mimi smartypants
Seriously, though: what's with the penguins?

eggplant and hot pants

I went to the gym today, for the first time since my wallet got stolen there. The guy at the front desk tried to tell me it would be $10 to get a replacement membership card. But after I said ha, ha, and again, ha, and explained why that was not so, he cracked and gave it to me for free. Why should I subsidize their lax security?

I have also replaced my wallet itself, finally, because the Powerpuff Girls change purse was cute and all but unfortunately is just not big enough to hold all the things I need to carry around. Such is the crushing horror of adulthood.

It's Menstruation Week, and that kind of makes me have issues about the way I look, which I'm convinced is a hormonal thing entirely…maybe with a dollop of societal pressure thrown in, but it has to be at least partly biological. Because ordinarily I sincerely do not give a shit about the way I look. Or rather, I don't give a shit about the way people perceive my looks. I recently re-read an old Janeane Garolfalo interview from Bust (I'd link to it, but it doesn't seem to be online anywhere) where she says that if you go around showing your breasts and wearing hot pants and sexualizing your looks at every opportunity, you are basically asking people not to hear you. And I agree. You can go on all you want about how teasing your hair and getting breast implants and running around in a vinyl catsuit is “reclaiming your sexuality,” and I wish I could agree because that's a nice idea, but the fact is that it's not doing anything except turning people on. (Which is PERFECTLY FINE, please don't misunderstand me. It's the theoretical bullshit about the catsuit I object to, not the catsuit itself. Meow.) Because sexuality is not about catsuits and breast implants, it's about having sex.

(Now that's really BARBARICALLY simplistic, and my inner graduate student is screaming for me to go on and explain, complete with footnotes and everything, but ach. It's late and I'm tired and you don't want to read that anyway. Others have done it better.)

I came up with a good slogan for the Eggplant Board. (Is there an Eggplant Board? There's a Dairy Association and a American Beef Council and all that, I wonder if there is any sort of group of professional eggplant farmers? It looks like some web sleuthing is in order). Anyway:

Eggplant: The Plant That Is Shaped Like An Egg.

Not bad, huh? OK, it is. Shut up. But it's no worse than that Beef: It's What's For Dinner, which has just way too many apostrophes in it and is unnecessarily authoritarian. Eggplant: The Plant That Is Shaped Like An Egg tells it like it is, and consumers will be attracted by the honesty.

—mimi “I know what the public wants” smartypants