A little trashy romance rant. Poor white girl is having a discussion with rich white boy. Poor white girl scoffs at rich white boy's hard life because, well, he's rich, white, and a boy. Oh, and his parents love him too. And he was never molested. Or beaten. Or ignored. So, when poor white girl points out how easy rich white boy has had it he argues back. But does he argue with his own experiences of "having it tough" or "working hard?" Oh no. He argues with his grandfather's experience--the man that created the family fortune--and his dad's experience--a poor Native American. Because his patriarchal line has worked hard that somehow entitles him to understand her pain and beat her in an argument of whose had a hard life because his family "doesn't forget their roots."

Really? I mean, I'm Irish, but I'm fairly certain I don't know what it's like to be without my potatoes--or any other food for that matter. Does "not forgetting my roots" mean I can sit down and really empathize with people who are starving? I'm gonna have to vote for no on this one. I really feel like Nora Roberts dropped the ball in this particular instance. She's been growing on me, but if you want your rich white hero to be a badass then you're going to have to do it without him claiming his elders' badassness as his own. Isn't that, like, the definition of a poser? Honestly, it's no wonder I can't find true love when I keep reading these books.

Oh! It's a top ten list!

Top Ten Things Trashy Romance Has Taught Me To Look For In A Man:

10. Love At First Sight

It all starts with Love at First Sight. Perhaps you're in a crowded room. Perhaps you're standing by yourself in a corner. Perhaps you've just spilled ink all down your regency style bodice. It doesn't matter. He sees you across time and space and finds you charming, fresh, and, most importantly, sexy. Your not like any other girl he's known. He wants to get to know you immediately, in fact he can barely control himself. You on the other hand are drawn to his...

9. Animal Sexuality

It radiates off of him. This is no mouse; this is a man! Everything about him is masculine even his sinfully long eyelashes. His face would be beautiful, but his strong jaw saves it from beauty marking him as handsome instead. You feel things you've never felt before. Dream of doing things you've never done before. And his animal sexuality, his predatoriness, his feline walk all enhance his innate male strength showing you he's a...

8. Warrior

Maybe he boxes with the other Lords. Maybe he's a cowboy, or a savage. Whatever his life he rides better, shoots better, and fights better than any other man around. You're always safe with him and you can always count on him to rescue you. In fact, the only person you ever have to worry about hurting you when you're with him is...well, him. But none of that matters because you're both...

7. Crazy With Lust

It can't be controlled or understood. He can't stop thinking about you. Can't figure out why he's so attracted to you and it drives him mad. You melt every time he's near. Your pulse beats so erratically that he can tell across the room. He smells you when you walk by, has a constant erection when you're near that he's not ashamed of. In fact, he's proud of it, pointing out how you affect him every time the two of you are alone. He does this because he's...

6. Smarter Than You

You're smart. You're savvy. You can outwit every other woman at the ball and all the other men. But you can't outwit him. It's not your fault; he's been manipulated by women before and is never to outsmarted by one again. And besides, he knows your body better than you do. That's why he's a...

5. Casanova

When he kisses you it's hot. When he kisses your neck its hot. When he kisses your hand its hot. Basically everything he does no matter how fast, slow, hard, easy, or seemingly silly is hot. That's because he knows exactly how to work your body like a conductor in front of the Boston Pops. But that's not a bad thing. How were you to know what love and sex were all about with him to teach you? How were you to discover what love was until he showed you? But there's a down side. He's not ready to love yet because he's...

4. Brooding and Broken

His hearts been broken and he now he's gun shy. He never smiled until he met you, and often he will sit sullenly in his study for hours with his brandy trying desperately not to think about you. In fact the idea of being in love is so frightening, so completely untenable that it makes him...

3. S.E.A.--Slightly Emotionally Abusive

It's not his fault. He's just so out of control because he loves you so much. He wouldn't be this way if you weren't so wonderful. If he could admit that he loved you. But you make him so mad. And just when he thinks there's a chance at happiness there you are smiling at a man on the street and all his worst fears are confirmed. He can't be expected to control his irrational jealousy. He can't be expected to wait for you to accept him. You need to enter into this relationship on his terms. As he says. And what's wrong with that? After all...

2. You Know You Want It

That's right. A man with strength. A man with passion. A man who can make you orgasm even when you've said no to sex. That's true love right there. And if you love him through all of this, if you persist in gentling his beast by gifting his forceful taking of your body with an orgasm his guilt will set him free. He'll realize he's only been fighting himself and he'll be so sorry for how he treated you. In fact, he'll never treat you that way again. Because...

