Ugliness @ MindSay

For several months I have been on a casual but frustrating hunt for a cute garlic keeper, and can't for the life of me figure out who mandated that every garlic keeper has to look like this:



The ugliness pains me! That said, I did find this much cuter garlic keeper on a New Zealand website, proving that cute garlic keepers do exist, if not on this continent:



My hope is that I can find something decent on Etsy. Who would have thought that a cute garlic house would be so hard to find?

I am realizing something more and more each day.

1. Birds of a feather flock together.
Matt pointed this out to me recently and though it's an old cliché, it hits the nail on the head with accurate precision. At this point in my adult life, you really have to examine the kind of people someone keeps around them to gauge what kind of person they are themselves. Like a birdwatcher, I am fascinated by the amount of people who are willing to get a divorce for the most frivolous of reasons. A common excuse I hear so often is "I just woke up one morning and realized that I wasn't in love with him anymore." When I hear it, I have to wonder what made that person decide that they were in love in the first place.

Realizing that some of what is to come might sound like I am being somewhat misogynistic, I can only say that this comes from mere observation as a whole on my part. There is one phrase that seemed to emerge out of the women's movement that may or may not have a direct connection — I don't need a man. Based on my observations, this statement holds true for only one type of woman...a lesbian. Beyond them, it seems like a lot of women who utter that phrase are just saying it out loud when, inside of their heads, it translates to "I don't need THIS man." and use it as an excuse to hit the clubs and meet someone new to use until boredom ultimately sets in.

Which brings me to the next level of my observation — boredom. From my experiences and perspective at this time, it seems like the women in my age group who lack any sense of stability relationship-wise and use the boredom angle to keep the party rolling all have multiple kids. Is it just me or are these ladies caught between wanting to play mommy and still wanting to party every weekend like they did back in high school? It's as if stability gets tossed out the window completely to satisfy personal and temporary desires to relive high school. The thing that is laughable about this pattern of behavior is that while trying to relive the "glory years", people continue to age and one day, you will wake up older, less attractive, alone and wishing you would have made greater strides at stability when you were young. I can say that for me that the moments in life of fun are momentary and sporadic but the difference for me is that I have responsibility to anyone but myself. No matter if you have kids or not, the party ends sooner or later. It's called growing up.

I suppose I shouldn't single out the women in this observation because ultimately, it isn't really fair. Men pull this crap too. The reason I haven't focused this opining on both sexes is because I don't personally know a single male who behaves so irresponsibly. I only know of women who do this at this point in my life. I guess it all comes down to this - if you want to party into your 30's and beyond, don't date anyone exclusively, don't get married and FOR GOD'S FUCKING SAKE, STOP HAVING KIDS!!!!!

I just want to reiterate why I dislike pornography :P there is something about it that is very ugly. You take, for example, a film like La Belle Noiseuse, it is the complete opposite of pornography. There is something inherently beautiful about the movie. Yes, there is a certain degree of eroticity (is that a word?) in the fact that the incredibly beautiful Emmanuelle Beart spends most of the film naked (she is posing for an artist). But it is more like a celebration of the beauty of the female body, not unlike some of the works of the great artists. And it's a damn good movie as well. It was actually sort of nice that the movie didn't contain any sex, and the characters generally behaved respectfully to each other. Unrealistic? It doesn't have to be. Compare this with pornography, which is sick, treats women like objects, presents a disturbing view of humanity and is, in my occasionally humble opinion, quite un-appealing. I don't know about other guys, but I don't find a girl sucking a guy off even remotely exciting. In fact I'm going to side with the christian conservatives here, I think porn is something that has the potential of destroying much of the joy of sex. It reduces it from an act of love to a meaningless act that makes you feel good... not unlike drug-taking. Anyway I've ranted enough now, I'd be interested to hear other's views on this :)