In The Land of Homophobes

I can't help it. Sometimes my anger gets the better of me, and I get sick of peoples' crap, and I tell them so. I should just shut up about it because they end up hating me and I end up being ostracized for being some kind of PC asshole and blah blah blah.

Just now, a group of annoying co-workers who I'm only tangentially related to were blabbing VERY LOUDLY right behind my desk about the Big Revelation this week that Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter is...*SHOCK!*...gay. WELL, you would think JK Rowling had announced he was a child-molesting serial killer. They just went ON and ON and ON.

"This is what happens when stupid celebrities open their big mouths and say stupid crap when they should just shut the hell up. She needs to just shut up."

"Aren't these books supposed to be for KIDS?"

"I can see Harry Potter all grown up having to go to therapy because he'd been touched by the head wizard."

"It's just like the Catholic Church with the molesting priests."

WAIT WHAT? This is when I just couldn't hold my tongue any longer. "You guys," I said, a little annoyed, "just because he's gay doesn't mean he's a child molester..." and these words are not even out of my mouth when everyone just gives me a look of death and says "We're just joking, HELLO, JOKE? I guess you can't take a joke, etc." Like I'm the annoying feminist bitch ruining everyone's fun.

"She just did it to make millions more dollars," one of them said.

"Um, no," says I, "if anything, she just lost a LOT MORE of her audience for saying that."

"Come on, guys, let's go talk about NON-OFFENSIVE things somewhere else..." blah blah blah and they leave.

FUCK YOU, ASSHOLES. GODDAMMIT.

Then, yesterday was Stripper Pumpkin Meeting #2. I went simply for the blog factor. The meeting was an exercise in torture. The idea sucked so hard that no one had any ideas for it, and no one wanted to help until another higher up female exec comes in and says, "let's make sure one of the strippers is male." To which the few ladies were like "yeah!" and the men were PISSED. I mean PISSED.

"That won't make any sense at all!" protested the original idea guy.

"Uh, yeah, and strippers with pumpkins for heads makes a lot of sense to begin with," says I. My stupid mouth. He gave me a look of death and insisted it went up for a vote. Of course, all the men said Nay but there was a woman in charge of the whole project so she wrote down "Ken Doll" anyway. HA!

The reason this is bad is because it causes me to Stand Out, and that's never good as a temp. You don't want to be That Feminist Pushy Bitch. You want to be the "uh I think that girl does something here." So I need to shut up. But it's hard sometimes.

Stripper Pumpkins

Seeing as Halloween is coming up next week, my department is preparing for the big Halloween party the building throws every year. It's sort of a big deal. There is a costume contest, a cook-off, and a pumpkin carving contest. I have worked here in the past when we've made absolutely amazing, intricately carved pumpkins. Because I am working in a creative art department who has won the contest several years in a row, I was excited to be included in the Pumpkin Meeting today to discuss what to do this year.

I shot out of the gate strong, with a suggestion that since the Sweeney Todd movie is about to come out, we should do Sweeney Todd pumpkins. We could have one pumpkin slicing another one's neck and pumpkin guts spilling out all over. The crowning glory of it would be the pumpkins turned into pumpkin pies (if you know the story you will know that that is the raddest idea ever). People liked this. We talked on it further. Some people threw out other great suggestions. Indiana Jones theme with eyeball soup, Transformers pumpkins, Britney Spears with her little pumpkins being taken away (ugggh, I know), Dead Man's Party with bloody dripping disco ball pumpkin, etc. Someone asked for something politically topical so I suggested Pumpkins Without Health Insurance, which was just a joke but they sort of ran with it and had some funny ideas.

BUT then This One Guy decides to chime in.

"Stripper Pumpkins," says he.

We all just sort of stare at him.

"Like, in what sense?" asked we.

"You know, like, get some Barbies and put pumpkin heads on them and they're naked and wrapped around stripper poles."

Crickets.

We go about our business, discussing other ideas, and it's all put to vote. Sweeney Todd is way ahead with Britney (uggh, I know) a close second. Then This One Guy says, "don't forget Stripper Pumpkins." So they put it to the vote, and EVERY MAN IN THE ROOM (which of course there are more men than women) RAISES HIS HAND.

So, Stripper Pumpkins it is. You can't even CARVE anything with that. It's not even clever. You fucking idiots.

Meanwhile, Southern California is burning to the ground and my boss has only this to say, "I don't know how you feel about capital punishment, but the only way to stop them is if they take all these arsonists and fucking burn them to death on television for everyone to see. They should just fucking burn them, because fire is the only thing they fear." Uhhhh.

I'll Give YOU A Green Footprint

This morning we had a meeting in which the one truly socially conscious leader of the department, Harried Harriet (she is overworked) went over all the current recycling initiatives in place. This includes recycling everything from batteries, CDs, DVDs, papers, plastics, you name it, and you can probably recycle it in some manner. People laughed and talked through her whole presentation.

I know first hand that it has been a tooth and nail fight to get even the most rudimentary systems in place for reducing, re-using, and recycling in the department. For instance, everyone was given their very own free mug with the studio logo on it, made from recycled glass, and very fine looking indeed. Has this stopped anyone from using paper and Styrofoam cups several times a day for their stupid coffee? No. Does a totally free, never-ending water pitcher keep people from using one-use water bottles that are then thrown into the trash? No. Does anyone seem to notice that there's a recycling bin DIRECTLY NEXT to the trash? I've griped on this before, I know, but I just don't understand how it can be that hard to move your hand two inches to the right.

I shouldn't be surprised. Just the other day, one dude in the department, when told he can recycle 1, 2, and 3 plastics in the bin, looked around in wonder and said, "They have NUMBERS?" as if he'd just awakened on the moon. In my role as temp, I could only sit in today's meeting and try to look attentive while everyone joked and complained about having to hear about stupid green initiatives. I wish, just for one second, people would stop and take a look at their place in the world and how their choices affect everyone around them. I do genuinely see a begrudging change happening, however. At least there ARE recycling bins now, and people have a vague sense that someone might nag them if they don't use them.

In other news, my current assignment from heaven is scheduled to be ending at the end of November. As much as I detest the actual details of my job, the perk of sitting next to husband and being at leisurely hours and having a rad computer and being able to listen to music and not having to answer someone's phone or report when I'm going to the bathroom are significant. The jockeying between myself and my co-worker to continue in our appointed roles has begun in earnest. There is a tender hope that both of us will be renewed for many more months, but there is no guarantee of such a thing happening. I realized last week I had better get a good chunk of actual work done so as to look like I'm Totally Productive. This also means dressing slightly more professionally (EVER so slightly, dear reader, I can't begin to try that hard) and pretending I'm thinking hard whenever Scrubb comes around. I'm not sure how much this can mask the fact that I've been Totally Un-Productive. I'll let you know in a month.