the word “damn” in a post to compliment a girl who had gone all out on a paper haunted house. I thought it was pretty petty to get upset over seeing a common word on Facebook, but I was told that if I swear again, I’ll be kicked off the group.Granted, this group is for moms and grandmas and other people who papercraft, who are no where near the same demographic that I am, but still. Children are starving to death and being beaten to death by caretakers and someone has the energy to get offended that I wrote a word? It’s just a word! It only has as much power as you give it.As someone who has a degree in the English language, read more books than I care to admit, and written entirely too many words for someone to remain sane, I don’t feel that I should have to limit my vocabulary at all just because some people don’t see the exquisite beauty in the word “fuck”. It can mean so many things. It rolls right off of your tongue. The word is powerful and versatile. What’s not to love about it?Other swear words are brilliant too. I love the word “cunt”. Many people have a problem with this word because they view it as derogatory, but I don’t. I see no reason to. Also, the English use it a lot more than Americans, some of which I’ve heard claim that the “c” word is the worst swear word that there is. So I’m a little more familiar with it in different contexts.There’s also the undeniable fact that Bill O’Reilly doesn’t like swearing, which just makes want to do it even more. Censorship, outright telling someone what they can and can’t say, is bullshit. Just because someone else doesn’t like certain words doesn’t mean that those words are bad or that everyone has to live their life according to what one person deems appropriate.But truly, peppering language with swearing just keeps things interesting. Sometimes there’s no way to express what you need to express without using a well-placed “fuck” or “damn”. If you find out that your favorite drag queen is playing a show nearby and you’re free that night a “Gee golly!” just won’t cut it.So swear a little. Change your vocabulary a bit. And be offended about truly offensive stuff, like genocide, oppression, and bigotry. Don’t reserve offense for an innocent word that you find inappropriate in all uses.

Love Italian Style: Lady in the Parlor, Chapters 6 & 7

Chapter 6 is entitled On TV!. Melissa talks about the family’s decision to go on Real Housewives and New Jersey and how it has affected her life. She writes in a strangely mesmerized way, “It’s like going out to a restaurant that seats five million people. Our table is in the middle the room and it’s as if we are talking into a loud speaker for the whole world to hear.” Um, what?I don’t even know how to interpret that simile because it makes no fucking sense. But anyway, this part is completely unneeded for an “advice” book. How many women are going to be on reality TV shows? How many of them are looking for advice on how to handle having your life videotaped for people to laugh at? Seriously?Melissa writes that being on film is nothing new for her because her father was always filming her when she was a little girl. He loved to film her so much that she writes, “That smile was because of me. I made him happy. I wanted nothing more than to make that happen again and again.” Because that’s healthy.So anyway, she describes the two main misconceptions about people who appear on reality shows. 1. They have no shame. 2. They’re fame whores. Uh huh. As for having no shame, you’re putting your entire private life onto film and then she wrote this book, which includes an entire passage on her bathroom habits. I don’t see her as a woman who has a lot of shame. Second, why else would you go on a reality TV show if not for fame? Not all of them pay well or enough to justify the huge loss of privacy. They accomplish pretty much nothing. It doesn’t take any talents or abilities to be on a reality show. In fact, it helps if you’re talentless and like to fight.But Melissa breaks it down and tells her loyal readers exactly why she wanted to go on Real Housewives of New Jersey,They original appeal was to show the world how hard Joe and I work to live this life, what we’ve accomplished and how we raise our kids. I’m so proud of our family, home, and our marriage. I think it’s where we shine. I wanted to be able to say, “Look at what we did!” It