1. All He Needs Is Love

That's right. Your refusal to stop loving him. Your refusal to give up on him after all the harsh words (like calling you a whore outright or implying it) all the physical fights (his nearly date raping you or, in some cases, actually raping you when you wouldn't give in to the physical desire) and mistreatments (his walking out on you for months at a time while he figures his feelings out leaving you broken and bereft and, if you're lucky, pregnant) has finally won him over. He just needed a good woman who could heal him with her vagina and it was you. Only you could have done it because he has only ever really loved you. He loved you from that first moment he saw you and now he can finally allow himself to admit it.

Congratulations on your happy marriage. He will always be the perfect husband and give you many, many children. And he'll never act like such a horrible person again. It's just that you make him so crazy...

Ah trashy romance. It's a great industry isn't it?

10,000 B.C. was the movie of the night and what a movie it was. Never have I been taken by a plot so well thought out, action so intense, or a love story so moving.

Did you know, for example, that if you hunt woolly mammoths with spears and your tribe you also gain the abilities of sword fighting and kung fu? Did you also know that the many peoples roaming the earth in 10,000 B.C. are of indiscriminate ethnic origin and speak in many accents? Finally, did you know that when traveling the continents from the great steppes of Asia to the savannahs of Africa one can cross from the jungles of Mesopotamia into Africa with only one day's hard walk? Mesopotamia existed in modern day Iraq by the way, and you don't just find your way to Egypt in one day, but all the way into the depths of Africa. These are all things I didn't know and am now thankful the movie provided such incredible enlightenment.

The best part, perhaps my favorite part, is where the evil advanced civilization fueled by the blood of slaves and a corrupt dictator known as "The Almighty" is brought down. We realize there that advanced knowledge such as science, math, engineering, and agriculture are only gained at the expense of slave labor and coveted only by the weak, the mean, and the power hungry. We also learn that this civilization, set up as a precursor to the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians with their strange Pyramid/Ziggurat hybrids is run by a man of completely different ethnicity than all the other peoples of the movie. Thus far our heroes have been African or Asian (in all the possibilities those continents entail). But here, enslaving the peoples and lording over everyone is "The Almighty." And what is The Almighty you ask? Surprisingly, an old white man. I know, I was shocked too. I wonder what metaphor the writers are possibly trying to depict with such an image?

Oh, and I forgot another great message of this movie. If you find yourself in a pit with a saber-toothed tiger and rain is pouring in threatening to drown you both, you can free the tiger and it won't eat you. Grateful for your help it simply gives you a sniff and bounds away. Cause animals that are scared, wounded, and hungry never attack so long as you are obviously trying to help them.

But despite all of this I kind of liked this movie. It's really fun to watch and try to figure out where in the world they are, or how they got from the jungles of Asia to the savannahs of Africa in a day. It's also fun to argue with friends over which civilizations formed first and when. Then you get to pick out all the different hints of old civilizations and try to place what clothes, attitudes, or technology alludes to which one. It's kind of like a geek's wet dream. This movie could be an example of what happens when you base your facts off Wikipedia...

But for all it's flaws it gave us reasonably hot guys (in one case one really hot guy) running around in relatively little clothing saving people and fighting for freedom and all that. That makes up for a lot in my opinion.

And spending their lives as hunters taught them kung fu. Who doesn't love kung fu?

I just watched The Notebook. I don't know why I do these things to myself. I'm an emotional cutter. When feeling overwhelmed with emotion I can't process it like a normal person, oh no, I have to go watch something horrible and sappy so that I can process all my emotions vicariously through the storyline.

In honor of this I think it's time for another top ten list. I give you:

Top Ten Movies For The Emotional Cutter:

10. Buffy Season 2

Buffy and Angel fall in love. Angel has to go save the world and so their love can never be. Angel comes back to Buffy for a glorious reunion and they make sweet, sweet love. Angel turns into Angelus and tries to kill Buffy and destroy the world. Buffy must fight Angelus over and over again only to have to kill him to save the world. Right after he becomes Angel again. This isn't technically a movie, but the episodes are like a 24 hour movie. Imagine the sort of emotional purge that comes out of that.

9. Phantom of the Opera

You spend the whole storyline falling in love with a psychopathic killer that ends up lonely and alone because, well, he's a psychopathic killer. What's healthy about that?

8. Ghost

The male lead dies ten minutes into the movie and you spend the rest of the movie watching them be in love. Except he's DEAD. Who watches this for fun?

7. Moulin Rouge

They tell you at the very beginning of the movie that this story is about love and loss. There's no misdirection here, nobody lies to you. And yet still, at the end, following the triumphant last song and their ecstatic proclamations of love you manage to forget that loss doesn't come with a happy ending. So she dies. This movie is evil. Pure, unadulterated, evil. And yet I watch it again and again and again...

6. The Notebook

Come on, only Nicholas Sparks could make this story sad. The couple falls in love and live a full happy lifetime together. Oh yeah, but then she can't remember him so he finishes out his years in the emotional equivalent of the Rack and just when you get your miracle, your this-is-what-it's-all-about moment you see how absolutely heart-rending it is when the one person you love more than anything can't remember who you are. Gee, that's a happy story.

