Baklava, round, honey-soaked pastries topped with green pistachios (Photographer: Greg Elms) © Lonely Planet Images

Stuart thought it would be fun if we did a little trip before I start work in a few weeks so tomorrow we are off to Istanbul for a few days.

A few weeks ago, I suddenly realized we hadn’t looked into the visa requirements. Momentary panic- but after a quick bit of research we found you can get a visa at the border for ten quid. At least I hope it is only ten pounds. I am slightly worried that there might be a backlash extra special American price considering the wankedy wank-wank-wank-wank-wank-wank-wankness of the Bushies foreign policy.

I’m certain it will be fine. I’m just being silly.

I’m so excited to be in a city that was ancient when Christ was alive. I’m excited about the Grand Bazaar, the spice market and of course the book market. . . not to mention the Haghia Sofia and the Blue Mosque. And the food. I get giddy when I think about the food.

One of the reasons why I love food is not just that I enjoy eating, (which the size of my ass can attest) but I love the story that food tells. There is a history found in how a dish is prepared. Can you imagine how great the food history is in a melting pot like Istanbul?

Stuart could care less about food. He would happily wash a pill down every day with a Fosters for his nutrition needs if he could. I’m hoping he doesn’t drag me into a Turkish McDonalds.

When I return, there will pictures and an update on our visit to the oldest still existing city in the world!

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Stuart is a bag whore who will happily spend hours digging around in a luggage shop. Me, I look around maybe for fifteen minutes and I can immediately see what I would buy if I had money and if I do have money I am buying it. Stuart needs at least another hour. Even if he sees what he wants, he doesn’t buy it. No. He needs to think about it.

I now know how men who are dragged off to shopping while their wife, girlfriend, daughter leaves them with their pocketbook feel. Time stops.

The illusive object that Stuart has been hunting is the bag Johnny Depp carries in The Ninth Gate.

Personally I think that if Anthony Powell (the costume designer) handed Stuart the exact bag Johnny uses in the film, Stuart would still find fault with it. Over the last year I have seen him buy and then sell at least four bags that I thought were really lovely.

I told him that the bag in his head has become the essence of bag and that he will never find it- sort of like Plato’s theory of forms.

When I told him this, he rolled his eyes. “Shut it Thomas.”

When he goes on one of his shopping benders I have learned to just walk away. There are other things that I can look at. Important things. Like finding the perfect tube of red lipstick. 1950’s red. I know it is out there. Someday it will be mine. . .

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What Planet Are You From?

this quiz was made by The Autist Formerly Known As Tim

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March 10, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
The Conservative Epiphany

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Bruce Bartlett, the author of “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” is an angry man. At a recent book forum at the Cato Institute, he declared that the Bush administration is “unconscionable,” “irresponsible,” “vindictive” and “inept.”

It’s no wonder, then, that one commentator wrote of Mr. Bartlett that “if he were a cartoon character, he would probably look like Donald Duck during one of his famous tirades, with steam pouring out of his ears.”

Oh, wait. That’s not what somebody wrote about Mr. Bartlett. It’s what Mr. Bartlett wrote about me in September 2003, when I was saying pretty much what he’s saying now.

Human nature being what it is, I don’t expect Mr. Bartlett to acknowledge his about-face. Nor do I expect any expressions of remorse from Andrew Sullivan, the conservative Time.com blogger who also spoke at the Cato forum. Mr. Sullivan used to specialize in denouncing the patriotism and character of anyone who dared to criticize President Bush, whom he lionized. Now he himself has become a critic, not just of Mr. Bush’s policies, but of his personal qualities, too.

Never mind; better late than never. We should welcome the recent epiphanies by conservative commentators who have finally realized that the Bush administration isn’t trustworthy. But we should guard against a conventional wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there’s something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush’s deceptions, even though the administration’s mendacity was obvious from the beginning.

According to this view, if you’re a former Bush supporter who now says, as Mr. Bartlett did at the Cato event, that “the administration lies about budget numbers,” you’re a brave truth-teller. But if you’ve been saying that since the early days of the Bush administration, you were unpleasantly shrill.

Similarly, if you’re a former worshipful admirer of George W. Bush who now says, as Mr. Sullivan did at Cato, that “the people in this administration have no principles,” you’re taking a courageous stand. If you said the same thing back when Mr. Bush had an 80 percent approval rating, you were blinded by Bush-hatred.

And if you’re a former hawk who now concedes that the administration exaggerated the threat from Iraq, you’re to be applauded for your open-mindedness. But if you warned three years ago that the administration was hyping the case for war, you were a conspiracy theorist.

The truth is that everything the new wave of Bush critics has to say was obvious long ago to any commentator who was willing to look at the facts.

Mr. Bartlett’s book is mainly a critique of the Bush administration’s fiscal policy. Well, the administration’s pattern of fiscal dishonesty and irresponsibility was clear right from the start to anyone who understands budget arithmetic. The chicanery that took place during the selling of the 2001 tax cut — obviously fraudulent budget projections, transparently deceptive advertising about who would benefit and the use of blatant accounting gimmicks to conceal the plan’s true cost — was as bad as anything that followed.