sounds corny, but I wanted to demonstrate the happiness of being a stay-at-home Mom and wifey, and be inspiring for the women who were in my situation.I know that this book was (poorly) ghost written, but come on. She wanted to go on TV because she was proud of her marriage and family? She wanted cameras in her face all day long because she wanted to inspire women? Inspire them to do what, exactly? If you have a psychological need for attention, that’s fine. Just admit it. If she wanted to go on TV to brag about her great life and how much her husband objectifies her, then that’s fine too. Just admit it.The entire idea that she went on this show to be an inspiration to women everywhere is just insulting. To her and to the women she’s supposed to be supporting. She also compares being on Real Housewives to “instagram on steroids”. She’s sharing family vacation photos, just with millions of strangers and people that talk smack about her on Twitter. Because that makes sense to her.But when it came down to make a decision, thankfully Melissa had god on her side. She reverently intones,When in doubt, I prayed. I turned to God to point me in the right direction and left it in His hands. I asked God to bless us with the opportunity, but if the show started to do anything to hurt our marriage, to take it away.Just imagine if she was an atheist and she had to take responsibility for her own decisions. Wouldn’t that be horrible? Joe adds in that he didn’t like the change when they first got on the show. He would come home and his wife would dare to not be in the kitchen, cooking his dinner in tight pants. How could he adjust?!Melissa writes about how she wanted Joe involved in the show right off the bat. Because why would she do anything in her life that didn’t directly involve her husband? She might not hear enough constant praise to make her feel confident or something.Then Melissa talks about how the show has impacted her children. She writes how difficult it is to try to sign autographs and talk to fans when she has her two-year-old son with her. She then mentions that when she’s away promoting the show or doing an appearance, she sometimes has Joe watch the kids.I know, right?! She states, “Sometimes, Joe stays at home with the kids by himself. Yes! It’s true! It’s just another way we’ve evolved as a family.” Can you imagine that? A father being alone with his children while their mother is outside doing something else? What a strange and weird way for a family to evolve! Imagine what’s next, Joe cooking dinner? No wait, he’d sprout a vagina if he did that. Never mind.In a small aside, Melissa talks about how an old friend sold pictures of her to the press and one of them was of her peeing on a toilet. She felt betrayed and bewildered why someone would be interested in seeing that and then she launches into this bizarre section;Now, if I were taking a poopie, I’d understand. Wow. Much more interesting. Stop the presses. Joe would probably would have bought that photo himself, just to have proof that I actually poop! I never let him see me do it. Because I just don’t. We all know girls don’t poop!If you think this is the last time she talks about pooping, then you would be wrong. But I’m going to wait until that time to talk about her toilet habits. For now, I’ll just say that this seems like more efforts for her perfection. She wants to be so perfect and flawless that she jokes about not even pooping.After that bizarre piece she writes about how she got called to do a Hot Bodies spread in US Weekly. She called Joe and his response was, “No. You can’t just fly around whenever you want.” Yeah, what does she think she is, an independent person with goals and aspirations of her own? She’s a wife and a mother and she needs to be in that kitchen wearing stretch pants, cooking pasta. End of story.But Melissa figures out how to “have it all”. She takes Joe with her! They get this mini-vacation to California for the photo shoot and come back the next day. And Joe never has to leave her side! It’s perfect for everyone!Now Melissa talks about her “singing career”. It’s hard to take her seriously as her music is so terrible and from her performance in the videos, she’s not that talented of a dancer or anything of that nature. Also, the small fact that she can’t actually sing. The idea that she takes her “singing career” seriously really