5. P.S. I Love You

Girl falls in love with hot Irish guy. Guy dies of brain cancer ten years later. Girl is left widowed and mourning. Girl might find love again, but does that really ease the pain of losing the love of your life to brain cancer? I think not.

4. Gone With The Wind

We all know how I feel about this movie. Rhett loves Scarlett. Scarlett loves Ashley. Ashley loves his cousin. No, I don't think it's right either.

3. Finding Neverland

Nobody warned me before I watched this movie. I thought, "oh, Peter Pan. There's nothing sad in Peter Pan." Yeah, nothing sad at all until you watch children forced to grow up too soon and ball your eyes out. I still maintain it was an allergy attack.

2. Casablanca

I love you. I love you too. Oh goody we can be together. Actually no, you need to go off with the man you don't actually love, and I'll be the man you always wanted me to be while your gone. Huh.

1. Life As A House

If you haven't seen this movie you won't understand why I placed it above the last two. If you have seen this movie I hope you understand. This is the five bladed razor of emotional cutting. It hurts, there's lots of blood, you feel renewed. It's very medieval in a leeches sort of way.

In my defense I rarely watch most of these movies, but still many of them pull me back time after time. Except Ghost--that one's just sick. I would also have you know I totally shut most of them off before the end so I get the happy climax with none of the tears and sadness at the end.

Is it wrong to pretend that tragedy doesn't exist? To quote an apropos line from t.v. "I reject your reality and substitute my own." Indeed. If only life responded to a remote control.

I began reading Slate and stumbled across an article by William Saletan. Mr. Saletan and I have gone round and round before over any number of topics, but recently he addressed a draft legislation that would outlaw any behaviors that were considered abortifaciant before or after implantation. This led me to read a bit of his book on google text titled Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won The Abortion War. I was torn as I read this--abortion is a dead topic, beat into the ground. I do what I can to keep watch on President Bush and the rest of the conservatives who would outlaw it, but I rarely debate it any more--what's the point?

As I began reading this I questioned that impulse, however. Had I stopped debating it because there was no point, or because I was no longer interested in thinking about it? If it was the second, that's a serious problem. More interesting, though, was a very interesting point Saletan brought up as he discussed conservatives vs. liberals. Specifically, conservatives don't want the government's interference at all and liberals want the government to protect the citizens. This manifested itself in Little Rock in 1957 when Eisenhower enforced the integration of schools. The white parents didn't care if blacks went to public schools with whites, they just wanted the right to deny blacks attendance to their school.

And this got me thinking--first of all, as a liberal, I absolutely do not want government interference in anything I do. More importantly, however, I don't want government restriction. Secondly, where does the government draw the lines of mediation? People want the right to segregate their schools. People want the right to deny abortions. People want the right to keep homosexuals from marrying. People want all sorts of rights, so how does the government decide which ones are worth granting, which ones are worth denying, and which ones are inalienable? And how do we, the people, decide to police the government?

The government does all sorts of things that are for our own good and I've never questioned them. I've yelled, and taught, and written about the Patriot Act and my fears of having laws passed for my own good, but I've never questioned the decision to integrate schools for our own good, to legalize abortion for our own good, to force equality amongst men and women or heterosexuals and homosexuals for our own good. And in the end a lot of these laws were passed while people were still deeply divided about them. But I don't have a problem with any of them because it doesn't seem like people should be allowed to discriminate.

But once you start deciding what people can and can't do how do you walk that line? Obviously in things like murder, rape, or burglary we pass laws to protect the victims, but what do we do to protect people from emotional pain, not just physical pain? Is abortion murder or is the debate about controlling women's bodies? Is homosexual marriage immoral or would legalization be forcing people to condone lifestyles they despise? When do we decide a belief needs to be checked and when do we let it fly free and dictate the lives of others? Prayer in school, marriage, abortion, teaching evolution vs. intelligent design--the list goes on and on.

Each side accuses the other of brainwashing. Both sides think they are absolutely right. I've discussed and argued that laws need to be passed based on ethicality not morality, but as I read this excerpt it occurred to me how little I had really thought about what that means. How do we decide what is ethical vs. unethical? When is it okay to stifle a behavior and when is it not? And even as I ask that I know there are behaviors I will fight to the death to stifle--discrimination, prejudice, control over another's body, inequality. People are able to believe these things even as they are able to believe anything; you cannot stop a person from believing something. But you can punish them for acting out a belief. And for me that is the great difference between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives don't care what you believe, they just don't want you to act it out and will pass laws to see that you don't. Liberals do care what you believe, but mostly they want the right to act as they will and fight for laws enabling them to act it out. If a law is passed that legalizes abortion, gay marriage, or integration, the conservatives see this as a threat to their autonomy. But no one speaks nearly enough about the autonomy of those that suffer to protect the status quo. If a law is passed that prevents a behavior that discriminates, forced prayer in school, In God We Trust, the teaching of evolution over intelligent design liberals are accused of brainwashing kids and forcing belief on them. Preventing the beliefs of others.

