Oh, Golly, Things are Going GREAT

I am so in a bad mood, and since there’s little I can do about that, I figured a little blog vomiting would at least help pass the time. It’s been a hellish week. The universe has not only rejected me, but moved up to minor bullying to keep it interesting.

I’ll start with last Friday evening. Sgt gennimcmahon and I went out to dinner at a local Sushi place after dropping The Smallest of the Fries at an evening birthday party that ran from 6:00 pm until 8:30 pm. The child goes to rather sophisticated events for a six year old. We had a lovely, leisurely dinner. As we were eating, a couple came in. The male portion of this couple happened to be a local elected (but on his way out) official. He is a member of the political body that runs the portion of government of which sgt gennimcmahon is an administrator.

This happens a lot; being a civil servant means everyone you meet feels that they personally sign your paycheck and are therefore entitled to interupt your free time with their concerns. Politicians are often too stupid to understand that the “servant” part of “civil servant” doesn’t mean “personal bitch.” So, anyway, we spot the politician and note that he has a date, and the politician spots us, and the show begins. This particular politician is young and needs to be on Ritalin or qualudes or pot, anything, he is hyper to the extreme. Social boundaries suggest that if you’re both out on dates, maybe you say hello, or stop briefly at the table, but your respect each other’s privacy. Not this guy. He starts this hullabaloo from across the restaurant, “OH I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE HERE TOO OMIGOD I SWEAR YOU’RE SPYING…” etc. Sgt gennimcmahon says, under his breath, “Here we go…” and indeed, there we went.

The politician approached. We stood, he loudly introduced sgt gennimcmahon to his date as, “This is [his real name], the GREATEST [his occupation] in the WORLD!!!” and then he turned to me, a person he has met several times, with whom he has occasionally briefly spoken at Jesser’s Friday night bash, and said, “And this is his WIFE who LIKES TO CASTRATE ME FOR BEING MALE.”

Right there, RIGHT THERE, I understood my problem with feminism. The problem is that men haven’t changed. They hate an uppity woman as much as ever, and it’s Good Ol’ Boy all the way and we’ll just pretend you’re equal so you won’t start nagging and maybe give a little lip service to choice or pay scale but ultimately the original patriarchal plan remains fixed. Now that we’re supposedly liberated men still insult us but we’ve gotten rid of the chivalry that would’ve instructed sgt gennimcmahon to immediately punch the politician in the mouth. We’ve kept the part where I am so shocked (and at the same time worried about jeopardizing sgt gennimcmahon’s career) that I also do not punch the politician in the mouth.

I would have very much enjoyed it if sgt gennimcmahon had punched him in the mouth. As it was, neither of us was prepared for it, so we laughed it off. To her credit, immediately following the charming introduction his date stuck out her hand and said, “Thank you.” The politician went on about how he was hoping to see us at Jesser’s so that, “We’re not the only straight people there.”

Jesser’s party is without sexual preference. It’s a party.If I have a party, it’s not by definition a “straight party” any more than Jesser’s is a “gay party.” People come over, play pool, drink a bit, visit, etc. We are not required to declare our preferences, nor do we have to drop our keys in a punchbowl and then worry about how awkward the, “No, I’m sorry, I’m straight/gay/not into rabbits” conversation will be once the orgy starts. I would bet that Jesser is outnumbered in the straight/gay ratio at least 2 or 3 to 1 at any given time. Plus, of course, there is the fact that it was a totally asshole thing to say.

In case you’re wondering, this guy is a Democrat. He’s the guy that would take Women’s Studies and then be mad that it didn’t get him a blow job. He’s the guy who insists he has “gay friends” or “black friends” and they don’t mind his jokes. He’s a “Nice Guy” with all that entails.

The thing is, it was humiliating to be introduced like that. Nameless, castrating. Why not say, “This is the bitch he’s married to” and get it all out? As a person with what I like to think are impeccable manners, I am insulted on a variety of levels by the crass nature of the whole interaction. As a feminist, I am insulted by the need to define me as castrating. As a member of the patriarchal system in which I exist, I regret that the main gain I’ve gotten from all this equal rights stuff is that if someone besmirches my honor, it isn’t automatically pistols at dawn.

So, there’s that.

Then, there’s Crae Z., who enclosed part of her garage this week with windows and a glass door. You know, to show off the crazy inside, too. We all want to look at that. No one, however, is looking at our house.

And that’s apparently okay, since the asshat who originally kicked this all off with the “first dibs” things apparently offered “first dibs” to everyone who had ever viewed the house.

He, and his house, are dead to us.

Whatever.

Crappy thing the third arrived this morning, at 4:30 am, when I awoke to a more desperate than usual sensation of needing to pee, which became unrelenting agony on par with childbirth as apparently I got a bus stuck in my bladder and it was trying to get out (how many times have I been told, “Don’t put a bus in your urethra?” When will I learn?) After two hours of alternately crying and passing actual blood clots, I arrived at the ER, where I paid $150.00 to find that I had a bladder infection.

I kept saying, “But I’ve had UTIs, I don’t go to the ER for a UTI, this is horrible and awful and different.” A female nurse said to me, “It’s a very small space to pass anything through. Clots hurt, right? You’re screaming and peeing, right?” Yes. And it felt pretty emergent. So they gave me antibiotics that will destroy all flora and fauna in my system including the good guys and sent me home.

Without, interestingly, anything for pain.

I am sure that if a man walked in and said, “There is a bus stuck in my urethra and it’s trying to get out” he’d have a IV morphine drip and a bottle of bourbon to share with the doc within minutes.

Regrettably, I am not a man.

In triage, where I of course had a male nurse, he said, “So, the pain is mainly in your area?”

My “area”? Yes. My Area Hurts. I’m having Area pain. Do they teach that in school? “Always refer to a female patient’s genitalia as her “area” and make a sort of general motion over your pelvis.”

On the form at the admissions window, I said I was having “Extreme urinary pain, constant pain in my bladder and urethra, and blood in my urine.” I should have said, “My area hurts.” How can they help me if I can’t use the right terminology?

I get to spend the rest of the day loading the fluids and peeing, then crying and wandering about cursing my anatomy, wash, rinse, repeat. I should feel better within 24 hours, they said. The pain and urgency and blood clots will desist. I hope. ‘Cause you know, area pain is the worst.