doesn’t make her look as humble and modern as she would hope. She just looks delusional.Chapter 7 is all about staying in. In fact, it’s titled Staying In. Melissa is such a genius. Anyway, it starts off with a little tidbit from Joe that reads, “A lot of my friends go to a strip club every night after world. I’m not that guy. Who needs to stare at strippers when my sexy wife is waiting for me at home?”Yeah, who cares about strippers when you have a woman at home that you have complete and total control over? You don’t need to go to a strip club and pretend that you own a woman for a few hours. Melissa is his sex toy and personal property 24/7.Now is a section on entertaining Italian style. Melissa writes that it’s so important to be able to entertain and keep a home. She writes, “Make your husband feel happy and entertained at home, and he won’t look to go elsewhere.” And if he does stray, then you’ve failed. Whore.Melissa advocates having lots of food available, having lots of women cooking in the kitchen, lots of men grilling outside, children running around being fucking annoying, etc. And she encourages alcohol. A lot of it. She says, “Drinking ensures high energy and lower inhibitions. It’s not a party if someone doesn’t say or do something they regret in the morning.” That sounds like an awful party. No wonder there are so many fights on the Real Housewives with logic like this.But really, parties are just sex play for Melissa and Joe. While their guests are drinking, eating and having a good time, they’re eye fucking across the room and telepathically communicating their dirty thoughts to each other. No, seriously.Also, I know that if Joe sees me from across the crowded room, he’ll like what he sees. We play eye contact cat and mouse when we entertain at home, sneaking peeks at each other, checking each other out, sending sexy telepathic messages what we’ll do when everyone leaves. Parties are like extended foreplay for us.I must say, the Gorgas are interesting people. First they have DNA that has “never leave a woman behind” imprinted on it, then they have telepathy. Amazing! They definitely need to be studied.Now Melissa has compiled a list of five things that she would never say to her in-laws while she is entertaining them.1. Serve yourself.2. I’m using plastic plates.3. Wow, we ate everything.4. I’ve got an early morning.5. Glad that’s over.It’s great that Melissa wants to be so gracious with her in-laws, but when she writes, “Are you seeing the common theme? I am their slave from the minute they walk in until the minute they go.” I get a little concerned. Melissa’s undying need to please and be perfect extends not just to Joe, but also to his family. A relationship that is notoriously difficult for women. She seems to have picked her battle wisely. There will always be something to do when she is trying to please everyone.Moving on, Melissa writes about Chilling Italian Style. She has an entire timeline set up for their weekends and also a recipe for the pancakes that Joe makes on Sunday. She writes that pancakes and eggs are the only thing he knows how to cook. Because cooking requires a vagina. The pancake recipe isn’t anything that you couldn’t find on Pinterest, to be totally honest.Melissa ends the chapter with a section on “Little Things”. And she talks about Joe’s penis. Ha ha, just kidding. I had to amuse myself when I read this book. So boring. Anyway, she recommends that husbands and wives choose things from the lists “For Her” and “For Him” and states “I guarantee that day-to0day tension in your marriage will gradually disappear. You’ll have fewer fights. Feelings of anger and resentment will be replaced by gratitude and love.”Her amazing list includes things like,For Her: Buy him socks and underwear. I have no idea why men go through sock sand underwear so quickly. But making sure he always has new pairs make [sic] a man feel appreciative.For Him: Shower before bed. Extra points: Shave before bed.Socks and showering. It can save your goddamn marriage. Makes me wonder why people get divorced at all if all it takes is a nice pair of socks to smooth things over.This ends the second part of Melissa’s all too painful book. The next part is entitled “Cook in the Kitchen”. I bet you can’t wait.To read all review entries of Love Italian Style, click here. Blogs are in reverse chronological order.

