I believe it was my junior year that Lisbon High School became graced with it's very first little person. Lance wasn't a technical midget, rather, he had a unique developmental problem with affected only the size of his legs, leaving him with the approximate proportions of a thin chimpanzee. Back then, he compensated for his diminuitive statute with an oversized, boisterous personality, and the ability to use his own arms as a jump rope. Nowadays, he compensates with a myspace profile chalk full of pictures of him from the waist up, my favorite being this one.

I've been cruising myspace a lot lately for additional people to add to my friend's list, for the sake of nostalgia, comradery, and publicity: I've taked to announcing my new blog posts on the bulletin board to drive people here, where they can experience, first-hand, the steaming pile of prose that is my self-interest. This is especially satisfying when the reader is one of the many I went to high school with but whom did not know me particularly well, seeing me only as the intellectual misfit who was constantly scribbling her thoughts into a notebook or blogging them on the library computers.

See how far I've, uh, come? *Ahem*

Sometimes I start writing a post without any intention of it being ironic, then, as it comes out, I become more and more aware of the subtle mockery I'm unconsciously making of myself. It seems that, here, there is a delicious parallel: In high school, I had Lance-legs in the areas of fashion sense, social skills and, let's face it, personal hygiene. I faced this with either defiant, counter-culture avoidance of the people I wasn't like and the skills I didn't have, or with a humorous, defensive turn of phrase, like "Hey, look at that short kid who can jump rope with his own arms!" Now, Lance's profile highlights his upper body and mine has only pictures of Pretty-From-A-Certain-Angle Girl.

And yet, I lead them here. Here, where I bare my soul, my flaws, my insecurities. Sure, I dress them up in their Sunday best, but still, this is a fairground of failings. It seems that I endeavor to face my deepest fear: That those who love me would not if they knew who I really was. Put it out there, unpretentious, and send the people there, to read about all the miserable things I say, think, and do. She's a snob, a pervert, and a hypocrite. She's a currently unemployed waste of human life, someone who clings to her own pathetic blog for validation.

But if she can make you laugh by the end of the post, well then, maybe that's something.


Fierygwenivere: I'm now finding the profiles of all the Popular guys who were too list that they went to LHS, so I have to search for their names individually. Justin Costello, Jeremy Steenson, etc. If they don't accept my friend requests, it's gonna be like my sixth grade birthday party all over again.
FieryGwenivere: I'm thinking of creating a second myspace profile that I will use for adding as many people as humanly possible, just so I can announce my updates on it and up my traffic.
Snappyguy: just tell everyone you're on a webcam like so many other girls seem to
FieryGwenivere: that's not the way to get thoughtful, literary traffic
FieryGwenivere: and you don't get a whole lot a guys who are like "A cam girl? Alright! Oh, it's a blog...even better! Now I can get to know her for the person she really is."



In other news, an new show will be airing on British television called "Masturbation for Girls", featuring "an 'orgasm coach' who teaches three ladies all her tricks, which they will demonstrate, live, to camera." The source of this information it this article by Carol Sarler, in which she argues that position that this is a disgrace to woman, a pitiful attempt to masquerade porn as education, and cheap television. She makes some decent points decently well and, unlike other online journalist I've read lately, can use a semi-colon. Do I agree with her? I don't know. Lately, my level of conservativeness is flippant at best, and reality TV has always been a bit of hot button for me. So, whether or not this is pornography or "cheap" isn't really something I see fit to argue from either side; however, there are some points she didn't make which beg to be argued, and I did so in the form of a comment to her article that the editors decided not to publish. So, I'll make them here.

First of all, porn or not porn, her viewpoint on this show seems to suggest that female sexuality, in whatever form it takes, is something to be ashamed of, and that's a stigma that has done quite enough damage to the world at large already. Secondly, with the world as it is today, more women than ever are reporting suffering from Female Sexual Dysfunction, as well as being pre-orgasmic. Whatever the marketing strategies behind it, here is a show that endeavors to teach women how to have an orgasm, a show that prioritizes a woman's pleasure. Carol Sarler argues that this show could not possibly be "mark of women's progress and of liberation". But the fact is that this day in age, there are still thousands of women utterly dissatisfied in their sex lives, and who have resigned themselves to being merely an aid to the pleasures of men. This is one of the arenas that, despite progress, true liberation has not fully occured. Science says, doubtlessly, that having an orgasm is an essential function of life, alleviating physical and emotional tension and instilling a level of confidence sorely needed in today's women. Advancing the progress of pre-orgasmic women, therefore, isn't "science, education or art"; it's a fucking cause.


Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with my brand-new, 60-dollar vibrator. Gonna go have a little women's movement of my own.

On with it.



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