Taste the Christmas!

Fact:  the giant sticks of peppermint for 69¢ at the Dollar Tree are REAL PEPPERMINT.  They are delicious and they taste like Christmas.  I see them and I must buy them and then I must eat them.

YUM.

I am so glad in my heart that the girl main character in Lemony Snickett:  A Series of Unfortunate Events is an inventor.  God bless authors who allow girls to take interest in and have talent with all things mechanical.   The boy is a reader (God bless you again!) and the little sister is a biter.  Brilliant.

Caitlin Moran.  There are apparently two easy questions to ascertain whether one is a feminist.  Put your hand down your pants.

1) Do you have a vagina?
2)  Do you want to be in charge of it?

If you answered yes, congratulations!  You are a feminist.  Of course, you can answer no and still be a feminist.  Many men whom I love cannot honestly say yes to question #1 and yet kindly and wisely treat the women in their lives as fellow human beings.  I think that's what it comes down to, ultimately.  Do you want everyone to be treated as a human being?  Then you are a feminist.

Caitlin Moran.  Her book "How to Be A Woman" made me cry laughing in my kitchen.  Each essay title is a statement capped with an exclamation mark.  I Start Bleeding!  I Encounter Sexism!  I am Fat!

Not only is this woman hysterically funny, she has some wonderfully insightful things to say about being female.  Thank you, dear lady, for advocating for hair down there and burlesque dancing instead of strip clubs and being "human-shaped."  Hear, hear!

Caitlin Moran.  I would like to drink some whiskey with this woman.  And talk about things like this:

Feminism needs Zero Tolerance over baby angst.  In the 21st century, it can't be about who we might make, and what they might do, anymore.  It has to be about who we are and what we're going to do.

Also,

While motherhood is an incredible vocation, it has no more inherent worth than a childless woman simply being who she is, to the utmost of her capabilities.  To think otherwise betrays a belief that being a thinking, creative, productive, and fulfilled woman is, somehow, not enough.

This is not of course to say that it isn't a valid choice to have babies.  There is an essay titled "Why You Should Have Children" right before the one titled, "Why You Shouldn't Have Children."  But women who choose to have babies aren't being judged in the same way that women who think they may not want children are looked at or talked to, like, "Ooooh, don't speak too soon," - as if knowing whether or not you're the kind of person who desires to make a whole other human being in your guts, out of sex and food, then base the rest of your life around its welfare, is a breezy, "Hey-whatever" decision.

Yes, I stole that from Caitlin Moran.

Caitlin Moran.  My new imaginary best friend.  We would get on so great in real life, with our inexpensive handbags, whiskey-drinking and strident feminism.