Love Italian Style: Lady in the Parlor, Chapters 4 & 5

In the second part of the book, Melissa starts by defining what a lady is and what a parlor is. Cause damn, us hoes are pretty dumb. She lays out some pretty broad parameters, including that a lady is courteous and respectful and has manners. Manners which should include not condemning others for the choices they make about their bodies, but let’s not get picky.Chapter four is entitled “Look the Part” and delves into the complicated world of looking good for you man so he will love you and won’t cheat on you. Melissa starts by stating that great clothes and hair can’t make you a good person, a loved person, or an intelligent person. It’s almost prophetic. She adds that, “Nothing looks sexy on a bitch.” Clearly, she doesn’t know that many bitches.Then she starts talking about confidence. Something she seems to know very little about. She writes,There is no way you can feel as good or as confident when you have hairy legs, are wearing no makeup and haven’t been to the gym in weeks. When you put on your lip gloss, feel toned and healthy, and are wearing a pair of jeans that fits you like a glove, you are always going to feel more confident.Mrs. Gorga, I beg to differ. If you can’t feel good about yourself unless you took 3 hours to get ready then you do not feel good about yourself at all. Confidence is not defined in relation to how much makeup you are wearing or how tight your jeans are. Women need to feel like worthwhile women even when they’re not in push up bras. Every woman is a deserving, worthwhile human being BEFORE she puts on her makeup. Not after.But Melissa continues, unabated. She informs her loyal readers,For me, the cherry on top is Joe’s praise. When he tells me I look hot, I feel like I can conquer the world. It’s an indescribable feeling when your man says, “You’re gorgeous! Look at you! You’re the sexist woman on the planet. Get over here!” You will glow.While it’s always nice when you hear that your mate finds you sexually attractive, Melissa seems to need this praise more than a well-adjusted person should. If you can’t feel confident or beautiful without a man telling you that you are, there is something wrong. Also, with her previous admission that Joe will tell her to lose weight or change her outfit if he doesn’t like it, it seems that she has to work for his praise. He won’t shower her with compliments if she doesn’t meet his standards.Later in the chapter, she confirms this by stating, “I used to dress to please myself only. Now, I also dress for Joe. I feel the most attractive when I get positive feedback from him.” She continues, “Ladies, I’m not saying that it is the end all and that you have to wear only outfits that your husband loves. But you will feel the most attractive and sexy if you wear something he’s into. I do. If you know you’re going to be with him for the evening, then turn him on with the looks he likes.”Yes, being a sexual object to your husband is the most important thing. Before Melissa choses an outfit she asks herself, “Would Joe take one look at my outfit and try to rip my clothes off? Would he make me walk in front of him so he can stare at my ass? If so, then mission accomplished.” But remember, kids! She completely independent and doesn’t rely on a man. For anything.She then goes into her fashion “rules”. Her first three are Dress to Please Your Man, Dress to Please Your Man, Part 2, and A King does not Want his Queen to Look Cheap. So yes, more drivel about striving to make your husband happy at all costs and how you can’t feel good about yourself if you’re not getting constant worship from your spouse.Without pause, Melissa dives into more slut shaming,It’s never appropriate to wear a super-short mini dress with a boob-popping, midriff-baring tube top. Absolutely not. Even in my music videos, if I wear short shorts, my tummy is covered. I’m very conscious of this. Joe loves to see my body in clothes, but with a degree of modesty. When a woman shows too much skin, her outfit sends the message that she’s desperate for attention. “I’m insecure and overcompensating” is not the fashion statement that you want to make.First of all, who wears a mini dress WITH a tube top, boob-popping, midriff-baring, or otherwise? Second of all, has Melissa interviewed every woman in the world who has worn an outfit that she finds inappropriate and discovered that 100% of them were insecure and overcompensating? If not, then I fail to see on what authority she states that that’s what women who show a lot of skin are saying or trying to say.Melissa drones on about shoes and makeup and jewelry (almost all of her jewelry was gifts from her husband or father). Then her makeup artist gets to write little inserts about Melissa and her method of putting on makeup and other inane things. On the whole, the book goes from boring to staggeringly disgusting then back again. Some parts are so asinine and then others are jaw-droppingly infuriating.Then two sections pop up that made me laugh out loud. The first is: Beauty is Effortless. The second is: Effortless takes Effort. There’s this thing called Effortless Perfection