I'm sorry to hear about Pico, but is sounds like you sent him gently into the good night, and that's the best gift you can give a loved one, whether furry or not.

Beverly- i missed saying happy marriageaversary to you earlier! So happy day!

I just paid off my last credit card!! At least that Bush Stimulus check went to something worthwhile--improving my credit rating.

Now I have to make sure I don't charge it back up again...

Susan, I'm so sorry. You did the right thing by Pico. It will be hard, but you were right.

I hate when you're reading an article, and agreeing with it, and slowly there is drifting up until that horrible "YOU'RE ON MY SIDE! GET OFFA MY SIDE!" moment. Like here:

The exact same testosterone-fueled drive that makes men fight wars also makes them build bridges and tall buildings and computers. Made them hunt animals to feed the tribe, made them relentlessly experiment with domestication of animals and crops, made them invent metallurgy, made them invent the fucking wheel. There is no doubt that women are intellectually capable of all of these things, but the fact is that we did not do them on any kind of meaningful scale throughout all of human history.

And it’s not just because we’ve been too busy making babies for 150,000 years. It’s because we don’t have as much testosterone, and therefore we aren’t as big, as strong, as daring, or as experimental as men. And this really is okay to admit.

I really should have felt it coming sooner. But I hate the whole "if this currently disempowered group ran the world we'd all be so much happier" rhetoric that I missed all the blazingly obvious signs of where she was going.

Silly me.

I watched so many dance videos this afternoon that I want to take a class again.

I was just browsing the website of the place where I do poledancing, and now I want to do salsa. Except right now I can't walk properly. Baby steps, methinks.

Congrats, Kathy!

And happy birthday, sj!

Also women had nothing to do with domestication of animals? Nothing to do with agriculture? I really freakin doubt it. On agriculture, one guess it that it was invented by Shamans to increase their supplies of the really good drugs, and then when climate changed, and hunting and gathering were no longer producing enough, agriculture was adapted from producing ways to get high into growing food.

I had this cringey moment at work while people were discussing marraige. One of the guys mentioned he'd have to of course ask his girlfriend's father for permission to marry her.

I asked if he would receive three goats and a chicken for taking the daughter off the old man's hands.

This resulted in a pile-on about how I was being insensitive to tradition.

Because I'm from the internet, I'm immune to the pile-on, so I held my ground and said, "yo, it is a tradition based on women as chattel. And if she gets to ask your daddy if it's okay to marry you, then at least it will be evenly creepy."

I keep waiting for fandom wank to come to make workplace and lulz at me, live and in person.

I've come to the conclusion that people are happy to take part in the cheerful aspects of traditions despite the fact that said traditions were borne of craptitude and misogyny. I think I've ruined many a bride's moods with my pragmatic observations about the creepy base of many wedding rituals. So now like you, I just offer it when no one is actually getting married, so s/he can't take it so personally.

People need to be made aware, right?

Where are all the black folks? And the indication that it's the 21st century?

One of the guys mentioned he'd have to of course ask his girlfriend's father for permission to marry her.

American a few generations back? I mean, I can slightly dig it if he was from a culture that doesn't like to pat itself on the back for perceived equality, but...seriously. It's not touching and romantic.

A guy has to ask my dog if it's okay to date me. That's my only ritual.

Chile Pepper is very choosy!

This is so wrong, right? [link] Then why so I want to drive it? (Just once.)