The false selling of the Iraq war was almost as easy to spot. All the supposed evidence for an Iraqi nuclear program was discredited before the war — and it was the threat of nukes, not lesser W.M.D., that stampeded Congress into authorizing Mr. Bush to go to war. The administration’s nonsensical but insistent rhetorical linkage of Iraq and 9/11 was also a dead giveaway that we were being railroaded into an unnecessary war.

The point is that pundits who failed to notice the administration’s mendacity a long time ago either weren’t doing their homework, or deliberately turned a blind eye to the evidence.

But as I said, better late than never. Born-again Bush-bashers like Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Sullivan, however churlish, are intellectually and morally superior to the Bushist dead-enders who still insist that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, and will soon be claiming that we lost the war in Iraq because the liberal media stabbed the troops in the back. And reporters understandably consider it newsworthy that some conservative voices are now echoing longstanding liberal critiques of the Bush administration.

It’s still fair, however, to ask people like Mr. Bartlett the obvious question: What took you so long?

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I am not a reality show person. When other people discuss what happened the night before on Big Brother or American Idol or The Apprentice I would think “Pshaw! I am better than you. I don’t care about such silly things.”

Well, I never thought pshaw because that would be downright strange to use in a modern vernacular. And sometimes I did watch these shows because I happened to be home and they happened to be on- but I never sought them out.

That has now changed. There are two reality shows that I have now searched out Masterchief and House of Tiny Tearaways.

They are both Brit shows my friends in America or in other corners of the world so you cannot also be sucked into my vortex of shame.

Masterchief takes four amateur chiefs, puts them through three tasks and at the end of the show three of them are voted off the island and the next person goes on to the semifinals and the finals. In the regular show the chiefs walk in to a box of random food and they have to make a nice two-course meal out of it in an hour. The second they all go to a nice restaurant during lunch, create their own dish based on the character of the restaurant and make it as it is ordered. The third task they make their own two-course meal.

We’re in the semi-finals now so they are doing all sorts of crazy tasks like cook for 80 Marines in the artic circle in sub zero conditions.

Oh the pressure! Oh the lovely food! I don’t know how they manage to make these wonderful meals when they have no Mise en place- Cutting up their veg and preparing everything is part of the hour.

House of Tiny Teraways is a clinical psychologist bringing three families into a house with more cameras than a London street and coaches them to turn their children around from being shrieking monsters to good little boys and girls.

What I love about this show is every time the parents walk in saying my child needs to be fixed when what needs to be changed is the parent’s behavior and that the child is reacting to what the parent is doing.

Odd show for someone who has no intention for having any children to watch I know, but I find it really fascinating,

But I must go. Masterchief will be on soon. . .

(I promise dear reader that when my job starts (when I get a life) I will be much more interesting and less shallow. Okay, maybe I won’t be less shallow but I will try for the interesting.

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I just had to check to see what day it is. I seriously could not remember if it was Thursday or Friday. Having all the free time in the world but no money to do anything. . .

I should be writing but I can’t bring myself to do much more than surf the Web and sit for hours in the bathtub reading books. And eating. I have been eating all sorts of crap. Stuart’s parents brought over these yummy store bought mini apple bramley pie tart cake thingies. They are dangerous.

I am getting fat.

One of my favorite new time wasters is Ah, Yes Medical School. He’s a third year medical school student with a biting wit and a few posts that made me cry. Of course that may entirely be due to my current sleep deprivation.

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I had another night of not going to bed until after 5 AM and finding myself awake at 8:30 AM. By my fuzzy math calulation, I have had 24 hours of sleep since Sunday.

If I have another evening of this, I will be seeing spiders crawling the walls.

Wait.

There’s one now.

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After talking to my mom, I decided to pull this post until things are more sorted. I’ve deleleted the comments that detailed specific names and the situation.

Sorry about that. Thank you for your concern.

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Today is International Women’s Day and Vegankid is hosting a Blog Against Sexism.

I never really thought or felt sexism until I was older. One of the jokes I have about my Mom is if I had told her wanted be a prostitute she would have said, “Well, you go out there and you become the best crack whore that you can be.”

I always just assumed that I would do my own thing and if it were good enough, it would kick anyone’s ass. And, frankly. . . I did. Wait. I have. Wait. I do.

I kick ass.

The only time I have stumbled has been due to my own insecurity. No, I haven’t won a Pulitzer or an Oscar or a VP position, but I’ve done okay in the last 35 years.

I’ve had moments of male sexism that I have had to deal with like any one does but half the time it just makes me laugh.

There were little moments when I was young. In high school a male friend said, (referring to the size of my breasts) “Someday you are going to make your husband very happy.” While, yes, okay the size of my knockers does make my husband happy, it was I now know, not the most appropriate thing to hear.