that describes women who feel pressured to have it all and do it all while making it look like they achieved and accomplished so much without any real sweat involved. Melissa easily promotes this impossible concept for her readers by making it seem like the one true path to happiness and a great marriage.Melissa continues her unending shaming of women who don’t do the same things that she does in her Pick a Feature, Any Feature section:With a big eye, tone down the lips. The same thing goes for a strong lip in hot pink or red. In that case, bring down the eyes and cheeks. Keep the rest soft, or you’ll look like a clown or a streetwalker.Why not try for both? A clown streetwalker. Sounds like a fun look to try out.Then Melissa lets us in on some tightly-kept secrets including, Men Hate Makeup and Men Hate Sloppiness, Too. I know what you’re thinking; your mind is blown. So many men talk about how they love sloppy girls covered in makeup all the time. This revelation should be on a Cracked article.By this point in the chapter, Melissa is off in her own little world. She rambles about skin care and lotion in what would be a horrific one-sided conversation with the most self-obsessed person you’ve ever spoken to. She goes over her morning routine and her night routine without even a vague sense of how pointless and self-indulgent all of those paragraphs are.She delves into facials and advises women to get a facial at least once a season, as if it’s something that all women have, or should have, built into their budgets. She talks about tanning and recommends spray tan. As someone who has to buy the lightest shade of foundation available and has never been tanning, spray or otherwise, in her entire life, I have to say; fuck this idea that you have to be tanned to be attractive and look healthy. If you want to tan, then fine. Knock yourself out. But don’t start telling me that I need to or I’ll be the ugly white girl.Then there’s more mindless chatter about body shimmer and makeup. She goes on to describe, in depth, every kind of makeup that she uses. It’s so tedious it actually becomes painful around the second page. Thankfully, she moves on to waxing and nails. Which isn’t really that much better, but at least she’s not blabbering on about blush anymore.On waxing “down there”, she writes, “I wax. Not all of it. Joe is a man and he like me to look like a woman. A very well-groomed woman.” Really? Womanhood is now defined by the amount of pubic hair you have? And manhood is defined on wanting to see pubic hair? I was exactly expecting this book to be a triumph of gender theory, but come on.But she finishes off the paragraph by talking about how Joe “manscapes” and gives his own public hair a little buzz cut. Because she’s a woman and she likes to see her husband looking like a man. A well-groomed man. And no real man is bald downstairs.Melissa then shares that she likes to keep her nails short, shiny and square. She would never come home with large, dagger-like nails because then Joe wouldn’t let her near his penis. Also, she rubs her feet against Joe all the time so she has to get pedicures, constantly to keep her feel smooth.All in all, this chapter was horribly boring and tedious. She gives no real advice to other women, she just drones on about what she does. And while it works for her, that doesn’t mean that it’s really going to help anyone else. Also, the amount of money and time that she spends on beauty care is rather startling.Does she really think all of her readers are going to rush to make salon appointments for facials, manicures, pedicures, hair colorings and massages so they can look the best for their husbands too? The book mentions nothing of Melissa’s intellectual pursuits or any hobbies other than her “singing”. Her hobbies seem to be beauty care and creating bad pop music. Isn’t there anything more to this woman?Chapter 5 is all about going out. Melissa starts the chapter off by saying that she would rather stay home. Then goes on to thoroughly disprove this through the rest of the writing. She writes about dating your husband and keeping him your boyfriend. Even though you’re married… Yeah, I’m not sure where she was going with that.Then Melissa recommends only double dating with couples that share your marital values. So you never doubt your insane, mixed-up beliefs. When you’re going out on your own, however, it’s a whole other story. She writes,It’s always better for your relationship to go out with people who have more in common with you. You are less likely to get yourself in trouble — girl or guy. Again, I’m not saying never go out with your single friends, because both Joe and I do, from time to time. But too many “Boys’ Nights” at the bars or “Girls’ Nights” with the single ladies can only lead into temptation.I’m not even sure what she’s implying here. If you go out with your single friends you’ll be so desperate for freedom that you’ll break your marital vows? That you can’t trust yourself or your spouse with people who are single and devious? Your single friends are a dangerous influence? Most of my friends are single and I hang out with them all of the time. I have yet