But you can't stop belief. The prevalence of racism shows that, all you can do is punish the acting out of it. And by stifling actions that promote one belief are we discriminating against that belief, or working towards an environment where all beliefs may be sustained in peace? I suppose that is the great question. And this all comes back to abortion because these are all behaviors--laws, pressures, attempts--to regulate actions for our own good. And so perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle as it does with everything, something that has to be decided with each individual law or choice.

And that's why I don't want laws telling me what I can or can't do, even as I want laws that prevent myself and others from dictating the choices and lifestyles of those around us. That's a bit of a slippery slope isn't it?

I'm at my parents house which means there are any number of things I could be talking about. It also means they are all painfully boring and not worth mentioning. I should share a few discoveries this visit, however:

1) After looking through all the schoolwork and report cards my mother thoughtfully left for me in my bedroom I've discovered I wasn't nearly as smart as I thought or remembered myself to be and, in fact, prior to 6th grade was barely average. Go me.
2) The most exciting happenings in my life lately are riding with my parents in their mini-van singing along to Disney tunes. I. Am. A. Rockstar.
3) No matter how old, wise, and in control of my life I am I still want to punch my mother in the face when I'm menstruating. This urge is not entirely her fault and I acknowledge that.

These have all been important life discoveries and I'm really happy I could share them with you.

Now, on to the more important topic of the day--did you know in The Little Mermaid that Ariel is only 16? 16! She's running off to marry her prince, lying to her father, making deals with witches, and trying to get it on with the love of her life in three days at 16. I never noticed this when I was a kid, and normally I'm not a Disney basher, but this is really something. I've always loved this movie; I used to swim around in our little plastic pool in the backyard singing the songs with my neighbor. I was very pro little Mermaid as a kid. But 16?!

A friend of a friend hates this movie because Ariel disobeys her father and gets in obscene amounts of trouble before having to be saved and then, in turn, having to save others. That's another theme of the movie I missed. I think that says more about your personality, though; some of us never questioned a child's right to thwart an overbearing parent. And by overbearing I mean a father that doesn't want you to runaway to another country and throw yourself at a boy when you're only 16. Huh, who knew? Her father seemed so harsh when I was little...

Finally, I would like to invite you all to a book burning. I know, me, burn books? But this book deserves it, really. Let me 'splain. No, that take too long, let me sum up.

27 year old man adopts 14 year old girl and has her live with his sister. Girl follows man around like a puppy dog, taking care of him when he's drunk. When she's 18 and he's 31 he kisses her and forces her onto a couch. Girl freezes. Man becomes angry at girl and says she's not a "real" woman. Girl goes to college. At 22 girl comes home from college and man makes fun of her, uses her body against her, and again accuses her of being "naive," "innocent," and "underdeveloped." Girl loses memory. Man assumes responsibility for girl's care and seduces her. Man is thrilled girl responds to his caresses and decides they can now be together because she "accepts" him as a "woman should." Girl gets memory back, runs away from man. Man follows girl, proposes marriage and explains that the only reason he ignored her, emotionally abused her, and almost raped her was because she was innocent and childlike and unable to respond to him in that way a woman responds to a man. Now that she likes it when he touches her he can love her back. 35 year old man marries 22 year old girl. The End.

Maybe, if I'm really, really lucky some day an older man will attempt to force himself on me, emotionally abuse me, and then propose marriage. That's true love baby. It's a shame I'm not still 16 or I could run off and do it all to a Disney soundtrack. Do you see now why this book needs to be burned? Some girl, some where is reading this book not being appalled by the behavior of the so-called hero thinking that when the cute boy makes fun of her it's okay because she just needs to debase herself completely and then he'll love her. I mean, isn't that how all the best relationships get started?

I'm going to burn this book and cook s'mores over its flames. Then I'm going to spit on its ashes. Why is it so hard to find a decent wounded cowboy these days who broods without being all emo and whiny? I might punch the next guy who complains that he's hurt and can't trust women again because he dated a girl who was obviously crazy and obviously unstable and then (surprise surprise) she acted crazy and unstable when they dated.

As a good friend of mine pointed out all us girls always seem to be in the position of the crazy girlfriend, or the girlfriend after the crazy girlfriend trying to heal their poor, broken souls. We're always on the defensive ladies and as we all know the best defense is a good offense. So next time your guys starts in about his crazy ex (who was probably crazy cause he drove her that way) punch him in the face. This could be the start of a revolution.

Viva le revolucion!