I have a cold.  A motherfucking cold.  Even though I douse myself in Purell like I’m a nun with a holy water fetish, I got a cold.

Despite this I went to work today, where I proceeded to spread my germs around.  Because I’m generous like that.  However, I did give the students fair warning, sat far away from them, and didn’t touch their papers.  And they looked at me kind of like, “Hey, fat runny-nosed lady, I tongue-kiss dogs with mono.  It’s all good!”  Would that I had their strength.  Or stupidity.

By the way, did you know that MLA has changed its inclusive language rule so that a sentence such as, “When a person has the flu, they should go to the health center” is now CORRECT?  That’s right, MLA has changed a long-lived and -loved grammar rule so that you no longer need either the awkward he/she construction or the less inclusive gendered pronoun.  I DON’T LIKE THIS.  Really.  Not because I’m that into grammar (see present entry for evidence), but because I think you have to know the rule to break the rule, and students don’t know the goddamned rule.  Also, MLA just likes to pretend it changes with the times and recognizes the beautiful fluidity of the English language.  In reality, it’s just another academic hurdle designed to keep you down.  Or something.  Dammit.

Colds make me swear more.  I do not know why.  Maybe because I’m MAD AT THE UNIVERSE.

Speaking of which, RuPaul’s Drag Race is pretty fucked up.  Here’s the thing.  I like me some drag queens.  I like that they make us question sexuality and “the feminine” and gender roles and all that other stuff.  I admire their ability to make their eyebrows disappear under gallons of makeup and yet somehow fix themselves so as not  to look like painted clowns (unless they want to look like painted clowns, that is).  Yay, drag queens.  However.  WHY the soft focus on every other scene?  Why the weird cutaways to Ru’s panel presentations that make Tyra Banks look like a natural when it comes to voice-overs?   And most of all:

Why can’t someone give me a consistent guide on which pronouns to use when referring to a drag queen?  No, really, this is important to me.  Because when a queen is being a queen, I assume that means you say “she.” I   Then, a “she” when performing becomes a “he” when going about his usual business.  Yet when the men were out of costume and were just combing their wigs and stuff, they still referred to each other as “she.”  And I am totes confused.   Granted, maybe they were using “she” in the pejorative, but….  I don’t know.  I need help.  Help MLA can’t give me.  Because they’d just hand me some “When a drag queen has the flu, they should go to the health center” bullshit, and I’m just not having it.

The inauguration is making me cry, and I can’t pinpoint the exact source of those emotions. I do know that it’s not the usual reasons that are making other people emotional (first African American president, the end of the Bush presidency, the unlikeliness that we’ll manage to dig ourselves out of the hole we’re in despite this changeover, etc.). Oh, Yo Yo Ma, he always makes me cry. But that’s not it either. Nor can I blame it on the uterus.

I think Dick Cheney is dead. Weekend at Bernie’s dead, but with super-secret army technology corpse reanimation. Who ever heard of a person with a back injury ending up in a wheelchair unless that injury were an immobilizing one? And who ever heard of the idea of Dick Cheney moving his own boxes? Seriously? He has an Army of Poor to do that for him. And with his health, he shouldn’t be doing any heavy lifting anyway. Also strange: I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for Dick Cheney! What in the hell is wrong with me?

Couldn’t they have given Yo Yo Ma a better backdrop than a chain link fence?

Oh my god, Obama knows the words to the oath and the Chief Justice fucked them up and Obama didn’t repeat them until Roberts said the right words. Obama voted against Roberts’ appointment. Payback?

Even if the world ends right now, it didn’t end under a Bush presidency. I am not kidding when I say I didn’t think that would happen. I had imagined a military coup or something. I didn’t think Bush would EVER LEAVE. EVER.

I would not sleep with Al Gore, but I would definitely make out with him if he offered. And I would mess up his hair while doing it.

I am doing random thoughts wrong. It’s supposed to be “random” and “thoughts running through your head” not “random” and “reactions to a specific event/thing/whatever.” I will try harder next time.

Pretzels.

Baby reacting strongly to Obama–kicking the crap out of chest region. Perhaps Obama has already harnessed the Power of the Unborn to do his bidding? Sorry, Dick Cheney, I know that’s what you were hoping to do. Oh, wait, no, that’s EAT babies.