to get into “trouble” or be led into “temptation”.Melissa then gives the advice not to compare your relationship to your friends. While this might be a good idea if you’re in a good relationship. In her relationship, however, she probably should be looking at other people and realizing that what goes on between her and Joe is not normal. Maybe she should look at a friend who wouldn’t let her husband dictate what she’s wears. Or a woman who doesn’t need constant approval to feel good about herself. Just a thought.She continues to talk about having to live with a person’s flaws and mentions little things like kitchen drawers not being closed and the milk not being recapped. Like this is the biggest problem she would have to face in her relationship; the milk cap being left off. It’s rare that you stumble across someone with such little self-awareness.In a section entitled Flirt with your Husband, Melissa informs the readers that she and Joe both get insanely jealous when a person of the opposite sex talks to one of them. When they used to go out, Melissa would walk around and talk to everyone and have a good time like a normal person. Then Joe sat her down and told her that he didn’t like it because he wasn’t getting enough of her attention.Because they only live together. It’s not like there are any other opportunities for him to get attention from her. At first Melissa came to the correct conclusion that Joe was being needy. But then she assured herself that he wasn’t and found comfort in a Frank Sinatra song called “Luck be a Lady”.She lays out how the night out goes, “We arrive together. We stay near each other. We leave together. I still talk to everyone there. Plus, I shared the night with my husband. Added bonus: When we rehash what went down later on, it’s easier to compare notes.” Uh huh. Imagine she would actually want some privacy or have a conversation that doesn’t involve her husband. Too bad! She should never try to do anything that doesn’t involve her husband!But to be honest, it’s probably best if they can both compare notes after the events. That way they know what to tell the police. But anyway, it’s okay, because Melissa is such a strong and independent woman. She certainly hasn’t built every single aspect of her life around the whims of this controlling man.And now, Melissa’s top three things never to say to your husband when you’re out on the town. Pay careful attention now, ladies. I bet none of you would ever have thought of this on your own.1. Why don’t you do laundry like [fill in the blank]?Never ask your spouse to work on something or do something for you. They will only do what they already do and nothing else. There’s no such thing as human growth or change. Just get used to it. By the way, you look a little chubby. Why don’t you go to the gym and lose a few pounds?2. Why want to leave? Go ahead. I’ll see you at home later.If said in anger, I can see why this would be a bad thing to say. However, if your significant other doesn’t feel like staying out and you don’t want to leave, having them go home while you get some more social time is perfectly normal. But Melissa disagrees. And so does Joe. She writes,I might as well say, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” The idea of sending Joe home by himself while I stay behind partying without him? It’s unthinkable. He’d never allow it and I would want him to. It’s just not in his DNA to leave a woman behind.Melissa Gorga has clearly discovered something about DNA that the rest of the scientific community just hasn’t worked out yet. Quick, scientists, get on this! Discover the gene for never leaving a woman behind.3. Is that woman prettier than me?Does anyone in the world honestly think that this is a good thing to say to your husband at any time, ever? Has this blatant fishing for compliments ever led to someone having a better, stronger relationship? Seriously. But Melissa explains exactly why this stupid thing to say is a stupid thing to say. She writes,–Why in the world would a woman intentionally draw her husband’s attention away from her and towards another woman? No! When you out with your husband, you want his eyes on you. You want his ears on you. God knows, you want his lips on you. His hand should be on your thigh under the table. He’s smelling your perfume and playing with your hair. That’s seduction. Never, ever, ever intentionally direct his attention away from you. If it does go elsewhere, gently draw it back by asking a much better question, like, “Do you have any idea what I’m going to do to you later?”Yeah, never let another human being get your husband’s attention. Ever. Even if you’re at a restaurant and it’s a waitress. If she tries to flirt with him by asking him what he wants to drink, order for him and grab his crotch. That will keep him in line.The final section of this chapter is about praying. Melissa and Joe both love god and god brings them closer together and god this and god that and fuck, I don’t even care anymore. My brain is seriously melting. This fucking chapter is over.To read all review entries of Love Italian Style, click here. Blogs are in reverse chronological order.