I’ve been propositioned on the street and on public transportation, which has been excellent fodder for anecdotes at parties.

One of the few times sexism has truly shocked me was when I was 23. My father had left my mother a few months before and I was meeting him for dinner at the TGIF in Las Vegas on Tropicana Ave. He was wearing a black silk shirt and these terribly garish wild print MC Hammer pants. He can be forgiven for this fashion disaster even in circa 1993 because he was going through his mid-life drama. Forgiven, but my sisters and I, evil bitches that we are, mocked him unmercifully behind his back.

Somewhere in the conversation that evening, he said something along the lines of, “A man just wants his woman to shut the fuck up and support him.” This is a paraphrase. I suspect what he actually said was worse, but I honestly don’t remember.

I also can’t remember exactly what sparked his comment. I might have been saying something that pissed him off because he knew I was running circles around him. I suspect I was playing with him on purpose. Okay. Fine. I am certain of it. I may even have been smoking a cigarette and subtextually flaunting that he couldn’t do anything to stop me.

All I do remember is that he had tried to one up me in a number of conversations for a few years at that point. We’d gotten into one stupid conversation where he had confused Ben Jonson (No. Not the sprinter. Thank you for playing.) with Jonathan Swift and kept arguing with me when I knew he was terribly wrong. (Yes, I was an English Major and smug and obnoxious with my new found ability to kick my parents around the block when it came to any subject. I needed to be beaten.)

I think he knew the moment that my sisters and I realized that he was a sham. The moment that we saw the man behind the curtain and that pissed him off. The moment that he wasn’t a Daddy-God but just a man. He didn’t know that we would have been happy with him just being a man. Wasn’t smart enough to know how to be just himself.

I haven’t spoken to my father in over twelve years. I started avoiding him at first because of the comments he made during that terrible dinner and it made me uncomfortable how hard he was trying to be “cool”. It was like he was Dudley Moore in Foul Play. We slipped apart and after a stupid argument where I can’t remember who hung up on who (although I think it was me), we haven’t spoken since.

-Yes, these are cliff notes, but it isn’t important enough to be to air all of the dirty laundry.

The writer in me feels sorry for him. He was angry. He was leaving a bad marriage. His daughters didn’t enable him any longer. His rejection is understandable.

The daughter in me used to be very angry that I had so little value. That he could so easily say, fuck her. I have gotten over it. I could pretend that I haven’t and write something Steven Spielbergish that pulls your heartstrings. Cue violins and all that shit, but I am over it and that would be lame.

It must be said that my sisters haven’t gotten over his rejection. After he and I had my falling out he eventually fell out with both of them and recently they have each reached out to him, only to be rejected again. While both of my sisters are certifiable, I felt terrible that they experienced this additional abandonment. Were they brave, weak or stupid for reaching out? I haven’t contacted him. Does that make me brave, weak or stupid?

For me, I decided a long time ago that just because someone raised me and provided my genetic makeup doesn’t mean they get to be a part of my life if they are a class A ass-wipe.

My father was the son of career navy man who was an even longer career alcoholic. He was the son of a woman who made you feel social status, how well you played gin and how small your ass was offered more value to the community than your character. I don’t believe that this is how my Nana honestly feels, but often it appears that way.

He chose to not to pull himself out of that vortex.

What does this have to do with sexism? This is all a long way to say that I think a lot of misogynism steams from men that are so wildly insecure that they lash out. They are angry. Women are an easy target. So easy, that a father will cut his own daughters to pieces if it makes him feel better.

I am lucky that I am with a man that values my intelligence and doesn’t need him to enable him– he just needs my love, which I am happy to provide. Well, it’s not that I am lucky. There is just no way in HELL I would be with a man that thought my XX status would be open season for attacking my character and intelligence.

My mother has been married to a wonderful man, my stepfather Gary for ten years now- or is it eleven? I’ve lost count. He loves her and has put up with more drama from my crazy family than anyone ought to be subjected. He spent hours and hours and thousands of dollars preparing his house for Stuart and I for our wedding and was so pleased to be part of our celebration. He is more my father than my real father ever was. It used to upset Stuart that I called Gary my stepfather rather than my father until he realized that the word “father” to me means asshole.

My father is now remarried and I hope that he is happy.

I am also pleased that he is out of my life.

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” in 1792. It depresses me beyond words that there is a need for a “Blog Against Sexism” over three hundred years later.

We have come a long way baby. But we’ve got a long way more. I don’t know what the answer is. I suspect it has something to do with every little girl knowing that she could kick anyone’s ass.

If she wanted to.

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It happened when I lived in Seattle too. I got cocky today. Somehow my umbrella found its way out of my bag and even though it has been raining off and on for days, I didn’t take the time to look for it.

It started out as a mist. Even if I had my umbrella with me, I wouldn’t have pulled it out. But an hour later it was a steady down pour.

My wool scarf, jacket and hair were soon sopping.

But I didn’t care.

The rain was warm (as warm as it can be at 50 F) and it tasted like spring.

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